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Covering Student Absenteeism in the COVID-19 Era
Learning in the pandemic has its challenges, but for a lot of students the problem is more fundamental: They are missing out on school altogether this fall, or showing up sporadically.
Schools that have opted for virtual learning are struggling to get every student connected online and consistently in class. Recent news coverage in Chicago, Detroit, and elsewhere has highlighted thousands of students missing from online classes, though intensive outreach has helped reduce the problem.
EWA Tip Sheet: Monitoring Colleges’ Financial Health During a Funding Crisis
The pandemic and economic shutdown have slashed colleges’ tuition revenues, reduced state government funding for higher education and, in some cases, even wiped out football ticket sales. Colleges’ severe new financial challenges are already forcing many budget cuts and layoffs.
A Different Kind of College Rankings
The Washington Monthly uses unique metrics to measure quality, including return on investment, strong outcomes for students of color, and effective civic engagement.
(EWA Radio: Episode 248)
When choosing a college, students and families often turn to popular rankings to help inform their decisions. Rather than focus on test scores and how difficult it is to gain entry, The Washington Monthly gives schools points for factors that benefit society as well as individual students, like upward mobility for low-income graduates and encouraging civic engagement on campus and after graduation.
Understanding How Race Affects Reporting Is Crucial for Education Journalists
Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones to white reporters: Study race intensely
The fusillade of insults and threats aimed at The New York Times Magazine’s “The 1619 Project” is evidence of the power journalism has to create change, Nikole Hannah-Jones told a remote audience during an appearance at the Education Writers Association’s recent National Seminar.
Diving Into Data Workshop 2020
Online
Smart use of data is a key ingredient to powerful education reporting on issues from achievement gaps and the digital divide to funding inequities and college completion rates. Ready to take your data skills and savvy to a new level? EWA is here to help.
Apply now for the next Diving Into Data Workshop. Participants will receive intensive, hands-on training from our data coaches—veteran journalists skilled at analyzing and reporting with education data. The coaches will meet you where you are skills-wise, and help you navigate data for a particular project while also building your overall data skills.
This year, we’re going virtual. The training will be delivered in four half-day sessions on October 12-13 and October 19-20. And it’s free to EWA member journalists. (If you’re not a member, apply today.) Deadline is Sept. 24.
Space is limited for this competitive program. Applicants must provide a letter of recommendation from their editor. Also, we highly recommend that participants plan to use two screens for the workshop. Letters of recommendation should be sent to data (at) ewa.org
So, what are you waiting for?
Rethinking How Journalists Write About Young People
The stories education journalists tell can make a powerful impact in communities: deepening public understanding of critical issues, highlighting inequities, and holding public officials accountable. But sometimes their stories — and even their choice of words and phrases — may have unintended and potentially harmful effects on public attitudes toward young people. Those depictions can amplify stereotypes or distort impressions of youths.
Who’s Watching the Kids?
A community's struggle to address child care crisis amid COVID-19
(EWA Radio: Episode 247)
The coronavirus pandemic has forced most child care centers to close in an upstate New York community where affordable options for families were already in short supply.
Child Care Policy and COVID-19: A Roadmap for Education Journalists
Many education journalists covering the pandemic’s impacts on children and families are diving into the early learning and child care beat for the first time, given the massive disruption to this sector in communities nationwide. EWA is here to help!
Effectively covering the early learning and care sector requires understanding the complex world of child care policy and funding, including a dizzying array of federal and state programs, as well as costs, subsidies, reimbursements, eligibility, and tax credits.
In This Baltimore Teacher of the Year’s Classroom, Race and Equity Matter
‘Becoming a Teacher’ offers candid look at challenging realities of the profession, and what it takes to master the craft
(EWA Radio: Episode 246)
In her new book, education writer Melinda D. Anderson chronicles LaQuisha Hall’s 17-year journey from nervous rookie to “teacher of the year” in the Baltimore city school system.
The Pandemic Is Taking a Toll on the Child Care System. Here’s What Analysts Say Is Needed to ‘Rebuild’
About half of all child care centers are expected to close as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and their meager share of federal relief funds cannot begin to address the crisis in an industry that serves an essential role in both early education and the economy, experts said during a recent panel hosted by the Education Writers Association.
Higher Education Seminar Fall 2020
Racial Reckonings Amid COVID, Recession and Political Conflict
The Education Writers Association will hold its 2020 fall Higher Education Seminar on September 15-16 on the theme of “Racial Reckonings Amid COVID, Recession and Political Conflict.”
Education Surges to Top Tier of Presidential Race Amid Pandemic
Journalists offer insights, story ideas on covering the schools angle
Education is not typically an issue that comes to the forefront in presidential races.
But months of an ongoing coronavirus pandemic have elevated conversations about how schools and elected officials are tackling the issue. In fact, education took a front seat in high-stakes negotiations this summer over a federal stimulus bill that has stalled.
How the Pandemic Is Changing the World of College Admissions
Journalists should examine access, enrollment uncertainty
Hundreds of colleges are going test-optional. Fewer students are filling out financial-aid forms. Everyone is staring down unknowns.
The field of admissions has been turned upside down, Eric Hoover, a senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education, said as he kicked off a panel about college admissions and enrollment at the Education Writers Association’s 2020 National Seminar.
Can Schools Close ‘The Knowledge Gap?’
Author Natalie Wexler makes case for focusing on enriching classroom curriculum during the coronavirus pandemic to improve students’ literacy and understanding
(EWA Radio: Episode 245)
Much attention is focused on how schools will deliver instruction this fall, whether remotely or in schools with COVID-19 health and safety precautions in place. But what students are taught — the curriculum — is also an important story
How Is COVID-19 Impacting the Teacher Workforce?
Economic pressures, educator diversity, and rethinking professional development
The coronavirus pandemic is creating huge challenges for the teacher workforce — layoffs, pay cuts, fear of COVID-19 exposure among those returning to bricks-and-mortar classrooms, to name a few. At the same time, analysts and teacher advocates also see a unique opportunity to innovate and rethink traditional practices.
EWA Announces Fall 2020 Class of Reporting Fellows
The Education Writers Association is pleased to announce its 10th class of EWA Reporting Fellows as part of the organization’s drive to support enterprising journalism that informs the public about consequential issues in education.
Why It’s So Hard to Report on Schools While Home-Schooling During a Pandemic
One journalist shares her struggle to report while guiding her son with autism through school
With a college kid rooting around the fridge for yet another meal, a husband conducting loud Zoom meetings about two feet from my desk, and a teen with autism freaking out from a lack of structure, 2020 is not shaping up to be a banner year for productivity as a freelance education writer.
Back-to-School: The Coronavirus Edition
Top reporters share tips for covering remote learning, inequities on the K-12 and higher ed beats in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic
(EWA Radio: Episode 244)
It’s a new academic year like no other on the K-12 and higher education beats. A pair of veteran education journalists share tips and insights for what’s ahead this fall and beyond.