About the Entry

Andrea Eger Canfield’s coverage of the education beat includes stories chronicling Oklahoma’s struggles to attract and keep public school teachers, as well as stories that open windows into the state’s charter sector and an employers’ impact on one small town’s schools.

• Teachers struggle with low pay, working conditions
• No substitute: Oklahoma’s schools are relying more heavily on substitutes amid teacher shortage, chronic absences
• Catholic school leaders trying to open charter school in spite of law against religious affiliation
• ‘The Teacher Caucus’: Pro-public education candidates to file Wednesday for state legislative races
• The Google effect: Global giant shaking up small-town life in Pryor
• Teacher reluctantly leaving Tulsa for Texas: ‘It’s not just salary … it’s about respect’
• Counties along state borders to east, south show most support for failed education sales tax

Entry Credit

• Andrea Eger Canfield, Staff Writer, Tulsa World Media Company

Comments from the Judges

“Great beat reporting. Andrea Eger Canfield writes with authority and offered a broad range of stories highlighting major challenges for the public schools in Oklahoma. Nice use of color and detail in her writing. The story on substitutes was an insightful and deeply troubling illustration of how the teacher shortage is affecting schools on a day to day basis.”

“Andrea shows great energy in reporting and variety in subject, and her best strength is in the voices she finds in telling her stories. They are human, sympathetic and right on point.”

SEE THE FULL LIST OF 2016 FINALISTS