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Follow the Money: Digging Into School District Finances

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Follow the Money: Digging Into School District Finances

August 2, 2017

When it comes to school district finances, the numbers aren’t easy to add up. But tracking and analyzing this information is a powerful tool to drive smart news coverage.

Veteran education journalist Tawnell Hobbs of The Wall Street Journal shares tips and tricks for digging into district operating budgets and actual expenditures, as well as salary databases, overtime requests, check registers and credit card accounts, purchase orders, and more. Learn how to evaluate fiscal data that’s readily available and make the most of open records requests.

Lessons From Parkland: Covering the Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting
Journalists Aric Chokey and Scott Travis of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel discuss the newspaper's Pulitzer-winning reporting
(EWA Radio: Episode 204)

August 14, 2019 Emily Richmond Subscribe to #ewaRADIO Rick Wilson

Heartbreaking. Frightening. Infuriating. All those words apply to the remarkable coverage by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The newspaper’s reporting since the February 2018 killings earned journalism’s top award this year, the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. The newspaper pushed back on stonewalling by district leadership and public safety officials to uncover missed opportunities that might have mitigated — or even prevented — the school shooting that left 17 people dead and dozens more seriously injured.

Blog: The Educated Reporter Rick Wilson

Threatened But Still Standing: The Federal Program for After-School, Summer Learning
Despite Trump's attempts to eliminate it, bipartisan support persists

August 9, 2019 David Loewenberg Rick Wilson

Three times, the Trump administration has tried to ax federal funding for after-school and summer learning programs, and three times Congress has responded by adding more money to the pot.

Most recently, the U.S. House, where Democrats hold a majority, approved a $100 million increase for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers initiative—the primary source of federal funds for local after-school and summer learning programs. That line item, which stills needs approval from the Republican-led Senate, would primarily support activities during the 2020-21 school year.

EWA Radio Rick Wilson

Why Is Reading Instruction So Controversial?
In award-winning documentary, APM Reports' Emily Hanford digs into the roots of nation's literacy challenges
(EWA Radio: Episode 181)

August 7, 2019 Emily Richmond Subscribe to #ewaRADIO Rick Wilson

Across the country, the way most students are being taught to read is out of step with more than 40 years of scientific research on how children learn this essential skill. That’s the case being made in an award-winning radio documentary from APM Reports’ Emily Hanford, who describes the devastating domino effect of inadequate literacy instruction on students’ academic progress and opportunities.

Blog: The Educated Reporter Kim Clark

Resources for Covering Hate, Shootings and Trauma
Journalists share advice on interviewing children and writing about race.

August 6, 2019 Kim Clark Kim Clark

Education reporters, alas, are increasingly experienced in covering violence directed at students, teachers and school staff.

This weekend’s mass shootings added to the horrible list. In El Paso, the gunman apparently targeted Latino families doing their back-to-school shopping at a Walmart. Among the victims: parents and other relatives who shielded children, and at least one teacher.

Blog: The Educated Reporter Erik Robelen

Teachers Have Plenty to Say About School Discipline and Climate. Who’s Listening?
New polls gauge public support, awareness of education issues

August 5, 2019 Emily Richmond Erik Robelen

For education journalists, talking with teachers isn’t optional. It’s an essential element of the job, and a key component of many stories we report.

But the voices we find for stories often rely on the luck of the draw — the teachers who show up at school board meetings to protest a policy change, the ones we encounter pulling lunch duty on the day we’re touring the cafeteria, the most prodigious tweeters — and those who seek out journalists to share important information.

State of the Education Beat
Nation’s Education Reporters Confident They’re Making a Difference

Follow the Money: Digging Into School District Finances

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Follow the Money: Digging Into School District Finances

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