Past Events

From the moment a child is born, the learning begins. By the time kindergarten arrives, gaps have set in that can last a lifetime.

In states red and blue, policymakers and advocates are increasingly looking to children’s earliest years to address the achievement gaps that have long plagued the U.S. education system. But as investment and enrollment in early childhood programs grow, access, quality, and cost all present problems.

Ready to take your reporting with education data to a new level? Whether it’s achievement gaps, school funding, student discipline, college completion or any number of other issues, building your data skills is a powerful way to step up your game.

Apply now for EWA’s next Diving Into Data Workshop at the University of Colorado Boulder. We have 20 slots available for reporters, editors, and producers to participate in this highly competitive program.

Four veteran journalists will serve as data coaches, providing hands-on training on cleaning, manipulating, and analyzing information from data sets. The workshop will offer beginning, intermediate, and more advanced levels of training. We also will carve out time to help journalists with effective and meaningful presentation of data.

With colleges and universities under increased pressure to ensure that more students earn degrees without amassing mountains of debt, journalists are at the forefront in examining how these institutions  measure up. But there’s one major obstacle that both colleges and reporters share when it comes to making sense of how well these schools are meeting their goals: insufficient data.

The election of Republican Donald Trump is sure to reshape federal policy for education in significant ways, from prekindergarten to college, especially coupled with the GOP’s retaining control of Congress.

Although Trump spent relatively little time on education in his campaign, he did highlight the issue from time to time, from his sharp criticism of the Common Core and high student debt loads to proposing a plan to significantly expand school choice. And Congress has a long to-do list, including reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

Now that the White House race has narrowed to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, how is education playing out as an issue in the campaign? Will it prove an important fault line between the Democratic and Republican candidates? Will Trump offer any details to contrast with Clinton’s extensive set of proposals from early childhood to higher education? What are the potential implications for schools and colleges depending on who wins the White House? Also, what other races this fall should be on the radar of journalists, whether elections for Congress, state legislatures, or governor?

El término “equidad” es usado comúnmente por educadores, legisladores y otros para indicar el concepto de una educación justa o en la que la oportunidad está bien distribuida. Aunque no es fácil de medir, los estudiantes de minoría, los de hogares de pocos ingresos y los que están aprendiendo inglés a menudo enfrentan desigualdad en el salón de clases, como por ejemplo menos maestros de alta calidad, menos recursos, acceso limitado a clases avanzadas y mayor dificultad para obtener un diploma universitario.

Join the Education Writers Association for a lively conversation with leading education journalists on the stories to watch in 2016. Amid major changes in the national policy landscape, key questions are on the table for educators, policymakers, and students: In this presidential election year, how are the fault lines over K-12 school reform shifting? What higher education trends have the most momentum? What’s in store for our littlest learners? And how will battles over politics and policy affect what happens in the classroom — from preschool through graduate school?

Despite persistent political debates, the Common Core State Standards are now a classroom reality in public schools across the country. Yet much is in flux as educators wrestle with how best to teach the Common Core — or their own state’s version of it — and some states rethink the tests tied to the new K-12 standards.   

Many economists warn that the path to jobs is getting harder, as old industries get eclipsed by disruptive technologies and new fields arise that call for new skills. The task for schools is hardly simple: overhaul a system designed for the industrial age so that it prepares young people to thrive in the information age. While education alone is unlikely to address the country’s changing needs, scholars and educators are increasingly looking to concepts like grit, motivation and learning from mistakes to propel a new generation of students to become tomorrow’s talented workers.