🏆 BEST: Being homeless — and without the support and supervision provided by in-person schools — has some parents coping with a dilemma, the Catch-22 of having to choose between work or ensuring their children can participate in remote learning. In An Impossible Choice For Homeless Parents: A Job, Or Their Child's Education, parents tell NPR’s Cory Turner about their struggles with internet access, their fears of their children falling behind, their precarious financial situations, their children’s isolation and insecurity, and the patchwork day-to-day living that is taking a toll on them all. The story humanizes a struggling, often marginalized community.

🏆 RUNNER-UP: When your dominant language isn’t English, adjusting to remote learning is all the more difficult. In How can students learn online if they don’t know the language? This city tackled the issue, freelancer Alia Wong reports for the Seattle Times on Tulsa Public Schools’ unusually successful strategies to support families that are disproportionately affected by COVID-19. She effectively broadens the story without losing the intimacy of reporting on one family. It’s a feel-good story — participation rates for English learners are roughly the same as everyone else — but also one that shares practical steps and instructional tools to use to help marginalized families. The educators view bilingualism as an asset, not a detriment. A service I'd never heard of before, Language Line, provides invaluable assistance. 

🏆 SECOND RUNNER-UP: Linda K. Wertheimer's latest Boston Globe magazine story METCO schools are at the intersection of the pandemic and racism tackles the confluence of COVID and racism in part through the experiences of one sophomore whose mother now drives her to school two days a week rather than putting her on the bus. Other Black, Latino, and Asian families in the integration program appear to be sticking with remote learning in larger proportions than white students, raising a whole new set of equity concerns and challenging the momentum behind social justice efforts that arose from the George Floyd protests.

Launched less than three years ago, Report for America (RFA) now has hundreds of reporters around the country, roughly 20 of whom cover education as most or part of their job. In this week’s new story, contributor Colleen Connolly looks at their impact on much-needed education coverage and explores what it would take for RFA to make a bigger dent in the enormous need to report on schools.

"If the foundation-funded journalism program continues to grow, RFA could become a substantial player in recruiting and placing reporters on the beat," writes Connolly. "Based on the last three years, however, it’s unclear whether RFA and participating newsrooms are going to prioritize education over other beats."  In particular, RFA and education news outlets like Chalkbeat and EdSource haven't combined to place more reporting fellows on the beat as much as one might have expected. 

Thanks to KCUR education reporter Elle Moxley for mentioning How media coverage turned vulnerable kids into an invisible threat. Read her great thread about Kansas City public schools here. 

Flashback: Three years ago, the same week she won a MacArthur “genius” grant, I profiled Nikole Hannah-Jones, “the Beyoncé of journalism.” Read it here.

MEDIA TIDBITS

Above: In this interview with NYC Department of Education head Richard Carranza, Jake Tapper could have corrected Carranza's claim that “the science” suggests schools are disease vectors, rather than appearing to agree with him and going along with his "there are no good choices" narrative.

📰 THE RETURN TO IN-PERSON EDUCATION: There’s no link between in-person classes and COVID cases, according to Reuters and AP and most recently Emily Oster in The Atlantic. Burbio’s latest K-12 School Opening Tracker shows that roughly half of kids now attend schools in districts that offer traditional in-person or hybrid school schedules, with an all-remote option. Nearly 30% attend schools that offer five-day in-person instruction! However, teachers in Alabama, Wisconsin, and Virginia are retiring or threatening to do so — or urging further delay in reopening, according to AL.com, Wisconsin Public Radio, and WTOP. There’s a looming contract stalemate in Philadelphia, according to the Inquirer. However, Boston and New York City have had to roll back their reopenings or return to remote instruction in a handful of locations due to concerns about community infection rates. (As the WSJ notes, some NYC parents are protesting the shutdowns.)

📰 RECONSIDERING THE REMOTE-ONLY APPROACH: A small but growing list of big-name journalists (or at least journalists at big-name outlets) is asking hard questions about keeping schools closed. They include ProPublica's Alec MacGillis, Bloomberg's Joe Nocera, and the NYT's op-ed writers Nick Kristoff and Ross Douthat. The Intercept's Ryan Grim endorsed Douthat’s argument, describing the move to keep remote as an indication of “reflexive opposition to anything [Trump] supports.” The Post’s Helaine Olen has also recently weighed in. But the idea has gotten very little attention on cable news, outside appearances by MacGillis on MSNBC and a Slate podcast, and most of the attention to the question of reopening schools has come from opinion pages rather than reported news stories. One fascinating exception is the New York Times coronavirus schools newsletter, which just today featured a reported story on Rhode Island, where many kids are back in school. 

📰 THE EDUCATION BEAT IS NOT THE TEACHER BEAT: There are a few lucky reporters who are assigned to focus on the important role teachers play in education, like EdWeek’s Madeline Will. But all too often it feels like education reporters focus on teachers reflexively, repeatedly putting them at the center of the beat in ways that may skew the coverage. "At the center of the debate... are America’s 3.2 million public school teachers and 500,000 private school teachers," notes a recent Washington Post story featuring teacher voices. Nobody’s saying that teachers aren’t critically important to schools or are inappropriate subjects to cover. But student- or staff-focused stories seem much less common, and I find worrisome the cumulative effect of teacher-centered education journalism.

📰 EDTECH COVERAGE GONE AWRY: I've long felt that the Times' coverage was knee-jerk hostile to tech-based education, but this recent piece seems to have gone too far in the other direction, even for something not written by an education journalist. The Hechinger Report’s Jill Barshay and others have weighed in. I've reached out to the reporter and editor to see what they have to say about their approach.

Missed some previous editions? You can see the archive of past newsletters here. 

PEOPLE, AWARDS, JOBS
Who's going where & doing what?

Above: Congrats! ProPublica IL and the Chicago Tribune just won an ONA award for “The Quiet Rooms,” an investigation into the overuse of restraint. So it’s great news that ProPublica is expanding its local operations into 3 regional reporting hubs.

🔥 Wow! USA Today’s Erin Richards was interviewed about riding and writing for Sidelines magazine. Alec MacGillis was on EWA Radio and Slate's What Next podcast to discuss his talker of a story. And NPR’s Anya Kamenetz talked about pandemic parenting on WAMU’s Kojo Nnamdi Show and about screens and kids on the Go Ask Your Mother podcast. (Do you want more Anya? She has a new edition of her free monthly newsletter just out, and her latest story finds a substantial enrollment drop in schools around the country.)

🔥 Jobs: Chalkbeat is hiring an EIC. That’s because current EIC Bene Cipolla is moving into a publisher role. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the nonprofit newsroom The San Antonio Report are both hiring an education reporter. Has Politico replaced Jane Norman, the editor who recently departed for another job? When will the Washington Post name the new education editor, to replace Stephen Smith?

🔥 Who’s moving on? Katie Gillespie. She tweeted that she’s leaving The Columbian for an administrative post with the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild. Who’s taking a much-deserved break? New York Times local education reporter Eliza Shapiro.

Did someone forward you this newsletter? You can sign up here. 

Above: The Washington Post is publishing a series about the systemic racism George Floyd faced throughout his life. The second installment (coming soon) will focus on his education. We can’t wait.

⏰ The Boston Globe's education team has a new COVID case/outbreak tracker with an interactive map, headed by digital producer and reporter Felicia Gans. The team is using numbers from the state as well as cases they independently confirm. And don’t miss the Boston Globe magazine's annual education issue, featuring Linda K. Wertheimer and others. 

⏰ Don’t miss this event from The 19th on public education in the pandemic. Sen. Elizabeth Warren will be the keynote speaker. The panel discussions will cover how underserved children are being left behind in the at-home era and how educators and administrators are risking their health — and sanity — to keep kids on course. The virtual summit will be held Oct. 21, and you can register here.

⏰ Nikole Hannah-Jones is part of the six-part virtual Ida B. Wells Symposia taking place throughout the month. The event features panel discussions, lectures, educator workshops, and performances about investigative journalism and increasing and retaining journalists of color.

⏰ ICYMI: Boston Globe education reporter Meghan E. Irons moderated an event at the Boston Book Festival on Oct. 8 about how to be a better human.

These high school journalists in Alexandria, Virginia, are making waves with this story about their public school district superintendent sending his kids to private schools for hybrid learning. Congratulations to the staff of the T.C. Theogony!

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