This year鈥檚 list, publishing amid new calls for mask mandates and yet another spike in hospitalizations, powerfully frames our surreal new normal: mounting concerns about historic test score declines; intensifying political divides that would challenge school systems even if there weren鈥檛 simultaneous health, staffing and learning crises to manage; broader economic stresses that are making it harder to manage school systems; and a sustained push by many educators and families to embrace innovations and out-of-the-box thinking to help kids accelerate their learning by any means necessary.

Now, 2陆 years into one of the most turbulent periods in the history of American education, these were our 22 most discussed articles of 2022: 

The COVID School Years: 700 Days Since Lockdown 

Learning Loss: 700 days. As we reported Feb. 14, that鈥檚 how long it had been since more than half the nation鈥檚 schools crossed into the pandemic era. On March 16, 2020, districts in 27 states, encompassing almost 80,000 schools, closed their doors for the first long educational lockdown. Since then, schools have reopened, closed and reopened again. The effects have been immediate 鈥� students lost parents, teachers mourned fallen colleagues 鈥� and hopelessly abstract as educators weighed 鈥減andemic learning loss,鈥� the sometimes crude measure of COVID鈥檚 impact on students鈥� academic performance. 

With spring approaching, there were reasons to be hopeful. More children had been vaccinated. Mask mandates were ending. But even if the pandemic recedes and a 鈥渘ew normal鈥� emerges, there are clear signs that the issues surfaced during this period will linger. COVID heightened inequities that have long been baked into the American educational system. The social contract between parents and schools has frayed. And teachers are burning out. To mark a third spring of educational disruption, Linda Jacobson interviewed educators, parents, students and researchers who spoke movingly, often unsparingly, about what Marguerite Roza, director of Georgetown University鈥檚 Edunomics Lab, called 鈥渁 seismic interruption to education unlike anything we鈥檝e ever seen.鈥� Read her full report. 

Related:

• A 700-Day Parental Awakening: Marguerite Roza, of Georgetown’s Edunomics Lab, reflects on the past years
  
• 700 Days of Missed Opportunities 鈥� and Lingering Inequities: Robin Lake, of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, looks back (and forwards)
  
• 700 Days of Balancing Student Safety Against Keeping Classrooms Open: Superintendent Pedro Martinez reflects
  
• 700 Days in Pictures: 24 months inside one resilient school district
  
• The COVID School Years: See our special report, looking back on 700 days of the pandemic

Threatened & Trolled, School Board Members Quit in Record Numbers

School Leadership: By the time we published this report in May, the chaos and violence at big city school board meetings had dominated headlines for months, as protesters, spurred by ideological interest groups and social media campaigns, railed about race, gender and a host of other hot-button issues. But what does it look like when the boardroom is located in a small community, where the elected officials under fire often have lifelong ties to the people doing the shouting? Over the last 18 months, Minnesota K-12 districts have seen a record number of board members resign before the end of their term. As one said in a tearful explanation to her constituents, 鈥淭he hate is just too much.鈥� Beth Hawkins takes a look at the possible ramifications.  

Related:

• Million-Dollar Records Request: From COVID and critical race theory to teachers鈥� names & schools, districts flooded with freedom of information document demands

Nation鈥檚 Report Card Shows Largest Drops Ever Recorded in 4th and 8th Grade Math

Student Achievement: In a moment the education world had anxiously awaited, the latest round of scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress were released in October 鈥� and the news was harsh. Math scores saw the largest drops in the history of the exam, while reading performance also fell in a majority of states. National Center for Education Statistics Commissioner Peggy Carr said the 鈥渄ecline that we’re seeing in the math data is stark. It is troubling. It is significant.鈥� Even as some state-level data has shown evidence of a rebound this year, federal officials warned COVID-19鈥檚 lost learning won鈥檛 be easily restored. 麻豆精品鈥檚 Kevin Mahnken breaks down the results.

Related:

• Lost Decades: 鈥楴ation鈥檚 Report Card鈥� shows 20 years of growth wiped out by two years of pandemic
  
• Economic Toll: Damage from NAEP math losses could total nearly $1 trillion
  
• COVID Recovery: Can districts rise to the challenge of new NAEP results? Outlook鈥檚 not so good 

Virtual Nightmare: One Student鈥檚 Journey Through the Pandemic

Mental Health: As the debate over the lingering effects of school closures continues, the term 鈥減andemic recovery鈥� can often lose its meaning. For Jason Finuliar, a California teen whose Bay Area school district was among those shuttered the longest, the journey has been painful and slow. Once a happy, high-achieving student, he descended into academic failure and a depression so severe that he spent 10 days in a residential mental health facility. 鈥淚 felt so worthless,鈥� he said. It鈥檚 taking compassionate counselors, professional help and parents determined to save their son for Jason to regain hope for the future. Linda Jacobson reports. 

16 Under 16: Meet 麻豆精品鈥檚 2022 Class of STEM Achievers

This spring, we asked for the country鈥檚 help identifying some of the most impressive students, age 16 or younger, who have shown extraordinary achievement in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. After an extensive and comprehensive selection process, we鈥檙e thrilled to introduce this year鈥檚 class of 16 Under 16 in STEM. The honorees range in age from 12 to 16, specialize in fields from medicine to agriculture to invention and represent the country from coast to coast. We hope these incredible youngsters can inspire others 鈥� and offer reassurance that our future can be in pretty good hands. Emmeline Zhao offers a closeup of the 2022 class of 16 Under 16 in STEM 鈥� click here to read and watch more about them.

A 鈥楴ational Teacher Shortage鈥�? New Research Reveals Vastly Different Realities Between States & Regions

School Staffing: Adding to efforts to understand America鈥檚 teacher shortages, a new report and website maps the K-12 teaching vacancy data. Nationally, an estimated 36,504 full-time teacher positions are unfilled, with shortages currently localized in nine states. 鈥淭here are substantial vacant teacher positions in the United States. And for some states, this is much higher than for other states. 鈥� It’s just a question of how severe it is,鈥� said author Tuan Nguyen. Marianna McMurdock reports on America鈥檚 uneven crisis. 

Meet the Gatekeepers of Students鈥� Private Lives

School Surveillance: Megan Waskiewicz used to sit at the top of the bleachers and hide her face behind the glow of a laptop monitor. While watching one of her five children play basketball on the court below, the Pittsburgh mother didn’t want other parents in the crowd to know she was also looking at child porn. Waskiewicz worked on contract as a content moderator for Gaggle, a surveillance company that monitors the online behaviors of some 5 million students across the U.S. on their school-issued Google and Microsoft accounts in an effort to prevent youth violence and self-harm. As a result, kids鈥� deepest secrets 鈥� like nude selfies and suicide notes 鈥� regularly flashed onto Waskiewicz鈥檚 screen. Waskiewicz and other former moderators at Gaggle believe the company helped protect kids, but they also surfaced significant questions about its efficacy, employment practices and effect on students鈥� civil rights. Eight former moderators shared their experiences at Gaggle with 麻豆精品, describing insufficient safeguards to protect students鈥� sensitive data, a work culture that prioritized speed over quality, scheduling issues that sent them scrambling to get hours and frequent exposure to explicit content that left some traumatized. Read the latest investigation by 麻豆精品鈥檚 Mark Keierleber. 

Students Continue to Flee Urban Districts as Boom Towns, Virtual Schools Thrive

Exclusive Data: A year after the nation鈥檚 schools experienced a historic decline in enrollment, data shows many urban districts are still losing students, and those that rebounded this year typically haven鈥檛 returned to pre-pandemic levels. Of 40 states and the District of Columbia, few have seen more than a 1% increase compared with 2020-21, when some states experienced declines as high as 5%, according to data from Burbio, a company that tracks COVID-related education trends. Flat enrollment this year 鈥渕eans those kids did not come back,鈥� said Thomas Dee, an education professor at Stanford University. While many urban districts were already losing students before the pandemic, COVID 鈥渁ccelerated鈥� movement into outlying areas and to states with stronger job markets. Experts say that means many districts will have to make some tough decisions in the coming years. Linda Jacobson reports. 

鈥楬ybrid鈥� Homeschooling Making Inroads as Families Seek New Models

School Choice: As public school enrollments dip to historic lows, researchers are beginning to track families to hybrid homeschooling arrangements that meet in person a few days per week and send students home for the rest of the time. More formal than learning pods or microschools, many still rely on parents for varying levels of instruction and grading. About 60% to 70% are private, according to a new research center on hybrid schools based at Kennesaw State University, northwest of Atlanta. Greg Toppo reports.

Student Safety: Thousands of times every year, New York City school staff report what they fear may be child abuse or neglect to a state hotline. But the vast majority of the resulting investigations yield no evidence of maltreatment while plunging the families, most of them Black, Hispanic and low income, into fear and lasting trauma. Teachers are at the heart of the problem: From August 2019 to January 2022, two-thirds of their allegations were false alarms, data obtained by 麻豆精品 show. 鈥淭eachers, out of fear that they’re going to get in trouble, will report even if they’re just like, 鈥榃ell, it could be abuse.鈥� 鈥� It also could be 10 million other things,鈥� one Bronx teacher said. . 

The Contagion Effect: From Buffalo to Uvalde, 16 Mass Shootings in Just 10 Days

Gun Violence: May鈥檚 mass school shooting in Texas 鈥� the deadliest campus attack in about a decade 鈥� has refocused attention on the frequency of such devastating carnage on American victims. The tragedy unfolded just 10 days after a mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. It could be more than a coincidence: A growing body of research suggests these assaults have a tendency to spread like a viral disease. In fact, The U.S. has experienced 16 mass shootings with at least four victims in just 10 days. Read Mark Keierleber鈥檚 report. 

Teachers Leaving Jobs During Pandemic Find 鈥楩ertile鈥� Ground in New School Models

Microschools: Feeling that she could no longer effectively meet children鈥檚 needs in a traditional school, former counselor Heather Long is among those who left district jobs this year to teach in an alternative model 鈥� a microschool based in her New Hampshire home. 鈥淔or the first time in their lives, they have options,鈥� Jennifer Carolan of Reach Capital, an investment firm supporting online programs and ed tech ventures, told reporter Linda Jacobson. Some experts wonder if microschools are sustainable, but others say the ground is 鈥渇ertile.鈥� Read our full report. 

Facing Pandemic Learning Crisis, Districts Spend Relief Funds at a Snail鈥檚 Pace

School Funding: Schools that were closed the longest due to COVID have spent just a fraction of the billions in federal relief funds targeted to students who suffered the most academically, according to an analysis by 麻豆精品. The delay is significant, experts say, because research points to a direct correlation between the closures and lost learning. Of the 25 largest districts, the 12 that were in remote learning for at least half the 2020-21 school year have spent on average roughly 15% of their American Rescue Plan funds 鈥� and districts are increasing pressure on the Education Department for more time. Linda Jacobson reports.

Slave Money Paved the Streets. Now, This Posh Rhode Island City Strives to Teach Its Past 

Teaching History: Every year, millions of tourists marvel at Newport, Rhode Island鈥檚 colonial architecture, savor lobster rolls on the wharf and gaze at waters that 鈥� many don鈥檛 realize 鈥� launched more slave trading voyages than anywhere else in North America. But after years of invisibility, that obscured chapter is becoming better known, partly because the Ocean State passed a law in 2021 requiring schools to teach Rhode Island鈥檚 鈥淎frican Heritage History.鈥� Amid recent headlines that the state鈥檚 capital city is now moving forward with a $10 million reparations program, read Asher Lehrer-Small鈥檚 examination of how Newport is looking to empower schools to confront the city鈥檚 difficult past. 

Harvard Economist Thomas Kane on Learning Loss, and Why Many Schools Aren鈥檛 Prepared to Combat It 

74 Interview: This spring, Harvard economist Thomas Kane co-authored one of the biggest 鈥� and most pessimistic 鈥� studies yet of COVID learning loss, revealing that school closures massively set back achievement for low-income students. The effects appear so large that, by his estimates, many schools will need to spend 100% of their COVID relief to counteract them. Perversely, though, many in the education world don鈥檛 realize that yet. 鈥淥nce that sinks in,鈥� he said, 鈥淚 think people will realize that more aggressive action is necessary.鈥� Read Kevin Mahnken鈥檚 full interview. 

In White, Wealthy Douglas County, Colorado, a Conservative School Board Majority Fires the Superintendent, and Fierce Backlash Ensues

Politics: The 2021 election of four conservative members to Colorado’s Douglas County school board led to the firing in February of schools Superintendent Corey Wise, who had served the district in various capacities for 26 years. The decision, which came at a meeting where public comment was barred, swiftly mobilized teachers, students and community members in opposition. Wise鈥檚 ouster came one day after a 1,500-employee sickout forced the shutdown of the state鈥檚 third-largest school district . A few days later, students walked out of school en masse, followed by litigation and talk of a school board recall effort. The battle mirrors those being fought in numerous districts throughout the country, with conservative parents, newly organized during the pandemic, championing one agenda and more moderate and liberal parent groups beginning to rise up to counter those views. Jo Napolitano reports.

Weaving Stronger School Communities: Nebraska鈥檚 Teacher of the Year Challenges Her Rural Community to Wrestle With the World 

Inspiring: Residents of tiny Taylor, Nebraska, call Megan Helberg a 鈥渞eturner鈥� 鈥� one of the few kids to grow up in the town of 190 residents, leave to attend college in the big city and then return as an adult to rejoin this rural community in the Sandhills. Honored as the state鈥檚 2020 Teacher of the Year, Helberg says she sees her role as going well beyond classroom lessons and academics. She teaches her students to value their deep roots in this close-knit circle. She advocates on behalf of her school 鈥� the same school she attended as a child 鈥� which is always threatened with closure due to small class sizes. She has also launched travel clubs through her schools, which Helberg says has strengthened her community by breaking students, parents and other community members out of their comfort zone and helping them gain a better view of the world outside Nebraska while also seeing their friends and neighbors in a whole new light. This past winter, as part of a broader two-month series on educators weaving community, a team from 麻豆精品 made multiple visits to Taylor to meet Helberg and see her in action with her students. Watch the full documentary by Jim Fields, and read our full story about Helberg鈥檚 background and inspiration by Laura Fay. 

Other profiles from this year鈥檚 Weaver series: 

• Texas鈥檚 Alejandro Salazar: The band teacher who kept his school community connected through COVID鈥檚 chaos
  
• Hawaii鈥檚 Heidi Maxie: How an island teacher builds community bridges through her Hawaii school
  
• Georgia鈥檚 Allie Reeser: Living and learning among refugees in the 鈥楨llis Island of the South鈥�
  
• : Meet 12 educators strengthening school communities amid the pandemic

Research: Babies Born During COVID Talk Less with Caregivers, Slower to Develop Critical Language Skills

Big Picture: Independent studies by Brown University and a national nonprofit focused on early language development found infants born during the pandemic produced significantly fewer vocalizations and had less verbal back-and-forth with their caretakers compared with those born before COVID. Both used the nonprofit LENA鈥檚 鈥渢alk pedometer鈥� technology, which delivers detailed information on what children hear throughout the day, including the number of words spoken near the child and the child鈥檚 own language-related vocalizations. It also counts child-adult interactions, called 鈥渃onversational turns,鈥� which are critical to language acquisition. The joint finding is the latest troubling evidence of developmental delays discovered when comparing babies born before and after COVID. 鈥淚鈥檓 worried about how we set things up going forward such that our early childhood teachers and early childhood interventionalists are prepared for what is potentially a set of children who maybe aren鈥檛 performing as we expect them to,鈥� Brown鈥檚 Sean Deoni tells 麻豆精品鈥檚 Jo Napolitano. Read our full report. 

Minneapolis Teacher Strike Lasted 3 Weeks. The Fallout Will Be Felt for Years

Two days after Minneapolis teachers ended their first strike in 50 years this past May, Superintendent Ed Graff walked out of a school board meeting, ostensibly because a student protester had used profanity. The next morning, he resigned. The swearing might have been the last straw, but the kit-bag of problems left unresolved by the district鈥檚 agreement with the striking unions is backbreaking indeed. Four-fifths of the district鈥檚 federal pandemic aid is now committed to staving off layoffs and giving classroom assistants and teachers bonuses and raises, leaving little for academic recovery at a moment when the percentage of disadvantaged students performing at grade level has dipped into the single digits. From potential school closures and misinformation about how much money the district actually has to layoffs of Black teachers, a lack of diversity in the workforce and how to make up for lost instructional time, Beth Hawkins reports on the aftermath. 

After Steering Mississippi鈥檚 Unlikely Learning Miracle, Carey Wright Steps Down

Profile: Mississippi, one of America鈥檚 poorest and least educated states, emerged in 2019 as a fast-rising exemplar in math and reading growth. The transformation of the state鈥檚 long-derided school system came about through intense work 鈥� in the classroom and the statehouse 鈥� to raise learning standards, overhaul reading instruction and reinvent professional development. And with longtime State Superintendent Carey Wright retiring at the end of June, 麻豆精品鈥檚 Kevin Mahnken looked at what comes next.

As Schools Push for More Tutoring, New Research Points to Its Effectiveness 鈥� and the Challenge of Scaling it to Combat Learning Loss

Learning Acceleration: In the two years that COVID-19 has upended schooling for millions of families, experts and education leaders have increasingly touted one tool as a means for coping with learning loss: personalized tutors. In February, just days after the secretary of education declared that every struggling student should receive 90 minutes of tutoring each week, a newly released study offers more evidence of the strategy’s potential 鈥� and perhaps its limitations. An online tutoring pilot launched last spring did yield modest, if positive, learning benefits for the hundreds of middle schoolers who participated. But those gains were considerably smaller than the impressive results from some previous studies, perhaps because of the project’s design: It relied on lightly trained volunteers, rather than professional educators, and held its sessions online instead of in person. 鈥淭here is a tradeoff in navigating the current climate where what is possible might not be scalable,” the study’s co-author, Matthew Kraft, told 麻豆精品’s Kevin Mahnken. “So instead of just saying, ‘Come hell or high water, I’m going to build a huge tutoring program,鈥� we might be better off starting off with a small program and building it over time.” Read our full report. 

STEM: Robert Sansone was born to invent. His STEM creations range from springy leg extensions for sprinting to a go-kart that can reach speeds of 70 mph. But his latest project aims to solve a global problem: the unsustainability of electric car motors that use rare earth materials that are nonrenewable, expensive and pollute the environment during the mining and refining process. In 麻豆精品 Director James Field鈥檚 video profile, the Florida high schooler talks about his creation, inspiration and what he plans to do with his $75,000 prize from the 2022 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair. , and watch our full portrait below: 

Amid a historic decline in test scores, unprecedented efforts to catch kids up after two years of COVID disruptions and a reckoning on how kids should be taught to read, we were in awe of so many  important, incisive and impactful pieces that ran this year. Below, in no particular order, are 16 articles we wish we had published in 2022. We hope you鈥檒l read those stories you missed over the course of the year 鈥� and help us to share them, so even more readers can benefit from their valuable insights.

San Francisco Chronicle

The San Francisco Chronicle has offered an indispensable window into the performance of Bay Area schools during the pandemic, from the slow march toward reopened classrooms to the recent chaos surrounding the San Francisco Board of Education. In this story, Jill Tucker and Nami Sumida detail the extraordinary increase in absent students during the 2021-22 school year, when learning was finally supposed to be getting back to normal. In San Francisco, the rate of chronic absenteeism last year was more than double the rate in 2019, and some schools saw huge majorities of their students miss at least 10% of the 180-day school year. The later-life consequences of so much missed learning 鈥� much higher rates of incarceration, among others 鈥� have led school and district officials to take extraordinary risks to keep kids showing up to class. .

Louisville Courier-Journal

While Emily Hanford rightly gets credit for goosing education journalists into covering the science of reading, we haven鈥檛 given nearly enough love to Mandy McLaren鈥檚 this fall in the Louisville Courier-Journal. McLaren鈥檚 鈥淏etween the Lines鈥� stories shined a light on Kentucky鈥檚 bad and worsening reading results, which come at a time when states like Mississippi are actually improving theirs. Like Hanford, McLaren pinpointed the cause: a broad-based reluctance among educators and policymakers to support the science of reading in the classroom. Her coverage even pushed a state review committee in November to with the University of Kentucky鈥檚 . .

The Texas Tribune & ProPublica

The Texas Tribune and ProPublica spent months pushing for public records related to the police response to reports that a gunman was killing children and teachers inside Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. 鈥淚鈥檓 So Scared,鈥� the story they produced after finally securing audio of those calls, communicates the full horror of the events in the 77 minutes before officers stopped the shooter. Reporter Lomi Kriel of the Tribune and ProPublica, and the Tribune鈥檚 Zach Despart, Alejandro Serrano and Roxanna Asgarian, create a riveting chronology, punctuated by embedded clips of the 911 calls, without veering into insensitive or sensational territory. Their powerful report drives home the tragedy of children calling for help from inside classrooms while law enforcement waited outside. . 

The New Yorker

A University of Pennsylvania graduate student and a Rhodes Scholar, Mackenzie Fierceton was accused of lying about her first-generation, low-income status, pretending to be poor to advance educationally. But Fierceton, who spent time in foster care as a teen, never said she grew up in poverty: She fell into the category after leaving the home of her physically and emotionally abusive mother, a prominent radiologist, and her mother鈥檚 sexually abusive boyfriend. Alerted by an anonymous source about her wealthy childhood, UPenn eventually communicated with Fierceton’s mother and threatened to revoke the student’s undergraduate degree 鈥� and suspended her master’s. Her Rhodes Scholarship was also endangered. But writer Rachel Aviv stepped in, correcting a wrong that threatened to destroy the young woman鈥檚 future. Aviv’s deep reporting shamed a powerful institution into restoring Fierceton’s degrees 鈥� along with her dignity and reputation. The story also who can sometimes reduce a student’s complex life story into the most easily digestible terms while missing essential details.

The Sacramento Bee

Sawson Morrar鈥檚 November profile of a Black principal fired from her post at a majority white school in an affluent California community shows how abruptly districts have turned against qualified educators for the same reasons they hired them. In this case, Amber Clark鈥檚 experience as an equity adviser helped her land a job as a high school principal. But when she stood her ground and refused to apologize for sharing resources with LGBTQ students, she was placed on leave. The article is another example of how precarious school leadership has become in the current toxic political climate. .

American Public Media

Nearly two-thirds of American fourth graders are not proficient readers. As American Public Media鈥檚 Emily Hanford and Christopher Peak reveal, that troubling statistic can be partly explained by a decades-long misconception about how to teach the subject. To read confidently, students need to know how to decode words based on the sounds of the letters. There are teaching techniques that can help them learn to do so. But to this day, the predominant approach U.S. schools are using encourages youngsters to guess words based on context clues like pictures or sentence structure 鈥� leaving millions of students not fully literate and generating enormous profits for the adults who championed the teaching strategy. Whether or not you have a child learning to read, this podcast series is highly accessible and will make you .

ProPublica鈥檚 Local Reporting Network, in partnership with The City

Since the start of the pandemic, the number of New York City school children requiring special education services for mental health issues has skyrocketed. But how successful families are in obtaining the federally mandated “free and appropriate education” for their kids depends largely on their own financial resources. Abigail Kramer painstakingly documents the deeply inequitable way the city treats students with special needs 鈥� the wealthy, white districts where the city pays for expensive treatment, the poor districts where it does not and the racial disparities in which services children are offered. Interspersed among the personal stories of three young people in crisis are sketches that add an emotional tug to a report that is by turns sad and infuriating. . 

The Atlantic

Despite the familiar-sounding scare headline, this piece by Harvard鈥檚 Meira Levinson and Yale鈥檚 Daniel Markovits amounts to a full-throated defense of the American school. 鈥淔or all their inadequacies, schools do work,鈥� they write, 鈥渁nd for all their inequities, they provide a more equal setting than the worlds they draw children out of.鈥� The loss of that anchor during the pandemic can鈥檛 be captured in a single round of dismal NAEP scores. Its effects are evident not only in the well-reported spike in depression and suicides, but also a host of down-the-line factors from obesity to a decrease in routine vaccinations for potentially fatal diseases like measles. This wide-angle view fuels the authors鈥� take that COVID鈥檚 effects on kids will prove more profound than other historical interruptions, including the Great Depression and two World Wars. 鈥淭he pandemic has amounted to a comprehensive assault on the American public school,鈥� they write. 鈥淚t strained the ties 鈥� not just physical but also social and even psychological 鈥� that connect American families and children to the schools that are essential for delivering almost every support our welfare state provides. Kids missed out on all of it.鈥� .

Chicago Tribune and ProPublica

For a crushing four-part series, the Chicago Tribune鈥檚 Jennifer Smith Richards and ProPublica鈥檚 Jody S. Cohen filed more than 500 public records requests and pored over thousands of documents to put hard numbers on the frequency with which Illinois students 鈥� and Black youth in particular 鈥� are slapped with tickets at school. Police issue students thousands of tickets each year, many with hundreds of dollars in fines and routinely for minor offenses like littering, vaping and cursing. Black students, the analysis found, were twice as likely to get ticketed as their white classmates. The series saw significant impact. Hours after the first part was published, the state鈥檚 top education official urged schools to stop referring kids to the police for misbehavior.  .

EdSurge

In March, Emily Tate Sullivan took a closer look at the uptick in screen time among kids during the pandemic. A research report from nonprofit Common Sense Media found that screen use increased 17 percentage points among teens and tweens 鈥� the equivalent of eight hours and 39 minutes for teens and five hours and 30 minutes for tweens per day. Social media platforms, including TikTok, made up a large portion of kids鈥� screen time. Mike Robb, senior director of research at Common Sense Media, believes this is an opportunity for families and educators to think about what healthy media consumption looks like. 鈥淚 do think it is clear from this data, especially social media use data, that it is a real call to make sure social media companies are being careful and accountable with young users on their platforms,鈥� he said. .

South Florida Sun Sentinel

In February, Pulitzer Prize-winning education reporter Scott Travis uncovered the lengths Broward County school officials went to in order to conceal that a ransomware attack potentially exposed the personal data of thousands of employees and students. Rather than explaining what happened and promptly reporting it to the federal government 鈥� because the personal information included health data 鈥� the district opted not to keep a written record of its own investigation. And, against usual practice, it didn鈥檛 record a committee meeting where the breach was discussed. Through open-records requests, Travis obtained emails showing how the district tried to downplay the incident. . 

Chalkbeat

As the 2021-22 academic year proceeded with most schools open more than closed, educators and journalists watched in real time as perhaps na茂ve fantasies of a return to normal fizzled. No story unpacks the reasons why as well as Chalkbeat Chicago鈥檚 narrative 鈥淚nside a Chicago High School鈥檚 Year of Uncertainty.鈥� Reporter Mila Koumpilova’s story follows star basketball player Keshawn Arnold and his struggles with a level of disengagement that alarmed him as much as it did his teachers and coaches. As readers come to feel invested in a student who was 鈥渇lush with potential but bent on living in the now,鈥� Koumpilova zooms out to put the story in a broader context. .

Next City & Planet Detroit

Forest schools, a nontraditional outdoors education concept, have been growing in popularity since the 1990s in response to outcome-based education. However, in low-income areas, this option is either inaccessible or unaffordable and often white-led. Erin Preston-Johnson Bevel, founder of the Detroit Urban Forest School, has developed a program that seeks to ensure that 鈥渙ur children鈥檚 framing of the ever-present and ever-important relationship with nature is culturally grounded in our respective ancestral practices.鈥� Reporter Rukiya Colvin reveals how the program has brought together like-minded Detroit parents seeking alternatives to classroom-based learning.

The Atlantic

This Adam Harris piece in The Atlantic is relatively short 鈥� just over 1,000 words 鈥� but it offers a valuable primer on threats of violence and, on occasion, actual violence against the nation鈥檚 Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The piece borders on a meditation: In it, Howard University President Wayne A.I. Frederick puts the threats in perspective, telling Harris, 鈥淧eople don鈥檛 want to see African Americans in certain places.鈥� The piece dropped last winter, as HBCUs dealt with a rash of bomb threats that seemed to come out of nowhere. Harris, whose 2021 book focused on the inequities of the nation鈥檚 higher education system, reminds us that bomb threats, arson and even military occupations have plagued HBCUs since their inception, making attending one, in his words, 鈥渁n act of courage.鈥� America, Harris writes, “has a long and violent history of trying to keep Black people out of classrooms.” . 

Chalkbeat

Ever-changing school COVID protocols and closures challenged families nationwide. Yet national coverage did not often explore the reality millions of non-native English-speaking families faced. Parents fumbled through at-home test instructions, flooded testing sites or kept kids home as policies got lost in translation. Chalkbeat New York鈥檚 Reema Amin chronicles the many ways parents rushed to fill translation gaps for populations who, as one parent points out, 鈥渃annot push back and demand the way English speakers do.鈥� In doing so, Amin showcases the everyday toll of district practices that fail to overcome language barriers and access to technology 鈥� and the parents who took communication into their own hands in the interest of public health. . 

The New Yorker

Anna Holmes’s fascinating profile of Margaret Wise Brown, author of Goodnight Moon, reveals that the writer was “a seductive iconoclast with a Katharine Hepburn mane,” a failed teacher and a woman who “had a fetish for fur, and hunted rabbits on weekends.” The details 鈥� that Brown bought out an entire flower stall when she received her first royalty check, for example, or that one of her early stories was about children finding a dead bird 鈥� offer a surprising portrait of an author known for bedtime stories about simple things. In Holmes’s words: “Even though her work embraced everyday subjects, it was far from banal. Brown incorporated influences from avant-garde literature, concentrating as much on the sound of words as on the words themselves.” Far more than a story behind a nursery bookshelf staple, this short biography challenges assumptions about Brown and about what makes great children’s literature. .