The back-to-school period is the Education team’s Super Bowl. Every year, the AP team plans more than a month of spot enterprise, lasting from the earliest schools’ reopening in early August to the post-Labor Day stragglers. The biggest challenge: centering kids in reporting during the summer, when they’re not readily found in schools. Nevertheless, the team produced stories packed with exclusive reporting that centered students and held education systems accountable.
A sampling: Powerful anecdotes and in-depth analysis by Cheyanne Mumphrey, Annie Ma and Sharon Lurye showed schools have made little progress in reducing racial disparities in student discipline. Revisiting last year’s federal financial aid debacle, Ma showed how the botched redesign of the FAFSA form had changed students’ college decision, featuring students still waiting for their financial aid letter. Going beyond ubiquitous debates over phone bans, Carolyn Thompson highlighted solutions for engaging teens in class, packing the story with students and teachers from around the country. Moriah Balingit drove the conversation around how the presidential candidates might increase the child tax credit – and, where the candidates have been unclear or silent, used their records to show their philosophical differences. She then jumped into SCOTUS coverage of student loan forgiveness and partnered with the Democracy team on reporting showing Moms for Liberty’s role in centering education in national politics.
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