This story was originally published by The 74.
As 2024 draws to a close, the team at The 74 embarked on our annual tradition of compiling education stories we wished we had published over the last year. We borrowed this idea from Bloomberg Businessweek’s Jealousy List – the publication’s annual tribute to the most important stories of the year by their colleagues at other media outlets. (You can read their latest list here).
At The 74, we’re celebrating the most memorable coverage about schools and students that we’ve read. Our picks include stories on a range of education topics, from teacher shortages and learning recovery to a notable tribute to a crossing guard who left an indelible impression on the students he guided safely to school each day.
Below, in no particular order, are 16 of the articles we felt were the most impactful in 2024. We hope you take the time to read (and share) these important stories written by talented journalists from across the country.
1. This Hartford Public High School Student Can’t Read. Here’s How It Happened
By Jessika Harkay, CT Mirror
We know the shocking truth: The U.S. adult illiteracy rate is high, with 21%, or 43 million adults, unable to understand basic vocabulary, compare and contrast information and paraphrase what’s been read.
Jessika Harkay’s Connecticut Mirror story is a carefully executed autopsy of how one young woman became part of that statistic. This story is a standout to me because it documents how a student like Aleysha Ortiz could be pushed through school and graduate – even though she is barely literate. I like its tight structure and details, such as how she had to go to “school two times in one day,” recording what the teacher said during class; and then going home and listening to the recording again. The cost was high and heartbreaking: “To this day I’ve never been out to a movie theatre with friends, ever,” Ortiz reveals. “I didn’t have time to have fun.” Read the full story here. - Selected by Joanne Wasserman, The 74
2. In a State With School Vouchers For All, Low-Income Families Aren’t Choosing to Use Them
By Eli Hager & Lucas Waldron, ProPublica
Known as a model for school choice nationally, Arizona’s voucher program is a case study ripe for investigation. ProPublica reporters Eli Hager and Lucas Waldron dug into Maricopa County’s data, finding the vast majority of families attending private schools using public funds were from more affluent ZIP codes. This is despite conservatives touting the program as transformational for all.
Like many inequities in education, ProPublica’s probe led reporters to housing segregation. Private schools, typically located in wealthier areas, remain out of reach geographically, with some facing two-hour city bus routes or $30 cab rides each way. While the reporting in this story is data-driven, the storytelling stays rooted in empathy for the daily lives and concerns of three families who were eager to use the state’s voucher system to pursue a better education for their children, but ultimately gave up on the idea. Instead, the article points out, many parents are coming together to make their own public schools better. Read the full story here. - Selected by Marianna McMurdock, The 74
3. With No Chemistry Teacher, Chicago Student Teaches Her Own Class: ‘They Forgot About Us’
By Mina Bloom, Block Club Chicago
School staffing crisis stories were abundant this year, but Block Club Chicago’s investigative reporter Mina Bloom humanized the consequences of teacher shortages, centering the story on one brave student who took control of her class’s education after the teacher’s long absence. A model of how local stories can bring awareness to national issues, Bloom skillfully weaved in meticulous data and the history of the school.
After a year of headlines decrying the “disengaged student,” it was heartening to read about students so committed and passionate about learning that they refused to let the school’s shortcomings disrupt their education. I will be thinking often about Carolina Carchi, the 15-year-old who taught her classmates about the properties of liquids and solids and how to balance chemical equations. It’s crucial to celebrate young people like Carolina and amplify their voices to hold systems accountable. Read the full story here. - Selected by Meghan Gallagher, The 74
4. Bulletproofing America’s Classrooms
By Emily Baumgaertner & Alex Kalman, The New York Times
When I was in grade school in the Midwest we regularly practiced tornado drills, filing down to the basement to duck and cover. Today, the kids are trained to barricade themselves in the classroom to protect against a different nemesis: school shooters. With common-sense solutions to school shootings seemingly stalled, worried parents are taking matters into their own hands to protect their kids at whatever cost.
This New York Times story by Emily Baumgaertner and Alex Kalman is an eye-opening expose of the solutions and products that parents and school districts are being sold to protect their children. At one education trade show, the reporters saw vendors offering a wide range of bulletproof school items, from pencil pouches, clipboards and three-ring binders to hoodies, desks and whiteboards. Bulletproof backpack inserts were also being marketed with the help of an animated turtle named Tank who struggles to pronounce polyethylene and encourages the kids to crouch behind their backpack “shells” in a safe spot. As Baumgaertner and Kalman explain, the market is almost as absurd as the problem it seeks to resolve. Read the full story here. - Selected by Eamonn Fitzmaurice, The 74
Credit: Beth Nakamura
Credit: Beth Nakamura
5. In Rural Oregon, Boys Are Not Choosing College. That’s Widening the Urban-Rural Divide
By Sami Edge, OregonLive
For decades, boys have been shrinking as a percentage of American college students. As Sami Edge reported for The Oregonian and its website OregonLive this summer, the gender gap is especially prominent in rural areas, where even high-achieving males are unlikely to proceed immediately to college after finishing high school. As part of a wide-ranging, nine-part series, the reporter followed several seniors in comparatively remote districts across Central and Eastern Oregon, artfully uncovering their reasons for holding pat rather than signing up for more years of schooling.
Some of the boys Edge encounters say they and their friends feel financially pressured to defer their plans for college, citing either the high cost of tuition or the need to assume responsibility at family farms. But others — including the main subjects of her story, a high school valedictorian and his close friend — simply seem adrift. Maybe they’ll enroll in an apprenticeship, or else take a job at a gas station; maybe they’ll study music, or move East to live with a long-distance romantic partner. Readers will finish the piece with a better understanding of social trends in parts of Oregon that might otherwise be overlooked, but they also gain a sense of the generational ambivalence toward higher education that has taken hold far beyond the Pacific Northwest. Read the full story here. - Selected by Kevin Mahnken, The 74
6. When School Discipline Data Doesn’t Show Why Kids Are Being Kicked Out of School
By Fazil Khan & Sarah Butrymowicz, The Hechinger Report
Fazil Khan and Sarah Butrymowicz’s story about the nebulous nature of school suspensions in several states shines a light on a critical form of chronic inequity in American schools. The story notes the uneven application of such harsh discipline and how some administrators, recognizing that students of color are too often targeted, are desperate for better alternatives.
The Hechinger Report’s deep data dive found 88% of suspensions in Texas in 2023 were marked as a “violation of student code of conduct” with no additional detail. “That’s more than a million suspensions last school year alone,” the authors note. In Mississippi, the similarly vague “noncriminal behavior” slot described hundreds of thousands of suspensions over a five-year period. Students in Indiana, Alabama and Vermont were cast out for equally vague reasons, the reporters found. All this can lead to some long-term consequences: Research has shown suspended students often suffer poor academic performance and higher dropout rates. Highlighting this important story is bittersweet as it marks a posthumous tribute for Khan, who died in a fire earlier this year. Read the full story here. - Selected by Jo Napolitano, The 74
7. This School for Autistic Youth Can Cost $573,000 a Year. It Operates With Little Oversight and Students Have Suffered
By Jennifer Smith Richards & Jodi S. Cohen, ProPublica
As a former charter and public school teacher, stories about private, for-profit schools always catch my skeptical eye. When I saw this piece from ProPublica homed in on one such school that serves particularly vulnerable students in a residential setting, I was intrigued. Shrub Oak International School, which opened in 2018 in Westchester County, New York, enrolls students with autism, including kids who have behavioral challenges and complex medical needs and who other schools have turned away.
Shrub Oak is one of the most expensive therapeutic boarding schools in America, with tuition as high as $316,400 per year, ProPublica found. Despite lacking any meaningful oversight from the state, the school still receives public money from districts across the country. Beyond the financial component, the lack of regulation has allowed the school to renege on promises to parents and has resulted in several alleged incidents of abuse and neglect. Pulling from court documents, interviews with nearly 30 families and dozens of workers, ProPublica’s Jennifer Smith Richards and Jodi S. Cohen present a compelling and gutting investigation about what happens when a school meant to protect and educate students in need falls through the cracks of regulatory oversight and fails the people who need its services most. Read the full story here. - Selected by Amanda Geduld, The 74
8. ‘They Have to Have Known’: Hawaii Scrambles for Solutions to School Bus Driver Shortage
By Megan Tagami, Honolulu Civil Beat
School bus driver shortages remained “severe” in 2024, and education reporters did their part to cover the chaos. Stories described students waiting hours for buses that never came and districts recruiting lunchroom staff and office clerks to drive. But Megan Tagami of Hawaii’s Civil Beat broke down the reason why the state education department kept canceling and combining routes at the last minute — its heavy reliance on contracts with private bus companies instead of owning its own fleet and hiring its own drivers. One contractor, in particular, failed to notify the department that it would be unable to fulfill more than 100 of its routes until just weeks before the school year started.
Tagami showed how transportation costs in Hawaii have skyrocketed — in part because the state’s education department increased the size of its bus contracts to avoid these hassles and reimburses parents for driving their kids to school. The piece offered readers a valuable, local angle on a national problem that is disruptive for families and impacts learning time for students. Read the full story here. - Selected by Linda Jacobson, The 74
9. Schools Are Using Surveillance Tech to Catch Students Vaping, Snaring Some With Harsh Punishments
By Jacqueline Munis & Ella McCarthy, Associated Press
Smokin’ in the boys’ room is a thing of the past — and now it appears vaping is, too. In an article for The Associated Press, Jacqueline Munis and Ella McCarthy reveal the startling degree to which schools nationwide deploy “vape detection” surveillance tools to sniff out students’ electronic cigarette use in school bathrooms. Schools have spent millions of dollars on sensors designed to detect e-cigarette vapor and surveillance cameras that capture the students-turned-suspects on their way out of the facilities. Along with privacy concerns, the censors have led to harsh discipline for students, including in-school suspensions and even felony charges. Read the full story here. - Selected by Mark Keierleber, The 74
10. Louisiana AG Sues Feds to Undo Longstanding Disability Protections
By Marta Jewson, The Lens
This story by Marta Jewson of the New Orleans nonprofit The Lens is a masterclass on the value of pushing beyond a news item’s top, four-alarm takeaway to probe for broader potential ramifications. Few other outlets so much as noticed that in September Louisiana joined 16 other states in suing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, arguing that gender dysphoria — a medical diagnosis sometimes made when a person’s gender identity differs from the gender they were assigned at birth — should not be considered a disability. Jewson’s story not only reported that the lawsuit could dismantle portions of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which provides key protections to people in schools and in employment, housing, public services and many other spheres of society. And at a moment when much “culture war” reporting focuses on adult politics, she made a point to include the voices of students who could be impacted by this lawsuit in multiple ways. Read the full story here. - Selected by Beth Hawkins, The 74
11. How Today’s Antiwar Protests Stack Up Against Major Student Movements in History
By Nicole Narea, Vox
I’m drawn to stories that examine how historical movements have influenced current events and can challenge readers to learn from the past and apply it to what is happening now. In this story, Vox reporter Nicole Narea excels at this by shining a light on the parallels between today’s youth-led pro-Palestine protests on college campuses and student activism of the past, including the 1960s protests against the Vietnam War and the 1980s campus movements against apartheid in South Africa.
The story is not just a mere timeline of student protest coverage. It describes why college campuses remain distinctive environments for fostering critical thinking, personal development and cultural awareness. Narea’s story blends history, politics, activism and the power of student voices to illustrate how college students have long been at the forefront of social change.
The story also notes how swiftly today’s student movements can be met with police crackdowns, arrests and political pressure, even when they are predominantly peaceful in nature. It’s a thought-provoking piece that speaks to what today’s students encounter as they fight for their rights and those of others — often facing backlash and personal danger. Read the full story here. - Selected by Trinity Alicia, The 74
12. The Youngest Pandemic Children Are Now in School, and Struggling
By Claire Cain Miller & Sarah Mervosh, The New York Times
There’s been a good deal of reporting on the effects of the pandemic on older children. Less covered is the impact on the nation’s youngest children — those who were babies, toddlers and preschoolers during the height of the pandemic and who are now school-aged.
In this story, The New York Times’ Claire Cain Miller and Sarah Mervosh share findings from interviews with teachers, pediatricians and early childhood experts. The bottom line: Many of these younger children are showing signs of academic and developmental delays. There are also concerns related to a variety of areas, like speech and language development, emotional regulation, social interactions, behavior, attention span, core strength and fine motor skills. Researchers suggested that a number of factors affected young children during the pandemic, including parental stress, less exposure to people, more time on screens and lower preschool attendance.
Despite these trends, some experts said recovery is possible, pointing to resources that can help as well as evidence that the early years of brain development in young children positions them well to “catch up.” Read the full story here. - Selected by Marisa Busch, The 74
13. ‘I Want to Scream, but I Can’t.’ The Hidden World of Special Education Settlements in Massachusetts
By Mandy McLaren, The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe’s Mandy McLaren and Neena Hagen collected and reviewed more than 2,600 confidential agreements between Massachusetts school districts and families of students with special needs showing that families who can afford a lawyer are often able to negotiate six-figure placements at specialized schools, while those who can’t afford one watch their kids languish in neighborhood schools.
It’s an amazing investigative effort that lays bare what one mother calls the “tedious and maddening back-and-forth” with a district. She negotiates a secret agreement for annual $40,000 tuition payments at a private school, but no one can know — especially not other parents “still fumbling in the dark” for ways to help their kids. The nondisclosure agreements weaken other families’ ability to find “free and appropriate” settings for their kids, as federal law demands. One expert tells the Globe that such secrecy runs counter to the spirit of the law, which envisioned families being resources for each other. “The way this is set up, it’s made to break you,” says a father who doesn’t have the money to fight his kid’s district. Read the full story here. - Selected by Greg Toppo, The 74
14. The Unequal Effects of School Closings
By Alec MacGillis, ProPublica
Enrollment drops. Funding cliff. School closures. These are the buzzwords and edu-cliches that often mask the complex realities behind one of the bigger school shifts in recent memory. In this collaboration between ProPublica and The New Yorker, reporter Alec MacGillis reverses the script, focusing on the effects of closing one school — Walter Cooper Academy, located in a mostly Black neighborhood of Rochester, New York — on one family. This close-up approach humanizes a sense of loss that often gets clouded by the abstractions. “There is a pathos to a closed school that doesn’t apply to a shuttered courthouse or post office,” he writes.
While not pulling punches on the disastrous effects of COVID school lockdowns, which sent many parents to charters or schools in the suburbs, MacGillis keeps his eye on the Black families who research shows are disproportionately affected by such closures. “Every time we think we’re doing something right for our kids,” one parent says, “someone comes in and dictates to us that our choices are not valid.” Read the full story here. - Selected by Andrew Brownstein, The 74
Credit: Antranik Tavitian
Credit: Antranik Tavitian
15. Two Days Inside an HISD School That Improved from F to B Grade Under Mike Miles’ Changes
By Asher Lehrer-Small, Houston Landing
When a Houston middle school made a remarkable turnaround in just one year, Houston Landing’s Asher Lehrer-Small wanted to know what was happening there. He spent two full days at Forest Brook Middle school, observing 16 classes, conducting two dozen interviews and joining staff meetings.
What he found was a school that embraced the priorities of the district’s new superintendent, Michael Miles: stricter disciplinary practices, more rigorous instruction and increased emphasis on test scores. But he also found teachers taking the time to build relationships with students and to bring their own personalities into their lessons.
“Last year, when we started this process, scholars went home tired,” Principal Alicia Lewis told him. “The parents call me. ‘Ms. Lewis,’ they say, ‘it’s too much work.’ It’s not. It’s not too much work. They need it. And look at what happened. They grew.” The story by Lehrer-Small, a veteran of The 74, demonstrates the power of getting out from behind the computer and experiencing what is actually happening in the classroom. Read the full story here. - Selected by Bev Weintraub, The 74. (Written by Phyllis Jordan)
16. Farewell, and Thanks, to a Man Who Kept Kids Safe
By Joe Sexton, The New York Times
Joe Sexton’s article for The New York Times highlights the importance of students’ human interactions at school. He focuses on crossing guard Richard Henderson, who greeted children by name at a New York City school and became a beloved member of the community. When he was shot to death on a subway, the school community came together to support his family, setting up memorials outside of the school and establishing a GoFundMe site that raised $378,000. The right policies are obviously crucial, but this article is a good reminder that schools are made up of people. And the best schools have really good people. Read the full story here. - Selected by Christian Skotte, The 74
Credit: The 74
Credit: The 74
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Today’s story comes from our partner The 74, an independent, nonprofit national education news website dedicated to covering issues affecting America’s 74 million children. Visit them online at The74Million.org.
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