2025 Investigative Reporting (Education-Only Outlets) Finalists
Mark Keierleber
The 74
Kept in the Dark
- Kept in the Dark: Meet the hired guns who make sure school cyberattacks stay hidden
- Kept in the Dark: Inside the St. Landry Parish Schools Ransomware Attack
- Kept in the Dark: Inside the Providence Schools Ransomware Attack
Comments From the Judges:
“Very thorough, impressive reporting on an important topic. Great use of public records.”
“This series was alarming in its description of how much the public doesn’t know about the true scope of cyber attacks. Given the secrecy school districts employ when these attacks occur, the reporter’s ability to provide details is impressive. He used public records requests to contradict what school officials were saying publicly and went on the dark web to find documents that also contradicted official accounts of what happened. This was a difficult story to tell and the reporter was dogged in his pursuit of it. Well done.”
Meredith Kolodner, Marina Villeneuve & Jackie Mader
The Hechinger Report
Left Out
- Young kids with and without disabilities can learn side by side. One state has instead kept them apart for years
- New Jersey sends kids with disabilities to separate schools more than any other state
- Nebraska invested in having special education students learn alongside their peers — and is seeing promising results
Comments From the Judges:
“Impressive reporting that exposed the problems in New Jersey. The Hechinger Report, to its credit, also reported on a state where progress is being made to get more special needs students in general education classes. The reporting does a nice job explaining the progress and challenges, even in schools that are putting more special needs students in general education classes.”
“This team has focused in admirably on a crucial topic — NJ’s colossal failure to educate disabled children alongside the non-disabled — in one of the richest states in the union. They hit on the enormous complications of the issue, including racial disparities and the wildly variable levels of disabilities, blending individual stories with context. They correctly point to NJ’s unusually prolific network of expensive private schools as a huge disincentive. Nailed it.”
Emma Pettit & Megan Zahneis
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Inside a Sweeping Attempt to Regulate General Education in Florida
Comments From the Judges:
“I found this topic fascinating. I thought the reporters did a good job using public records to tell the story. I know that officials often refuse to answer questions (and are often slow to respond to even the most routine records requests) so a reporter’s job can be very frustrating. They pulled off this story, however. But overall, this is very solid reporting on an important topic.”
“We’ve all read about Florida’s higher-education changes, but this article offers a particularly alarming and detailed window into how those changes happen. This was a detailed look at how some Florida universities are remaking their curricula to comply with a law that seeks to eliminate what some see as instruction that is too politically liberal. It raises questions about the role of academic freedom and transparency about the revision process.”
