EWA Announces the 2021 National Awards for Education Reporting Winners

Orlando, FL (July 24, 2022)—The Education Writers Association is delighted to announce the category winners for the 2021 National Awards for Education Reporting, recognizing the top education journalism in the United States.

EWA’s panel of judges named the winning entries for 17 categories of competition at an awards banquet at EWA’s 75th National Seminar in Orlando. The winners range from journalists in local markets to staffers of national news organizations.

The entries chronicled a time of turmoil and transition. Reporters covered tensions over teaching and learning in colleges and K-12 schools. They chronicled efforts to bring normalcy to students returning to school as the pandemic eased. This year’s awards winners exposed holes in state laws and sexual abuse on college campuses. They employed innovative multimedia tools to engage their audiences in fresh ways.

“We’re deeply impressed by our awards winners’ meticulous documentation of life in school and out, their exposure of wrongdoing, and the inventive use of data in their reporting,” said Caroline Hendrie, EWA’s executive director. “Their dogged reporting, mastery of language, and commitment to journalism’s highest ideals all shine through in this work.”

Each category prize comes with an honorarium of $1,000. This year, EWA was pleased to return to its long-standing tradition of announcing the category winners and recognizing these hard-working journalists in person at its 2022 National Seminar.

The National Seminar awards banquet also featured the announcement of the EGF Accelerator’s Eddie Prize winner, with a $7,500 award. At Monday’s National Seminar, EWA will announce the winners of the annual Ronald Moskowitz Prize for Outstanding Beat Reporting, which comes with $2,500, and the Fred M. Hechinger Grand Prize for Distinguished Education Reporting, which carries an award of $10,000.

Winners were selected from among 340 eligible entries for the 17 categories of competition in EWA’s National Awards for Education Reporting. The awards competition was independently judged by a total of 82 current and former editors and reporters, many of whom are past recipients of prestigious journalism awards from EWA and others. EWA would like to express our deep gratitude and thanks to the busy professionals who volunteered their time to evaluate the entries.