2025 Explanatory Journalism (Education-Only Outlets) Winners

About the Winner:

Veteran reporter Alyson Klein explored “pairing schools,” a strategy that merges neighboring schools into different grade spans to balance student demographics for race and family income, a model with historical precedent that has seen a resurgence in interest in recent years. 

Rather than treating pairing as an abstract idea, Klein grounded her reporting in Caldwell Parish, Louisiana, a rural and politically conservative district that successfully restructured its elementary schools in large part to create more socioeconomically and racially integrated communities and to improve academic outcomes. Klein also explored an unsuccessful pairing effort in Washington, D.C.

Comments From the Judges:

“It was brilliant, no pun intended, to pair a success story from the rural South with the failure in the ostensibly more enlightened and far more liberal District of Columbia. The piece summarizing why one failed where the other succeeded also was clearly and powerfully written. The author explained the subject and also showed us how administrators, elected officials, teachers, parents and students lived through these tumultuous transitions.”

“Excellent, excellent storytelling throughout the series. Inclusion and explanation of all viewpoints and multiple stakeholder voices. Klein’s deep reporting is evident. By the time I got through the first two stories, I was creating a mental list of why the pairing worked in La. but not in DC. My list matched Klein’s third story, which shows how well she told the stories of each of those districts.”

Photo credits: L. Kasimu Harris/Education Week