2025 Finalists for the National Awards for Education Reporting

Small Newsroom

Becky Z. Dernbach
Sahan Journal
Education in Minnesota’s Communities of Color

Natalie La Roche Pietri
WLRN Public Media
Natalie La Roche Pietri Package

Asher Lehrer-Small
Houston Landing
Accountability Coverage of Houston’s State Takeover

Large Newsroom

Karina Elwood
The Washington Post
Education in Virginia

Christopher Huffaker
The Boston Globe
Christopher Huffaker’s Education Data Beat Reporting

Tyler Kingkade
NBC News Digital
Tyler Kingkade’s Education Beat Reporting

Marcela Rodrigues
The Boston Globe
Marcela Rodrigues’ Coverage of ICE Raids and Schools

Education-Only Outlets

Jill Barshay
The Hechinger Report
Jill Barshay’s Beat Reporting: How Trump Gutted Education Research

Michael Elsen-Rooney
Chalkbeat New York
Educating New York City’s Immigrant Students Under Trump’s Second Term

Mila Koumpilova
Chalkbeat Chicago
Mila Koumpilova Beat Reporting

Features

Caitlin Esch, Stephanie Hughes, Nancy Marshall-Genzer, Minju Park & Jayk Cherry
Marketplace
Inside the Movement to Teach Kids About Money

Elizabeth Miller, Dan Evans, Rob Manning & Sarah Nairalez
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Class of 2025: Growing up in Oregon Schools

Cory Turner, Nicole Cohen & Janet Woojeong Lee
NPR
How Alabama Students Went From Last Place to Rising Stars in Math

News

Jillian Forstadt
90.5 WESA
Double Jeopardy: From Classroom to Courtroom

Dylan Peers McCoy, Lee V. Gaines, Eric Weddle, Nicole Cohen & Lauren Migaki
WFYI & NPR
Reporting on Special Education

Megan Pauly, Dean Mirshahi, Hannah Davis-Reid, Dawnthea Price Lisco, Sean McGoey, Meghin Moore, Whittney Evans, Shaban Athuman & Elliott Robinson
VPM
The Trump Effect on Higher Education in Virginia

All Newsroom Sizes

Liz Bowie, Greg Morton, Ryan Little & Allan James Vestal
The Baltimore Banner
Missing the Bus: How Baltimore Failed a Generation of Students Struggling to Get to School

Lauren Weber, Caitlin Gilbert, Dylan Moriarty & Joshua Lott
The Washington Post
U.S. Vaccination Rates Are Plunging. Look up Where Your School Stands.

Yuxuan (Sunny) Xie, Justin Allen, Daniel J. Willis & Karen D’Souza
EdSource
Falling Rates, Rising Risk: Vaccination Rates Down in California

Small Newsroom

Natalie La Roche Pietri
WLRN Public Media
Florida Rapidly Expanded Publicly-Funded School Vouchers. Two Years Later, Students Are Lost In The Mix.

Lisa Rowan
Cardinal News
Sweet Briar’s New Admissions Policy Has Left Some Students Wondering If They Still Belong There

Megan Tagami
Honolulu Civil Beat
Half Of Hawaiʻi Kids Can’t Swim. Little Is Being Done To Help Them.

Large Newsroom

Emiliano Tahui Gómez
Austin American-Statesman
Immigration Checkpoints Come to School

Mandy McLaren
The Boston Globe
A Promise Unkept

Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio & Mark Arsenault
The Boston Globe
The Education of Rümeysa Öztürk

Education-Only Outlets

Sarah Carr
The Hechinger Report
Early Intervention Services Can Help Premature Children Thrive, but Too Few Receive Them

Alyson Klein & Visuals and Immersive Experiences Team
Education Week
‘Pairing Schools’: One Strategy, Two Very Different Outcomes

Greg Toppo
The 74
Greg Toppo: Why Are So Few Kids Reading for Pleasure?

Small Newsroom

Lillian Avedian
Nashville Banner
For Muslim Students in Nashville Schools, a Sense of Belonging Can Be Hard-Won

Becky Z. Dernbach
Sahan Journal
They Came to the U.S. to Attend Middle School. Then the Immigration Crackdown Began.

Nadra Nittle
The 19th
She’s Devoted Her Life to Teaching Your Kids — in a Country That Now Wants to Deport Her

Large Newsroom

Jennifer Chambers
The Detroit News
He Escaped a Killer at Oxford High School. His Fight for Survival Was Only Beginning.

Elissa Nadworny
NPR
How Trump’s University Research Cuts Affect a 4-Year-Old in Heart Failure

Casey Parks
The Washington Post
For Young Transgender Runner, Racing Wasn’t the Hardest Thing

Education-Only Outlets

Beth Hawkins
The 74
IDEA at 50: Before Special Ed, There Was the School-to-Asylum Pipeline. How One Lawsuit Helped End It.

Linda Jacobson
The 74
Linda Jacobson: The Justice, the Professor and the Friendship That Could Rattle a Pivotal Religious Charter School Case

Neal Morton
The Hechinger Report
How a Tribe Won a Legal Battle Against The Federal Bureau of Indian Education — and Still Lost

Emma Pettit
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The College That Conservatives Took Over

Small Newsroom

Nadra Nittle
The 19th
Part 1: She Was a Rising Senior on the Honor Roll. ICE Just Upended Her Life. Part 2: Nory and Her Mother Were Deported Together. Then She Was Orphaned.

Jennifer Pignolet
Akron Beacon Journal
Investigation of Akron’s Superintendent

Jeremy Turley & Lauren Wagner
Flatwater Free Press & The 74
Despite the Law, Nebraska School Districts Denied Transfers to Special Ed Kids

Large Newsroom

Hannah Dreyfus & Nick Sullivan
The Arizona Republic | azcentral.com
A Takedown of Toxic Hazing

Lauren Lumpkin, Robert Samuels, John D. Harden, Amy Brittain, Nicole Dungca & Keith L. Alexander
The Washington Post
DC’s Juvenile Detention

Annie Martin & Leslie Postal
Orlando Sentinel
Florida’s Voucher Overhaul Hands Millions to Wealthy Families

Emily Schwing
KYUK Public Media, ProPublica & NPR
Frozen Out: Alaska’s Schools Wait for Funding

Education-Only Outlets

Mark Keierleber
The 74
Kept in the Dark

Meredith Kolodner, Marina Villeneuve & Jackie Mader
The Hechinger Report
Left Out

Emma Pettit & Megan Zahneis
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Inside a Sweeping Attempt to Regulate General Education in Florida

All Newsroom Sizes

Emily Hanford, Christopher Peak, Curtis Gilbert, Andy Kruse, Kate Martin, Olivia Chilkoti, Carmela Guaglianone, Chris Julin, Derek Ramirez, Tom Scheck & Jane Helmke
American Public Media | APM Reports
Sold a Story

Ilya Marritz, Molly Rosen, Kristin Nelson, Katya Rogers, Jared Paul & Tom Colligan
The Boston Globe & WNYC’s On the Media
The Harvard Plan Season Two

Emily Siner, Camellia Burris, Meribah Knight, Miriam Kramer, Joshua Moore & Daniel Potter
Nashville Public Radio & Tennessee Lookout
The Debt

All Newsroom Sizes

Hannah Epstein & Rana Rastegari
The Bi-College News
Private Investigators, Confidential Meetings, and a “Betrayal of Trust”: Inside Bryn Mawr’s Probe Into Pro-Palestinian Protests

Nicholas Gutteridge
The Battalion
Inside Texas A&M’s Increasingly Polarized Campus

Herald Staff
The Brown Daily Herald
Two Killed, Nine Injured in Dec.13 Mass Shooting at Brown University