Join EWA’s New ‘Reporting With Education Research’ Program

“What does the research say about that?” If you have ever asked yourself that question when getting started on an education story – or think now is a good time to start – we’ve got just the program for you.

The Education Writers Association is accepting applications to join our new “Reporting With Education Research” program. Eligibility is a benefit of EWA membership, which is free for qualifying journalists.

Getting a handle on the scholarly research that is relevant to the issues you cover can make for stronger journalism. For example, what’s the evidence on high-dosage tutoring as a way to improve student achievement? Do smaller class sizes help students learn? What are the key barriers to increasing college enrollment and attainment among young people of color?

This EWA program is designed to build your skills, knowledge, and confidence to find and effectively use scholarly studies to inform your news coverage. Targeted at journalists with at least two years of experience covering education, the program has several dimensions.

Participants will:

• Join a virtual community with fellow journalists (and expert presenters), meeting three times in May for one-hour, interactive workshops. The first online meeting will take place on Wednesday, May 4, at 1 p.m. Eastern.
• Take part in an EWA online mini-course designed to give journalists a better grounding to tap scholarly research on the issues they cover.
• Bring a specific reporting project or story idea to the program to give focus and a concrete outcome to taking part.
• Receive one-on-one support on the reporting project from a working journalist with extensive experience reporting with education studies.

This program will help you become a more savvy consumer and user of research. You will discover new tools and gain a better grounding on where to find credible education research, how to assess the findings, and what limitations and/or red flags to be aware of. Participants also will get tips on important questions to ask when interviewing researchers about their work, and help with expanding and diversifying their virtual rolodex of education scholars.

This program is no longer accepting applications.