Dear readers,
This has been a historic week for our country. Here’s how we covered the story at Chalkbeat:
- We chronicled the strong emotions and difficult debates that swept students, teachers, and education reform leaders in the communities we cover.
- We examined critical local election results that will affect schools in Colorado, Indiana, New York, and Tennessee.
- We reminded readers of what we know from our Indiana reporting of the education record of Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
We don’t yet know how President-elect Trump will shape the story we cover and care deeply about. Whether he will follow through on statements that he’ll dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, or on a proposed $20 billion grant to states in support of school choice for students living in poverty, remains to be seen.
Our job, as always, will be to chronicle what happens and track the consequences for the communities we cover. We will tell this story in same way we always have — by bearing witness, by making sense, and by holding strong to our independence.
As journalists, we will also monitor the way the president-elect shapes our own work. Assessing Trump’s statements about the press during his candidacy, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Committee to Protect Journalists called him “an unprecedented threat to the rights of journalists.” We don’t know whether their concerns will come to pass; we hope they won’t.
What we know for sure: Our country and the communities we serve need strong schools and strong, independent journalism, now more than ever.
We need to expand empathy, mobilize informed action, and bring people together around common understanding.
Education does that. Journalism does that. You’ve helped us do that. Let’s keep going.
Please consider donating to Chalkbeat today.
Elizabeth