News and Insights
Education in the Wild: Tracking Education Media in the Real World
January 22, 2025
I’ve spent the last 25 years working in and around the education sector, in classrooms, after-school programs, and a large school district. I’ve helped with communications and public affairs initiatives aimed at supporting middle schoolers, teachers, and families and worked alongside nonprofits, for-profits, and government agencies. I’ve called New Orleans, North Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and Metro Boston home.
My roles have required a constant consumption of education news to stay up to date on important issues, and some quick math tells me that adds up to about 13,000 articles read. My “blink,” or thinking without thinking, is a microfilm or sizzle reel of education stories on many topics, spanning four presidents, numerous cultural trends, countless research papers, a handful of scandals, and a global pandemic.
Perhaps weekly, I am moved to tears of happiness, sadness, or rage. Over 200,000 children in the US have lost a primary caregiver due to COVID. Nearly 14 million children live in food-insecure households, relying on schools for essential nutrition. Fewer than 40% of teachers report earning a livable wage, and one in five works a second job to make ends meet. Given these realities, why wouldn’t anyone cry?
Yet educators and school leaders continue to show up daily, meeting challenges head-on while nurturing and teaching the next generation. Despite immense obstacles, students arrive at school ready to learn, their futures unwritten. And so there are also tears of joy.
I will never forget the scent of the air in my New Orleans classroom, 33 magical 7th graders dotting their “i’s” with hearts and playing second-line beats on their desks and knees, all of us unaware of the future natural disaster that was lying in wait to raze the city and its school system. Thanks to social media, I am still in touch with some of those “kids,” now with children of their own, marriages, and mortgages. Being a teacher is unlike anything else. The multi-tasking, the heartache and hysterics. I can picture the purple-orange sky as I trudged through a blizzard in East New York, Blackberry in hand, to meet with parent leaders for a school meeting, one of many that would set the future course for the building. We would later work together on the first-ever online parent-leader elections.
All of these moments happened within the broader political and policy context. Sometimes because of and occasionally despite it. The political landscape plays a critical role in education. And while something about the present feels especially fraught, the tension has always been thus. I can close my eyes and recall the sights, smells, and sounds from moments that, in hindsight, make up the patchwork of modern US education “history.”
As this administration and new state and district leaders implement their policy priorities, whether with renewed legislation, modified budgets, or competition for funding, our schools will feel the ripple effects. Locally, elected leaders will face pressure from their constituents to address pressing school issues, even if these concerns don’t align neatly with national politics. Schools are first responders of sorts, and whatever is happening, whether economics, health, or climate, it shows up at their doors and sits at their desks. Lest we forget, it is our children who manifest these abstract priorities and ideas in their own hopes and fears.
Education news will be critical to connecting the dots between political realities and human needs and consequences, intended or not. Reliable sources of information, particularly on the education beat, will be critical to our ability to continue to protect educational opportunities for all students and to honor the work our educators do every day.
Those working for organizations in and around our schools must stay informed on federal and state education policies to anticipate changes and provide support. We must be ready to navigate these complexities, contributing meaningfully to the dialogue and earning a place in the conversation. We must relentlessly pursue facts, even when they differ from our preconceived notions, staying current on the context and realities of the education landscape by regularly consuming trusted and verified information and engaging with the stories of educators and students daily.
The challenges in education are significant, but so are the opportunities. Let’s continue to hold ourselves accountable, support one another, and remember the weight—and privilege—of the work we do. If you’re searching for ways to make a contribution, may I recommend subscribing to your local news or donating to one of the incredible nonprofit news outlets tackling education? We need them more than ever.
POSTED BY: Jacqui Lipson
