Parents assist children in a fourth grade math class. Photo by Bill Batson, The Omaha World-Herald.For at least a decade before The Omaha World-Herald published its five-part series “The Learning…

In education, it’s the era of accountability. Teachers are tested to measure their ability to instruct. Students take standardized tests to find out what they have learned and where they…

Ten young teens draped themselves over chairs, forming a sloppy circle in the center of an empty middle-school classroom. I sat on the edge of the circle, an outsider looking…

I knocked on the coach’s office door in the visitor’s clubhouse at Durham Bulls Athletic Park.“Come in,” said Stump Merrill, the gruff manager of the Columbus (Ohio) “While in the…

Reporting the Story and Pitching in to Fix the Problem

For two days in late September, Bebe sold the crack cocaine rocks known as “Cookies” in the pouring rain—cold and alone. While other kids were in school that morning, Bebe…

Photo by Michelle Patterson, The Lexington Herald-Leader.Education writers often try to measure the success of their local schools by analyzing such things as test scores, class sizes and poverty rates.…

Pages from Gene Graham’s Nieman year sketchbook.Confession: I actually went to journalism school. And now I teach in one. But I’ve also spent plenty of time in newsrooms, a dual…

I don’t particularly like thinking about what I might do after I earn my master’s degree in journalism. J-school, for all the work and worry, is more fun than any…

A newsroom for journalism students. Photo courtesy Medill School of Journalism.Most of us know the frustration of desire outpacing ability. But what about coping with the reverse? What happens if…