Posts Tagged ‘education’
How to investigate subsidized tutoring
Florida’s mandated tutoring program used taxpayer dollars to hire firms run by criminals, cheaters and profiteers. Last year Tampa Bay Times reporter Michael LaForgia used invoice records, complaint reports, audits and interviews to report on the industry, which goes virtually unchecked by state regulators. In this series of clips LaForgia walks through how to investigate…
Read MoreHow to identify – and expose – inflated student enrollment statistics
Will Evans of The Center for Investigative Reporting explains how he started investigating an Oakland, Calif. church school that appears to have vastly inflated its enrollment numbers to collect extra taxpayer funding. “The place was in total disrepair, but the pastor drove an Escalade,” Evans said. In this first clip, Evans explains how he found…
Read MoreIRE Preview: Hone your campus coverage skills with our lineup of pros
Screen shot from Walt Bogdanich’s New York Times story on a flawed rape case at Florida State University IRE is expanding its vast panel lineup for our national conference in San Francisco to include sessions specially-designed for student journalists and others who cover college campuses and higher education issues. The track will cover topics such…
Read MoreNew digital book on future of journalism doubles as classroom tool
The Knight Foundation has published a new book titled “Searchlights and Sunglasses: Field Notes from the Digital Age of Journalism,” which looks at the challenges facing journalism and includes essays on investigative reporting. Written by Eric Newton of the Knight Foundation, the text is intended to double as a tool for journalism educators, with more…
Read MoreNew webinar: Watchdogging Lions, Tigers, Bears, et al: Inside college sports
Jill Riepenhoff of The Columbus Dispatch shares tips on investigating college sports, from how to examine the rule book and find story ideas to using the NCAA’s infraction database and digging into athletes’ mysterious departures from their teams. Watch it here. Riepenhoff has worked at The Columbus Dispatch since 1985 and as a projects reporter…
Read MoreBehind the Story: Orange County Register reporter stays patient and follows the money trail
Melody Petersen of The Orange County Register has two pieces of advice to offer reporters: stay patient and follow the money trail. Petersen investigated school bonds in Orange County after realizing schools were opting for expensive agreements that would push costs onto taxpayers decades after the initial bond was distributed. She found that school districts…
Read MoreFraud in the classroom: Cooking the books to make grades better
Test scores rocketed and plunged over several years at Annette Officer Elementary School in East St. Louis, Ill., often a telltale sign of tampering. The school district determined that cheating was “accepted practice. Photo: Hyosub Shin, AJC In Atlanta, 35 educators were indicted in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal, all but three of whom…
Read MoreBehind the Story: Sweeping FOIAs, document-mining reveal problems with Norway kindergartens
By John Bones, Verdens Gang Rather than a traditional front page, VG created this cover, which reads “Mom and dad think I am safe in the kindergarten, but is it true?” It started like an ordinary news story last October. One of our reporters, Frank Haugsbo, made Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the…
Read MoreWhat journalists can learn from this year’s Sunshine Week
Journalists don’t need more reason to celebrate public records, but Sunshine Week provides a time for swapping tips and tricks, successes and horror stories. The EditorialMatters blog in Iowa spent the week posting tips like advice on requesting records, finding stories in those records, and avoiding all-too-common mistakes. Watchdog Wire shared their own tips on…
Read MoreIRE members take home first and second prize of the Nakkula Award
IRE would like to congratulate IRE member Ryan Gabrielson of California Watch for winning the first place prize of the Al Nakkula Award for Police Reporting From the press release: “Gabrielson won for “Broken Shield,” an investigative series that exposed shoddy police work at California institutions for the disabled. His stories chronicle the activities of…
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