education writers association

education writers association

Exploring the Impact of the Education Writers Association on Journalism and Education Policy

1. Introduction to the Education Writers Association (EWA)

The Education Writers Association is a national professional organization of more than 4,400 members dedicated to strengthening the public’s knowledge and understanding of education. Members of EWA are the experts at the forefront of the news today – whether covering student affairs, college admissions, state and federal higher education policy, or producing research that informs public understanding of the value of education and the work of journalists. Faculty, administrators, communications officers, policy makers, public agencies, analysts, community members, and others value the supply of weekend seminars, briefings for journalists, speakers, journalistic projects, and online resources provided by the Association. EWA’s mission is to strengthen the community of education writers and improve the quality of education coverage to better inform the public. EWA fosters collaboration between journalists who specialize in covering educational topics, and a national platform for those who want to learn from them. The organization empowers professors to better educate journalists who cover their practice, as well as other practitioners in education. It informs decision-makers about education issues. EWA works toward informed and well-educated public policy.

The Education Writers Association (EWA) inspires and nurtures quality education journalism. The organization got its start in early 1944 as EWA’s forerunner, the National Education Association of Journalists (NEAJ), received a two-year grant from the Carnegie Foundation to help improve education coverage. The group’s research director explored ways to involve more reporters in education stories, established better sources of news in the field, and provided a network for reporters to communicate with each other and with education specialists.

2. The Role of EWA in Shaping Education Journalism

EWA was founded in 1947 with under 10 members; today, it boasts more than 3,000 members from a variety of disciplines. EWA was founded by a journalist who sought to professionalize her colleagues and collect resources for them as well. This continues as a significant part of EWA’s mission, to both improve and protect the professional standards of journalism. EWA’s members use ed writing to define hot-button policy issues that require immediate action and can also feature charter schools instead of public ones. According to EWA, many parts of education journalism have insufficient experience and few substantial resources to cover their beat; as well, they are not using the best frames to tell urgent stories. EWA member journalists are often more senior, but less experienced in their beat than their counterparts at mainstream outlets. Increased focus on more regular reporting about education has resulted in better stories across a broader array of topics, resulting in better media coverage for education.

Education journalism has become a staple of our information diets and a driver of policy. Understanding the role of the Education Writers Association (EWA) provides insight into how education-related stories are conceptualized and presented. EWA has shifted the ways that stories about education are told, the topics that are considered worthy of covering, and the standards of reporting that are considered sacred.

3. EWA’s Influence on Education Policy and Reform

Based on these data, we developed the case studies of events that follow and conclude this paper. In these, we describe aspects of the work that EWA is doing around an episode in education reform in the nation’s capital. We trace the consequences for interpretation and action that follow from depicting the shape of action in one or another way. That shapes perplexity about the contrast between EWA’s elaboration of scholarly analysis and journalism, journalistic participants’ perception of practitioners of reform as haunted by narrow data, and people at another end of the policy process “grounded” in practice. We note that EWA’s work is primarily with those who have a particular relationship to the reform of schools, a reform that is usually featured in news accounts about the nation’s public schools. The journal Education, Knowledge, and Economy asked Repoliticizing the Politics of Education: Can Education Policy Be Evidence-Based? 25 the authors to use the three studies as a framework for their research project, to explore how policymakers and researchers explain the ways that evidence about ‘what works’ in education is interpreted and acted on.

The success of EWA’s efforts is evident in the national discourses concerning public education. The purpose of this chapter is to compare the ways in which participants at EWA conferences—education specialists, largely—are envisioning the relationship of their work to the process of journalism, with the ways in which journalists view it. Over 50 interviews were conducted with “beat” reporters, specialized in covering education news. Those interviewees provide the journalistic view. In addition, complete transcripts of three seminars were examined, as well as 33 presentations.

Each year, the Education Writers Association (EWA) hosts a national seminar for up to 600 professional journalists, education researchers, educators, and policymakers interested in news media coverage of education, education research, and the practice of teaching and learning. Having transformed into an independent professional organization in 1964, “from the very beginning, the association has included in its purposes the establishment and maintenance of a professional, non-stock corporation for journalists and others to ‘encourage and enhance the quality of education’ reporting” (History of EWA).

4. Challenges and Opportunities for EWA in the Digital Age

Education Journalism in the Digital Era Significant upheaval and a reshuffling of the deck in the U.S. news media industry have transformed what it means to be a journalist inside newsrooms, and how much education policymaking and practice are covered in the press. Although we did not want this chapter to be precisely about journalism’s fate, we start by discussing trends in the news industry because they have had a critical role in informing debate, shaping public opinion, and promoting transparency and accountability in society. Prior to the 21st century, print newspapers were the dominant source for news. With a majority of U.S. adults reading a daily paper, education coverage—then seen as the purview of city folks and suburbanites—was substantial and a staple of local, regional, and national news. Over the past two decades, digital news and digital news reporting has exploded. Mobile news viewership has overtaken desktop news viewership and newspaper readership across all age groups.

Ewa’s work has grown more complicated as more organizations become information sources for the media. Technological changes and the shift in how Americans consume media have affected both the nature of the association’s membership and media attention to substantive policy topics. The advent of digital communications channels has created opportunities for Ewa to build relationships with a wider audience than previously possible. In providing information to funders who supported the study, Ewa sought to showcase why journalism remains important.

5. Conclusion and Future Prospects

Elite education opinions and organizations have changed and grown to fit a changing media and political landscape. However, it is unclear the extent to which other organizations, including the federally chartered National Education Association, have been influenced. Such ambiguity is due in part to the fact that such organizations have not been examined in the same level of detail. Regardless, reviewing the changes and actions of both the Carnegie Task Force on Teaching as a Profession and the National Education Association shows the effect of the media and changing opinion. The last part of our analysis focused on EWA and its continued importance in light of a changed political and media landscape. Education historians and EWA should stay tuned.

The Education Writers Association (EWA) has played a significant part in shaping journalism in the area of education for more than 70 years. Nevertheless, dissecting EWA’s particular role in affecting education policy and American opinion is difficult for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being EWA’s high regard for assisting journalists and not advocating for particular policies or reforms. This paper has sought to underscore six facets of EWA’s contributions to the increased interest of elites in education and focus of the journalism profession, in particular the “white papers” that brought attention to numerous policy options for reform. In addition, and despite the organization’s professed principles, EWA has a tradition of making political and advocacy organizations more open and understandable for journalists. Thus, while EWA does not lobby, it has helped to shape the public image of lobbyist organizations.