For more than a year, ProPublica has been examining the U.S. education system. In Arizona, reporters Eli Hager and Lucas Waldron examined the complexities, lessons and failures of the nation’s first universal school voucher program as a model for where the whole system seems to be headed. Across the South, Jennifer Berry Hawes has been investigating how segregation academies that remain predominantly white continue to play an integral role in perpetuating school segregation — and, as a result, racial separation in the surrounding communities. Now, we’d like to help enable other journalists around the country to report on how private schools play a role in perpetuating school segregation.
In this hourlong webinar, ProPublica reporters will demonstrate our new database, which allows users to look up the demographics of private schools compared with the public schools nearby. They will define key terms, showcase search features, explain what the data says and its limitations, and walk through examples of how the information might be used to tell stories locally. If you would like the region you report on to be considered as an area we cover in the tutorial, please include that geographic information below in your RSVP.
Our speakers include:
- Sergio Hernández, ProPublica news app developer
- Nat Lash, ProPublica news app developer
- Ken Schwencke, ProPublica senior editor for data and news apps
- Jennifer Berry Hawes, reporter with ProPublica’s South newsroom