Annie Waldman

Reporter

Photo of Annie Waldman

Annie Waldman is a reporter at ProPublica covering health care. A piece she published with The New York Times on a New Jersey student debt agency prompted a new law and several new bills, aimed at increasing consumer protections for student borrowers and their families. Following her reporting on the largest accreditor of for-profit colleges, the U.S. Department of Education stripped the agency of its powers. Her reporting with Erica Green of The New York Times led to a federal civil rights investigation of discrimination against Native American students on a reservation in Montana.

In 2018, she contributed to the “Lost Mothers” series, which investigated the high rate of maternal mortality in the United States. This series won the 2018 Goldsmith Prize for investigative reporting, received a George Polk Award, a Peabody and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for explanatory reporting. Following her reporting on maternal mortality in New York, the city launched a $12.8 million initiative to reduce maternal deaths and complications among women of color.

She graduated with honors from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia, where she was the recipient of the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship and the Brown Institute Computational Journalism Award. Her stories have been published in The New York Times, the Atlantic, Vice, BBC News, The Chronicle of Higher Education and Consumer Reports.

She has been a finalist twice and won two awards from the Education Writers Association for her education reporting. She has won an award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers and was a finalist for the Loeb Awards for her reporting with Paul Kiel and Al Shaw on the racial disparity of wage garnishment.

Prior to joining ProPublica, she was a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Israel, where she reported on the plight of refugees from Darfur and Eritrea. She was also a recipient of a residency at Cité International des Arts in Paris, France. She had a documentary film in the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, on the lives of homeless high school students after Hurricane Katrina, which was later broadcast nationally on PBS. She produced "Phantom Cowboys," a documentary about male adolescence in small industry towns, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2018.

Her PGP Key ID is E8F41874.

Charlottesville’s Other Jim Crow Legacy: Separate and Unequal Education

The Virginia city has one of the widest achievement gaps in the U.S., and a ProPublica/New York Times analysis shows that white students there are about four times as likely as black students to be considered gifted.

Miseducation

Is there racial inequality at your school? Look up more than 96,000 individual public and charter schools and 17,000 school districts to see how they compare.

New York City Launches Initiative to Eliminate Racial Disparities in Maternal Death

A Central Brooklyn hospital featured in ProPublica and NPR’s “Lost Mothers” series for its high hemorrhage rate will serve as a pilot for quality reforms.

DeVos Has Scuttled More Than 1,200 Civil Rights Probes Inherited From Obama

Our data analysis shows that the Trump administration is less likely than its predecessor to find wrongdoing by school districts on issues ranging from racial and sexual harassment to meeting educational needs of disabled students.

Has Your School Been Investigated for Civil Rights Violations?

For the first time ever, ProPublica is making available the status of all of the civil rights cases that have been resolved during the past three years, as well as pending investigations. See if your school district or college is being investigated for civil rights violations and why.

Have You Experienced or Witnessed Civil Rights Violations at a School? Share Your Story.

Do you know something about a civil rights investigation at a school? Have you experienced or witnessed civil rights violations? We want to hear from you.

Shutdown of Texas Schools Probe Shows Trump Administration Pullback on Civil Rights

The U.S. Department of Education was investigating why black students in Bryan, Texas, are almost four times as likely as white students to be suspended. Then Betsy DeVos took over.

How Health and Education Journalists Can Turn Privacy Laws to Their Advantage

Government records officers frequently cite privacy restrictions to deny data requests. Here are some tips on how to overcome or sidestep these barriers.

How Hospitals Are Failing Black Mothers

A ProPublica analysis shows that women who deliver at hospitals that disproportionately serve black mothers are at a higher risk of harm.

How We Measured Birth Complications

Here’s the methodology for our analysis of birth complication rates.

Failing Charter Schools Have a Reincarnation Plan

Converting into private schools — and using voucher programs to thrive on the public dime.

Democratic Senators Condemn Betsy DeVos’ Record on Civil Rights

More than 30 “disappointed and alarmed” senators penned a letter chastising civil rights enforcement at the Department of Education.

Trump Administration Quietly Rolls Back Civil Rights Efforts Across Federal Government

Previously unannounced directives will limit the Department of Justice’s use of a storied civil rights enforcement tool, and loosen the Department of Education’s requirements on investigations.

Here Are the Financial Disclosures of Officials Trump Has Installed Across the Government

The financial disclosures come from White House staffers, President Trump’s Cabinet and hundreds of members of so-called beachhead teams that the administration has quietly hired at federal agencies.

Voucher Program Helps Well-Off Vermonters Pay for Prep School at Public Expense

Regardless of their income, residents of small Vermont towns can use state vouchers to send their children to boarding schools and ski academies. Some school-choice advocates want to replicate the program nationwide.

DeVos Pick to Head Civil Rights Office Once Said She Faced Discrimination for Being White

Candice Jackson’s intellectual journey raises questions about how actively she will investigate allegations of unfair treatment of minorities and women.

Former Lobbyist With For-Profit Colleges Quits Education Department

Under fire from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Taylor Hansen quit the department three days after ProPublica revealed his hiring.

Updated Debt by Degrees

Use our interactive database to search federal data on almost 7,000 schools in the U.S. to see how well they support their poorest students financially. Now updated with data from the 2014-2015 academic year.

For-Profit Colleges Gain Beachhead in Trump Administration

Taylor Hansen lobbied to weaken regulation of for-profit colleges. Since he joined the Education Department, it’s started doing just that.

Big Pharma Quietly Enlists Leading Professors to Justify $1,000-Per-Day Drugs

As it readies for battle with President Trump over drug prices, the pharmaceutical industry is deploying economists and health care experts from the nation’s top universities. In scholarly articles, blogs and conferences, they lend their prestige to the lobbying blitz, without always disclosing their corporate ties.

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