 Dear reader,
While admiring recent high school and college graduation photos of family and friends, I was thinking about the factors that can complicate the path to these achievements. One is pregnancy and parenthood.
Graduation rates for pregnant and parenting students have long lagged: Only about half of teen moms receive a high school diploma by age 22 and fewer than 2 percent of mothers under 18 complete college by age 30, according to studies.
In addition, federal civil rights laws that protect these students are often ignored, misunderstood or blatantly violated in public schools, as our deep reporting on this issue points out. Our story, published this week in partnership with USA Today, explores what will be needed if pregnant and parenting students are to thrive in a post-Roe world.
We are having a lot of related conversations about how education is and isn’t changing and how it can be improved this week in Orlando, where many of us are attending the 75th Education Writers Association National Seminar. It’s great to be having these discussions in person, and we’re also celebrating numerous awards and nominations for our work during the turmoil of the pandemic. The Hechinger winners this week were:
- News, Small newsroom: Jackie Mader, with Kavitha Cardoza & Kate Rix, for a series of stories, “The trauma epidemic,” published with The New Republic, USA Today and PBS Newshour
- Features, Midsize newsroom: Rita Omokha, for “The orphans Covid left behind,” published with Vanity Fair
- Features, Small newsroom: Caroline Preston, for “The jobs where sexual harassment never stopped,” published with USA Today
We’d love to hear your thoughts, as always, and we’re also asking New York City students to get in touch and tell us how they want Asian and Pacific Islander history to be taught. Finally, please remind others of a great way to keep up with education: sign up for our newsletters!
Liz Willen, Editor
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