Antoinette Grajeda
Antoinette Grajeda covers Arkansas education policy with a close eye on how statewide decisions show up in classrooms and student outcomes. She is a deputy editor at the Arkansas Advocate and continues to report, bringing long experience on public policy and social systems to current debates about schools and learning.
Education policy, student performance and statewide reforms
Her recent education reporting tracks the impact of major policy changes and accountability systems on student performance. In coverage of Arkansas students’ annual test scores, she reports how proficiency increased across every major content area, breaking out gains in mathematics, English language arts, science and specific end-of-course exams to show where students are advancing fastest. She follows statewide assessment releases closely, noting year-over-year shifts in proficiency rates and calling out subjects like algebra, geometry and biology where scores have moved notably. Her work on new statewide requirements under the LEARNS Act examines how legislative reforms translate into obligations for schools and families and how those requirements are reshaping the education landscape.
She also focuses on choice and funding mechanisms, including education voucher programs. In a widely cited story, she reports that nearly 5,000 Arkansas students and dozens of schools applied for a new voucher program, documenting how quickly families and institutions responded to the new option and what that uptake means for public school systems. Across these pieces, she grounds policy coverage in concrete numbers and program details, drawing out the practical consequences of reforms for students, educators and districts rather than staying at the level of political rhetoric.
Broader public policy and justice coverage
Alongside her education beat, Grajeda continues to report on other state-level policy and legal issues. She has covered criminal justice and governance through stories such as the Arkansas Supreme Court allowing the prison board’s lawsuit against the governor to proceed, explaining the legal posture of the case and its implications for how correctional facilities are managed. Earlier biographical notes describe her as a multimedia journalist who has reported since 2007 on politics, health, education, immigration and the criminal justice system, reflecting a background in complex, often contentious policy areas.
This breadth informs her education reporting, which often situates school debates inside larger questions about government authority, civil rights and access to services. Her coverage tends to connect agency decisions, court rulings and legislative actions back to their effects on everyday Arkansans, whether they are students sitting for statewide exams or residents affected by shifts in criminal justice policy.
Multimedia reporting and public-facing work
Grajeda works across platforms as a multimedia journalist. She appears on public radio to discuss Arkansas Advocate stories, including pieces on education and other statewide issues, extending her reporting into audio formats for broader audiences. She also amplifies her coverage on social media, where posts highlight findings such as improvements in student proficiency and explain new education requirements in accessible language and short video segments. This cross-platform approach allows her to present detailed data and policy analysis in formats that are easy for non-specialist audiences to understand.
In her current role at the Arkansas Advocate, she combines editing responsibilities with ongoing reporting. Her long tenure in Arkansas journalism and experience across politics, health, education, immigration and criminal justice mean she brings context and historical perspective to new stories, particularly as the state undertakes significant reforms in its school system.
4 more education journalists.
Abdul Latif Jameel
Abdul Latif Jameel publishes long-form, research-led pieces on how emerging technologies and scientific advances reshape education, industry, and society. He writes for the Abdul Latif Jameel masthead at the intersection of learning, innovation, and applied science, with a focus on technology, skills, and the future of learning. He explains complex fields such as quantum sensing in clear, accessible terms, breaking down frontier science and tying it to real-world applications. His coverage links breakthroughs in sensing, data, and automation to training, curriculum, and lifelong learning. He treats education as an applied system connected to industry, policy, infrastructure, and human development. He reports in an analytical, explanatory style, using research, pilots, and large-scale initiatives to examine how technologies are implemented, evaluated, and scaled in learning and training environments.
Adria Iraheta
Adria Iraheta is a community-focused reporter at Denver7, distinct for centering students, families and residents in every story about schools, neighborhoods and public services. She covers how decisions by school districts, local agencies and public institutions land in daily life, with a particular focus on Aurora and Arapahoe County. Her beat sits at the intersection of education, community issues, public services, safety, infrastructure, health and climate, from job cuts in a school district to a new transit safety app, DMV outages, street changes and record heat waves. With a decade of local television reporting experience, she reports on the ground in specific local scenes, using plain language, direct questions to officials and clear explanations to show how policies, programs and changes affect the people who live, study and work in Colorado communities.
Alan J. Borsuk
Alan J. Borsuk stands out for connecting what happens in schools to the policy and political decisions behind them. He writes in-depth K-12 education analysis for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and serves as a senior fellow in law and public policy at Marquette University Law School. His work focuses on Milwaukee Public Schools, school choice, literacy, teacher pipelines, and school accountability. He uses long-range perspective, detailed reporting, and structured analysis to explain how reforms unfold, why they stall, and what they mean for students and leaders. He has also written on vouchers, Teach for America, discipline, and teacher evaluation, drawing on decades as a reporter and editor on education and public policy.
Alexandra Hardle
Alexandra Hardle brings a watchdog lens to K-12 schools, using concrete incidents to map how district power, oversight and accountability work in real life. She covers K-12 education for The Arizona Republic, focusing on school systems, governance and the lived impact of policy on students, families and educators. Her reporting shows how school governance can fail students and staff and what that reveals about district culture. She often covers flashpoints, such as the Nazi salute fallout in the Deer Valley district, as windows into deeper dysfunction, tracking how leadership responds, how trust breaks down and how conflicts unfold in public meetings. Her work sits at the intersection of accountability reporting and community stories, grounded in public records, formal rules and multiple stakeholder perspectives, with clear, direct language that explains how institutions make decisions and how ordinary people experience them.