Kayla Huynh
Kayla Huynh is an education reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel who covers K-12 schools, teachers and solutions-focused stories in Milwaukee and across Wisconsin. Her work follows how decisions in school systems play out in classrooms, with particular attention to teacher voice, student experience and efforts to improve outcomes rather than only expose problems.
K-12 systems, Milwaukee Public Schools and policy change
Huynh’s core reporting tracks the day-to-day evolution of K-12 systems, with a consistent focus on Milwaukee Public Schools and other local districts.
She explains major instructional shifts, such as changes in literacy curriculum that carry multi-million-dollar price tags and significant consequences for students and teachers. Her coverage of Montessori schools in Milwaukee examines why demand continues to outpace available seats, unpacking both the appeal of the model and the structural limits that keep families on waiting lists. She reports on restorative practices teams and other school-based interventions at moments of transition, showing how budget cuts, staffing changes and shifting priorities influence school climate and discipline.
Facility decisions also fall into her beat, including stories on students relocating from one campus to another and how those moves affect families, transportation and the continuity of schooling.
Teachers, staffing and the work of the classroom
A recurring thread in Huynh’s coverage is the experience of teachers and school staff. She reports on hiring strategies and staffing shortages, including efforts by Milwaukee Public Schools to recruit laid-off educators from other large districts to fill local vacancies. Her stories on educators receiving top honors, such as statewide awards from education-focused foundations, delve into what those recognitions say about classroom practice and leadership rather than treating them as simple announcements. In pieces on restorative practices and school discipline, she foregrounds the perspectives of staff who are asked to implement new approaches while navigating limited resources and competing demands. Across these stories, she treats teachers as primary sources on how policy lands in real classrooms, using their accounts to connect system-level decisions with daily work and morale.
Enrollment, school choice and funding pressures
Huynh regularly covers the numbers side of education: enrollment trends, school choice programs and the funding pressures that follow.
Her reporting on declining public school enrollment in Wisconsin and the growth of vouchers lays out how shifts between traditional districts, charter schools and choice programs alter budgets and options for families. She examines how these changes intersect with geography and governance, including districts located on federal land that feel the effects of national-level events such as government shutdowns.
In these pieces, she links data to concrete impacts, showing how enrollment patterns influence staffing, program offerings and long-term planning. The work often highlights tensions between policy goals and on-the-ground realities, without losing sight of the students and educators behind the statistics.
Community, students and school culture
Beyond policy and funding, Huynh devotes substantial attention to the culture of schools and the communities around them.
She writes about professional sports teams visiting local schools, capturing how those events are used to encourage attendance, achievement or broader engagement with students. Her coverage of community groups organizing holiday gifts and other supports for elementary students shows how local organizations and families step in to meet needs that extend beyond academics. Stories on new high school campuses and major facility investments explore how architecture, technology and location shape the student experience and neighborhood identity. When schools consolidate or relocate students to different buildings, she reports on the practical and emotional effects of those moves, listening to how families and students describe the disruption as well as any perceived benefits.
Across this work, she treats schools as community institutions, not just instructional sites.
Role, focus and background in education reporting
Huynh’s role at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is structured as a grant-supported, community-funded position dedicated to K-12 education, teacher perspectives and solutions-driven reporting.
That design aligns with the way her stories consistently look for what is working, what might work and how educators and families are trying to address long-standing challenges. Before joining the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, she reported on K-12 and higher education for The Capital Times, building experience with campus and school coverage that now informs her focus on kindergarten through high school.
Taken together, her body of work reflects a reporter embedded in the education beat who combines system-level coverage with close attention to the lives of students and educators.
4 more education journalists.
Bridie Short
Bridie Short reports on how learning environments shape young people’s experiences and their engagement with wider issues. She writes about education for Lynn News, a local news publication with a focus on community stories. Her coverage centres on classrooms and other learning settings, with attention to the people and events that define daily life there. She has written about drama students paying homage to the climate emergency with a performance, framing their creative response as part of their educational experience and blending arts coverage with an education lens. Her education reporting sits within a broader community news agenda, linking school and college stories to general news. Her pieces are grounded in concrete events and activities, showing what students and staff are doing rather than focusing on abstract policy.
Catherine Strohfeldt
Catherine Strohfeldt reports how education policy, money and behaviour collide in Queensland classrooms and childcare services, focusing on what government decisions mean for students, families and teachers day to day. She is an education reporter at Brisbane Times covering schools, universities and early learning alongside related state policy. She often starts with a single school, subject or provider to explain shifts in funding, discipline and workforce conditions, treating suspension statistics, surveys and on-the-ground accounts as complementary evidence. Her work links school fees, capital funding and teacher pay deals to who can access which schools and on what terms. Her beat extends into childcare chains in crisis and university leadership and governance. She also covers Queensland government, planning and environmental issues, showing how housing, health and coastal decisions reshape the communities in her education reporting.
Charles Bliss
Charles Bliss is a features-led reporter at the Eastern Daily Press whose distinct focus is education told through human stories about schools, pupils and the adults who work with them. He writes about what it feels like to be in a classroom or school community, using specific events, characters and concrete activity to show how reading, creativity and wellbeing are encouraged in young people. His education coverage centres children and teachers rather than policy, turning visits, campaigns and workshops into narrative pieces with practical detail. He gives particular weight to wellbeing, mental health and sensory learning, linking health, psychology and horticulture through tangible examples. Alongside education he covers health, environment, behaviour, everyday guidance and local innovation, using plain explanation, step-by-step advice and narrative structure to show how people learn, adapt and look after each other in their communities.
Conor Duffy
Conor Duffy stands out for linking education policy to the daily lives of students, parents and teachers, treating the classroom as part of a wider social system. He is the ABC’s national education and parenting reporter. His beat spans schools, universities and family life. He covers education policy, test scores, rankings, funding, teacher workload, behaviour, school refusal, student wellbeing and parenting stress. He reports on NAPLAN, university rankings, the Job Ready Graduates legislation and the cost of humanities degrees. He also covers privacy and school data. His reporting combines hard data, policy detail and personal stories. He has also done foreign, environment and investigative work for the ABC, including as North America correspondent, and has worked across Lateline, 7.30 and AM.