Xochilt Garcia
Xochilt Garcia covers education for the San Antonio Report, focusing on how state policy, accountability systems and district decisions show up in the daily lives of students, families and educators. Her beat spans PK–12 and higher education, with regular coverage of school districts and the Alamo Colleges District. She combines detailed analysis of test scores and funding decisions with reported stories from campuses and communities, giving readers both the numbers and the human consequences behind them.
Accountability scores and state pressure on districts
Garcia reports closely on standardized testing and school accountability, using STAAR results and A–F ratings to track how local districts are performing and where they face state scrutiny. In “How did San Antonio schools perform on STAAR this year?”, she breaks down grade-level trends across English, math, social studies and U.S. history, highlighting both modest gains and ongoing gaps since the pandemic.
The piece walks through percentage changes by subject and grade, calls out districts with notable jumps in performance and underscores where low scores keep schools vulnerable to state oversight. Her work on A–F scores similarly notes that most local districts improved their ratings but that better grades did not remove the threat of potential state takeovers, tying performance data directly to governance risk.
Across these stories she treats test results as a system that shapes district priorities, not just a scorecard, helping readers see how accountability pressures influence staffing, resources and interventions.
Politics, policy and funding around Texas schools
Garcia covers how laws, regulations and budget choices reshape the work of school districts, colleges and educators. Her reporting on the Alamo Colleges District’s tax rate increase explains why the district moved to raise taxes for the first time in more than a decade and connects the decision to a budget shortfall and broader financial pressures.
She follows district plans to ask voters for more money, detailing how multiple local school systems are going to taxpayers with ballot measures and what they intend to fund. Stories on state-created curriculum and new promotion requirements for middle school students show how Texas policy changes ripple through classrooms, including mandates that students pass both math and reading to advance to the next grade.
Garcia also reports on school safety and policing, documenting how Northside ISD’s police department continues to struggle with hiring under the state’s armed-guard mandate two years after it took effect. Her coverage of a bill expanding parental power over school library content gives space to librarians who warn that a small group of parents could wield “outsized” influence over what students can read. She adds a governance lens through pieces on leadership, such as her report that the SAISD superintendent plans to retire in 2027 and her Q&A with a State Board of Education member who criticizes new social studies standards as a “whitewash” of history.
Together these stories map out the policy environment around schools, showing how political decisions translate into concrete changes in curriculum, staffing, safety practices and budgets.
Classrooms, campuses and community life
Alongside policy coverage, Garcia regularly writes from inside schools and neighborhoods, focusing on individual educators, students and families. Her feature on Northside ISD’s carpentry teacher spotlights a trades program recognized with a $75,000 award, using the story to illustrate the value of career and technical education and the opportunities it creates for students.
She has reported on a Southside elementary campus reopening with a new building and a renovated “Sunflower Cafe,” describing how the updated facility is set up for the first day of school and what the changes mean for the campus community.
In a piece on two Alamo Heights students and their mother detained at a bus stop, Garcia covers how parents and community members rallied around the family, emphasizing the support networks that emerge when immigration enforcement collides with school routines. Her work on school supply drives and giveaways ahead of the new school year points families to practical resources while underscoring the role of civic groups and districts in meeting basic student needs.
She also writes about special education and school choice, reporting that Texas’ education savings accounts can bring more funding for children with special needs even as families struggle to find schools that fit them. Across these stories she uses individual experiences to explain broader issues, making campus-level decisions and community responses central to her coverage of education.
Experience and newsroom role
Garcia serves as an education reporter for the San Antonio Report, with stated coverage areas that include PK–12 schools and higher education. Before joining the outlet, she was editor in chief of The Mesquite, a student-run news site at Texas A&M–San Antonio, and completed a reporting internship with the Boerne Star. Within the newsroom, she contributes to collaborative projects as well as daily coverage, sharing in a staff award for an online voter guide package focused on the 2025 city election.
Her beat work spans quick-turn news, explanatory pieces, data-driven coverage and Q&A formats, reflecting a role that bridges watchdog reporting on policy with frequent visits to campuses and community events.
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.
Abril Preciado
Abril Preciado is an Emmy award-winning bilingual television journalist at FOX6 News Milwaukee who focuses on education, school crises and policy decisions affecting students, families and staff. She follows school communities over months, from emergency response through investigations, relocation plans and the first day back in class. Her reporting on the Lincoln Avenue School fire covers displacement, safety changes, rebuilding and the move to temporary space. She also uses public records to examine local officials, test official claims and connect government conduct to public trust. Before joining FOX6, she reported for Univision in Sacramento, covering the Farm Workers March, wildfires, politics and the Latino community, and contributed border reporting for a national radio network. She centers families, explains complex decisions clearly and focuses on the human effects of policy.
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.