Zachary Schermele
Zachary Schermele covers how federal power struggles and political decisions reshape American education for USA TODAY, with a focus on what those choices mean for students, families and institutions. His reporting sits at the intersection of education policy and national politics, following the Education Department, Congress and the White House as they fight over funding, regulations and the future of federal oversight. He writes and appears on camera as an education reporter, and takes on live explanatory roles when policy debates break quickly in Washington. Across platforms, he works as a detail‑driven, policy‑literate reporter who emphasizes both the mechanics of government and their human consequences.
Federal education policy and agency battles
Schermele regularly examines efforts in Washington to weaken, reshape or even abolish the federal role in education. He has covered attempts to close the Education Department outright, explaining the legal, bureaucratic and political hurdles that make dismantling a cabinet‑level agency far more complicated than campaign slogans suggest. His work includes video explainers on regulatory changes inside the department that effectively strip away parts of its mission, treating those shifts not as inside‑baseball but as structural changes to how federal education policy works. In covering proposals to shield special education services from a restructured federal agency, he follows how arcane legislative language and agency design choices can alter protections for some of the most vulnerable students. His stories in this space often track who gains and who loses power when federal education responsibilities are moved, cut or reassigned.
Congress, shutdowns and the politics of schooling
Alongside policy coverage, Schermele reports from Capitol Hill on how congressional fights spill into the education system. During a recent government shutdown, he filed on‑the‑ground dispatches from Congress, outlining what stalled negotiations and looming furloughs could mean for federal education workers and programs dependent on annual appropriations. In video segments and quick‑turn news hits, he walks through procedural steps on the Hill, then connects them back to real‑world consequences for schools, colleges and students. He also explains how broader political upheavals — such as the ouster of a cabinet‑level security official — reverberate across committees, oversight efforts and the policymaking bandwidth available for education issues. That combination of floor‑procedure detail and policy impact makes his congressional coverage useful for understanding where education fits within larger Washington confrontations.
Higher education, research funding and student debt
Schermele devotes significant attention to colleges and universities, especially where higher education intersects with national security, research funding and student loans. In one prominent USA TODAY feature, he reported on efforts by the Trump administration to cut off funding for major research universities, probing whether those cuts could give strategic advantages to competitors such as China. That story reflects his habit of following the money — tracing how federal dollars, grant rules and geopolitical concerns play out on campuses. He has also moderated public discussions with policy experts on how to hold colleges accountable for outcomes like graduation rates and graduates’ earnings, digging into debates over gainful‑employment rules and other accountability mechanisms. On social platforms, he tracks fights over new student loan caps and repayment regulations, translating technical rulemaking into plain‑language updates during key votes and hearings. Across this higher‑education work, he treats universities as part of a larger federal policy ecosystem rather than isolated institutions.
Approach to the beat and prior experience
Schermele is described as a compassionate, “wonky” reporter who is explicitly interested in how policies affect people and how people, in turn, shape policy. That sensibility shows up in his education coverage, which pairs close reading of statutes, regulations and budget documents with attention to the students, families and educators who live with the results. He is recognized among national education reporters and participates in media conversations reviewing how the education beat is covered across outlets, which reinforces his focus on both accountability and clarity in policy reporting. Before joining USA TODAY’s national desk, he reported on higher education and politics for other news organizations, experience that informs his comfort with both campus issues and federal power struggles. Across his current work, he consistently treats education not as a local silo but as a core arena where national politics, law and public spending collide.
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.