Zack Carreon
Zack Carreon focuses on how education budgets and policy decisions move from line items and statutes into concrete changes in classrooms, staffing and campuses for WVXU. He reports on local school districts and higher education, returning often to the tension between limited resources, political priorities and the expectations placed on public schools and colleges. His coverage links board votes, statewide debates and federal relief programs to the people who work and learn in those systems.
School funding, staffing cuts and ESSER’s aftermath
Carreon devotes sustained attention to how districts balance their budgets, especially as temporary pandemic aid expires. In covering a major decision by a large urban district to cut more than 100 jobs, he explains how board votes translate into reductions in teaching, assistant principal and manager positions, and what that means for the coming school year. His reporting on those cuts includes the role of federal COVID relief funds, showing how earlier investments in staffing and reading support now complicate efforts to close budget gaps. In broader coverage of school funding, he situates one district’s choices within a wider pattern of public districts tightening spending to close operating deficits, highlighting the trade-offs administrators face between personnel, programs and reserves. He often uses specific staffing numbers and detailed budget contexts rather than general statements, making the financial stakes and human impact clear for families and employees.
School boards, elections and district change
His work follows school boards closely, treating their meetings as key decision points rather than procedural formalities. When a board votes to approve staffing reductions, Carreon traces how that decision moved through the agenda, which roles are affected, and how it fits into multi-year financial planning. Around election cycles, he looks at how districts have changed over time and what is at stake in local votes, profiling a district’s evolution ahead of Election Day to show how shifting demographics, past financial strains and previous ballot measures shape current choices. He uses these stories to connect governance questions—such as whether voters renew support for their schools—to visible changes in buildings, programs and student experience. Across this coverage, he treats board members, administrators and community advocates as sources for concrete explanations, emphasizing outcomes over campaign rhetoric.
Higher education, DEI mandates and campus policy
Carreon’s education beat extends into higher education, where he reports on how colleges respond to statewide policy directives and cultural debates. In one prominent line of coverage, he examines colleges’ compliance with a state ban on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, raising questions about how campuses interpret and implement the law. Those stories focus on specific institutional actions and tensions between legal requirements, academic values and student expectations, rather than broad abstractions. By pairing campus-level reporting with the wider policy context, he allows listeners and readers to see how legislative mandates filter down into hiring, programming and student services. This work complements his K–12 reporting by showing how public policy shapes the full education pipeline, from primary schools through universities.
Teachers, unions and statehouse fights over vouchers
A recurring theme in Carreon’s reporting is the strained relationship between educators and state lawmakers, particularly around private school vouchers and school funding formulas. He highlights the perspective of teachers’ unions and federation leaders who argue that voucher expansion and related policies deepen a rift between classroom educators and political decision-makers. In pieces that touch on voucher debates and “fair school” funding efforts, he ties legislative outcomes to concerns about resources for public schools and the long-term stability of district budgets. By integrating union voices, policymakers and fiscal details, he presents voucher and funding fights as practical questions about what public schools can offer, not only as ideological disputes. This emphasis on front-line educators and their relationship with the state adds a labor and governance dimension to his education beat, rounding out his focus on money, policy and on-the-ground impact.
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.