Zareen Syed
Zareen Syed is an education reporter at the Chicago Tribune whose work follows how policy, politics and equity debates shape life in schools and on campuses. She covers both K-12 districts and colleges and universities, with recurring attention to campus activism, student-led movements and the experiences of underrepresented communities. Her reporting combines daily coverage of board decisions, labor disputes and governance changes with longer narratives about civil rights, immigration enforcement and college access. She came to the education beat after reporting on suburban communities and school districts, building a niche around documenting how local conflicts over curriculum, diversity and discipline reflect wider national arguments.
School boards, district politics and classroom programs
Syed’s core coverage tracks school boards and district leadership as they make decisions that directly affect classrooms, staff and families. She has reported on agreements between school districts and unions representing support staff and paraprofessionals, including deals that end the use of temporary employees and reassert stable, permanent roles in schools.
Her archive includes stories on community elections within Chicago Public Schools where residents vote on who will oversee academic and social initiatives at individual campuses, treating school governance as a form of local democracy.
She has written on programs where child care centers operate as extensions of services for teen parents inside school districts, focusing on how these offerings help students remain enrolled while caring for their children. Earlier suburban reporting concentrated on diversity, equity and inclusion disputes in high school districts, such as coverage of an anti-racism consultant who withdrew a proposed training after receiving hostile messages from residents, a story she used to show how national fights over race and curriculum manifest at the district level. In profiles of her work, she is described as a regional education reporter responsible for hundreds of schools and for “identifying big issues in certain school districts,” which aligns with an archive heavy on board meetings, policy changes and classroom-facing programs rather than abstract debate.
Campus protests, civil rights and international students
Syed extends the education beat into civil rights and political expression on campuses, documenting how universities respond to student activism and how government policy reaches into academic spaces. She has covered University of Chicago students who set up a protest encampment in solidarity with Gaza, tracing the growth of the campus movement and the dynamics between organizers, administrators and law enforcement.
Follow-up reporting examines how University of Chicago Police cleared a pro-Palestine protest encampment in a brief raid, capturing both the tactical response and student concerns about escalation and future confrontations. Her coverage of demonstrations across Chicago campuses notes that protests have remained relatively subdued, with little direct police intervention, while students and experts still worry about the potential for more aggressive tactics.
In higher education pieces highlighted by a deportation research clinic, she reports on federal actions that revoke student visas from universities including the University of Chicago, Northwestern and the University of Illinois, connecting immigration enforcement decisions to the stability of academic communities. Companion stories describe Illinois schools’ relief after the legal status of some international students is restored and academics sounding the alarm on “viewpoint discrimination” as government targets student protesters, showing her sustained interest in how law, civil liberties and education intersect. She also writes narratives about underrepresented individuals in academic settings, such as a feature on a Syrian torture survivor who becomes a DePaul Law graduate, using personal history to illustrate broader questions about refuge, resilience and professional pathways.
Access, pathways and student support
Syed regularly covers the mechanics of access to education, from financial aid systems to new career pathways embedded in high school curricula. She has written explainers on the overhauled FAFSA, detailing what families need to know about federal student aid for the 2024–25 academic year after the government revised the form and changed the aid formula, including the impact of a delayed launch and technical issues on students’ timelines.
Her reporting on federal announcements about additional steps to support students navigating the new FAFSA continues that focus, treating bureaucratic changes as news that directly shapes college prospects for graduating seniors.
In coverage highlighted by an education-work newsletter, she reports on a cybersecurity pathway created by a partnership between Chicago Public Schools, City Colleges of Chicago and the Illinois Institute of Technology, explaining how high school students can earn up to 60 college credits and an associate degree before graduation. That piece emphasizes the planned expansion of the program across CPS high schools and frames it as an example of school systems aligning with workforce needs, another recurring theme in her work. Across these stories, she treats financial aid reforms, dual-credit pathways and student support services as structural levers that determine who can afford, access and complete higher education.
Food writing and lifestyle features
Alongside the education beat, Syed continues to contribute food and lifestyle coverage, a strand that reflects her earlier work on features for the Tribune’s content agency. She has been part of collaborative guides such as a patio roundup listing more than twenty spots to eat and drink outside, where her byline appears alongside other Tribune reporters on a service-oriented piece for diners. Her portfolio includes restaurant and chef coverage like a story on Chicago’s lone winner at the 2026 James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards, showing she still steps into the food world when major honors or notable openings intersect with local interest. In professional bios, she is described as a general assignment reporter with a focus on education who previously covered the western suburbs, including Hinsdale, and who occasionally works on food and feature stories on diverse topics, an accurate reflection of an archive that mixes beat reporting with cultural pieces.
Before her current role, she worked in broadcast and digital newsrooms, including NBC Sports Chicago, WGN-TV and Boston 25 News, experience that informs a concise, outcome-focused writing style across both education coverage and lifestyle features.
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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.