For the past eight months, The 74’s journalists have worked tirelessly to bring you news and insights about the historic and unfolding crisis faced by students, parents and educators as COVID-19 upended our educational system, in an often chaotic, haphazard and ultimately harmful fashion. We believe, in fact, that we are witnessing the most radical and inequitable disruption in modern education history. We’ve also witnessed, in this short time span, a nationwide reckoning about the fundamental racial inequality in many American institutions, from the criminal justice system to the workplace to the sporting world and, yes, to our education system.
These two crises intersect directly with The 74’s central mission: to spark and sustain a sense of national urgency about how to give America’s 74 million children the education they deserve — irrespective of their ethnicity or their means. And as The 74 looks ahead to the coming year, our editorial team is committed to helping our audience understand the dire risks and challenges facing students … and the rays of hope that some innovative strategies are bringing.
The reporting you see on The 74, which began with our launch in 2015, is financed solely through donations. In creating this video, we set out to capture some of our strongest work in the hope that it would inspire you, our loyal readers, to be part of that support network. Between now and the end of the year, The 74 has teamed up with NewsMatch to amplify donations that we receive from our readers. For every dollar we raise up to $11,500, NewsMatch will double it. Trusted journalism like ours has never mattered more. We’d welcome your help.