Education Reporter

Job Description
Education Reporter
Help cover the vast education landscape in San Antonio with an eye for how state policy shapes the day-to-day experiences of students and educators.

The San Antonio Express-News seeks a curious, data-savvy education reporter to report on school systems across the greater San Antonio area. You'll break news, produce service journalism for families and deliver accountability and enterprise reporting that explains how policy affects students, schools and communities.

The Texas education system is a wonky and dense landscape - a successful education reporter will be eager to translate the jargon into meaningful journalism that helps our community advocate for better schools. You'll join a team of five reporters across San Antonio and Austin, so a collaborative spirit and willingness to include diverse perspectives is a must.

Responsibilities

• Join a team that covers early education, K-12 and higher ed in San Antonio, helping readers understand the impact of state education policy on local schools and students.
• Focus on education topics including special education, student discipline, curriculum and instruction, academic outcomes, teacher workforce issues and more.
• Break news and deliver quick-turn coverage to help inform readers about what happens day-to-day in our schools.
• Produce deeply reported enterprise stories that help readers connect their daily experience with challenges or trends across the broader education system.
• Build and maintain diverse sources among students, families, educators, policymakers and advocates.
• Report with a focus on the student perspective, highlighting broad policies that affect the daily experience of Texas students and their families.
• Analyze education data (STAAR scores, finance, enrollment, discipline) to identify trends, gaps and inequities.
• Collaborate closely with visuals, data and audience teams to enhance our journalism so it best serves our community.

Qualifications

• Genuine curiosity for Texas students' varied experiences with schooling
• Willingness to learn and ask questions about unfamiliar topics, receive feedback on storytelling and reporting tactics
• Eagerness to collaborate with fellow education reporters and other teams within the newsroom
• An ability to distill complex topics into easy-to-understand reporting
• 2–5+ years reporting experience (beat reporting preferred; education/policy experience a major plus
• Demonstrated accountability reporting and comfort with documents, budgets and data analysis
• Spanish proficiency strongly preferred

The Express-News is the third-largest daily newspaper in Texas and the only daily in San Antonio. It serves a metro area of 2.5 million people. By one name or another, it traces its roots back to 1865. Over the past three years, the paper has reorganized to focus on digital journalism and substantially increased the audience for its subscriber website, Over the same period, the Express-News has won a George Polk Award, two IRE (Investigative Reporters and Editors) Awards, and numerous regional and state journalism prizes.

The San Antonio Express-News is a division of Hearst Newspapers (HNP).

With 2,500 employees across the nation, HNP represents a network of 24 daily and 52 weekly publications, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News and Albany Times Union, marketing services businesses, and entertainment businesses such as King Features Syndicate.

At HNP, we are investing in new and innovative ways to tell stories – growing newsrooms, diversifying tools, evolving platforms – to support the millions of people who trust us each month to help them make decisions, take action and be inspired.

Be a part of something bigger – Your Headline Awaits.
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