The Education Writers Association announced this week that the “Invisible Walls” series, by the Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica, won first place in its National Awards for Education Reporting in the Investigative Reporting (Smaller Newsroom) category. EWA also named a series of stories by ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune examining how the pandemic exposed inequities in education as a finalist in the News (Large Newsroom) category. The awards competition recognizes the top education journalism across the country.
“Invisible Walls,” a project of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network in partnership with the Connecticut Mirror, investigated the connection between long-standing systemic housing and school segregation in Connecticut. Reporter Jacqueline Rabe Thomas’ expertise in education reporting allowed her to quickly grasp how some towns used lucrative local contracts for school board legal work to pressure law firms to abandon affordable housing clients. In another examination of the state’s affordable housing crisis, Rabe Thomas followed the efforts of one local woman in her quest to find better schools and housing for herself and her five children — spotlighting how families with government housing vouchers have limited options for living in safer communities with higher-quality schools. It also showed the discrimination experienced by those who win housing vouchers through Section 8, the largest rental assistance program in the country.