How I fell into education reporting

I knew nothing about education. I think that helped.

In some ways not much has changed since 1900. (Photo by London Metropolitan Archives/London Picture Archive/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

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When I first hopped on a bunch of phone calls this summer with education policy experts to talk about the rising test scores in Mississippi, I tried to be up-front about the fact that I wasn’t an education reporter. I didn’t know this beat at all. Like every parent, I had a lot of opinions about what worked and what didn’t for my kids, but I was probably ignorant of things education reporters know.

Parachuting into a new beat is a risky thing to do. I have covered AI for seven years, so I’m well acquainted with the pitfalls of New York reporters flying out to do three weekends of conferences and then authoritatively writing about What Silicon Valley Is Up To.

Journalists trying to get their footing in a new context tend to overrate the views of whoever seemed smartest when we talked to them; to collapse detailed and complicated coalitions into something simpler that you can tweet about; to overrate anecdotes or overrate data analysis depending on our temperament or preconceived ideas.