The Hechinger Report is a nonprofit news organization that is focused on producing in-depth education journalism.
Fewer and fewer reporters at the nation’s largest newspapers and wire services are covering national education issues full time. As a result, critical issues do not get the attention they deserve.
The Report fills that gap. Working with in-house and freelance reporters, The Report covers education issues, including investigative reporting and detailed analysis. From time to time we’ll also feature opinion from some of the leading thinkers in education.
You’ll find many of these stories in the pages of the nation’s biggest newspapers and websites. You’ll also be able to read all of them at this site.
The Hechinger Report is an independently funded unit of Teachers College, Columbia University.
Content published in The Hechinger Report — or content produced and disseminated by any of its collaborators with funding from the Hechinger Institute — does not necessarily reflect the views of Teachers College, its trustees, administration or faculty.
Fred M. Hechinger was education editor of The New York Times, an author of several books and an advocate for public education. The Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media continues his efforts to produce and promote high-quality education coverage.
Hechinger was born in Germany in 1920 and came to the U.S. in 1936. He completed his bachelor’s degree at The City College of New York and served in the U.S. Army during World War II.
Fred M. Hechinger
He began his career in journalism as a foreign correspondent, covering Europe and the Middle East for the Overseas News Agency before joining The Herald Tribune in 1950 as education editor. In 1959, he began writing for The New York Times.
“During his vigorous tenure at The Times, Fred Hechinger was the voice of wisdom, reason and conscience in the often-volatile world of education,” said Arthur Gelb, who was Mr. Hechinger’s managing editor at The New York Times. “His influence extended beyond his many articles and books, for he also served informally as a trusted adviser to public school chancellors, as well as deans and presidents of our leading universities.”
In his final “About Education” column, Hechinger looked back on his long career in education journalism:
My report of 31 years ago might suggest that little has changed. Americans have landed on the moon, but schools are still mired in earthbound problems, such as mastery of math and science. Junior high schools still await reform.
Some things have grown worse – poverty, disintegrating families, drugs, violence.
…Bad news must be reported. But the three decades since my first column have also seen good news, and I enjoyed writing about it.
…The best news always came from classrooms where children learned and enjoyed it: 6-year-olds huddled in “editorial conference” before writing their stories; a high school student, who had never read a book for pleasure, discovering “Catcher in the Rye” and asking if there were more books for him to take home.
But after leaving such good news classrooms, I would think about hundreds of thousands of youngsters who are never allowed to taste such pleasures. Should I have ignored the bad news – about a system that deprives the many of joy reserved for the few?
I tried to celebrate the islands of excellence, but I could not overlook the sea of neglect and apathy that threatened to wash over them.
Hechinger died in 1995. Teachers College President Arthur Levine established the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media a year later, calling Fred Hechinger “one of the most influential voices in education journalism in the past half century.”
The Hechinger Report is supported in its work by foundations both large and small. Because we are funded by a variety of philanthropies, we have the freedom to follow stories wherever they lead and to produce journalism about all aspects of education.
The Report is currently supported by grants from:
The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation
The Carnegie Corporation of New York
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Lumina Foundation for Education
We are also sponsored by American Institutes for Research.
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