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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The Educated Reporter: Ten best in 2010.

The Educated Reporter: Ten best in 2010.

Ten best in 2010.

A lot changed in 2010. My hairstyle, my coast, my child’s sleeping habits. Oh, wait—this isn’t about me. Well, then. EWA got a new director. Everybody and their uncle Raced to the Top. Hollywood discovered schools, and I don’t mean as a backdrop for naughty or funny teacher antics. Oprah Winfrey and Mark Zuckerberg bonded over the plight of our schoolchildren. National magazines like the Atlantic, Slate and Time wrote about education more, it seemed, than ever. Beat reporters faced their own trending topics: furloughs, Twitter, Tumblr, tra-la-la.

It was the year of the teacher, of course. (You matter, you’re lousy, etc.) So it should come as no surprise that the topic shows up in so much of my favorite education journalism this year. The caveats here are multiple: One, this list reflects only my own opinion, not that of my EWA colleagues or the independent judges of our contest, which has nothing to do with me and which you should enter, by the way—you have four weeks. Two, I haven’t seen every single thing produced this year. Three, I’ll forget something.

That in mind, here is my list of the Ten Best Pieces of Education Journalism of 2010: