EWA Reporting Fellowship: Applications Open for 18th Class

The Education Writers Association is pleased to announce a call for proposals for its 18th class of EWA Reporting Fellows. These micro-fellowships provide financial awards to journalists to undertake ambitious, enterprise reporting projects. 

To help journalists boost their reporting on key education issues, the 18th round will offer up to $5,000 to support stand-alone stories and smaller-scale projects. Recipients are also eligible to apply for additional funding in future fellowship rounds. 

“This is an opportunity for education journalists to move quickly on a project or story idea that they’ve been hoping to tackle,” said Kathy Chow, EWA’s executive director. “We’re delighted to have the chance to invest in their reporting.”  

To date, EWA has supported more than 150 reporting projects and provided more than $1 million in financial awards, resulting in innovative, impactful education stories in various media in communities around the country.

EWA selects reporting fellows through a competitive application process. Recipients have significant flexibility in how to use the funds, including travel for reporting, relief from regular newsroom duties, or attending workshops.

We are looking for projects that address any of the following topics:

• Efforts to remove structural barriers for low-income students in postsecondary settings.
• Efforts to help students navigate key transitions in their postsecondary journey, whether through workforce training, transferring between institutions, or entering or reentering the workforce. 
• Postsecondary education in prison and pathways to sustainable careers with a living wage.
• Efforts to improve and expand postsecondary access and success in rural areas, including through training and connecting students to good jobs. 
• Sector-based training and pathways for community college students in particular.
• Examining programs that give students greater flexibility in accruing credits toward workforce-relevant credentials, including counting validated learning experiences outside of the traditional classroom.
• Efforts to strengthen and diversify leadership in public K-12 schools, focusing on their impact on student learning and educator effectiveness.
• Efforts that investigate the principal pipeline and the professional development of future school leaders.
• Efforts to provide development and enrichment for children and teens during after-school hours, weekends and school breaks (including the summer).
• Efforts that highlight the impact of high-quality after-school and summer programs on academic achievement, life skills and career readiness.
• Efforts to improve the accessibility of high-quality arts education for all young people, particularly with an equity-centered lens. 
• Efforts to investigate the role that public schools, community organizations, private funders, and government agencies play in providing youth with rich opportunities for growth, learning, and fun.
• Efforts to foster effective social-emotional learning for children, especially those in underserved communities.

Please carefully review our FAQs to see these topics and other important information about the application process. 

The application deadline is 8:59 p.m. Eastern on Monday, April 1.  Recipients will be notified of their status by early May.