The press about special education
What topics about special education are journalists focusing on covering? What should they cover?
The Education Writers Association is a long-standing professional group of journalists who report news and features about education. EWA’s members cover many different “beats” including early learning, K-12 education, higher education, and more. One of those topical foci is special education.
The EWA Web page devoted to special education has this lede:
Shrouded in legalese and confusing acronyms, special education can be a daunting topic to cover for even the most experienced education reporters.
The page includes links to these subtopics:
Data/Research: Special Education
History and Background: Special Educaiton
Glossary: Special Educaition
Five Questions to Ask: Special Education
The page also points to a specific article with background on special education and suggestions for journalists writing about it. It’s fewer than 300 words and provides links to pretty basic content (e.g., acronyms, categories, etc.).
Another story, however, has a bit more substance. Marie Fazio of The Advocate of Baton Rouge (Louisiana) wrote “Covering Special Education Basics and Trends: Amid rapid federal policy shifts, reporters and a legal expert share advice on covering special education and highlight the latest trends” on 9 September 2025. In her story, Ms. Fazio reported about a presentation by a panel of experts who spoke at a meeting of education writers.
Often riddled with acronyms and legalese, special education can be a highly complex topic on the education beat. But amid federal threats to legal protections for special education students, it’s an increasingly vital part of coverage.
During the Education Writers Association’s National Seminar in St. Louis last May, panelists shared practical guidance for covering the evolving special education landscape in light of recent shakeups at the federal level and spoke about their recent reporting.
Ms. Fazio reported take-aways from the panel discussion. These included “basics of special education (US Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and funding), trends (office closures, lawsuits, changes in public attitudes), reporting tips (follow Office of Civil Rights reports, get actual records, and attend public meetings), and resources (organizations and data sources).
Sadly, no panelist appeared to have a background as a special educator, but that’s quite understandable, as it was a session aimed at journalists. I would like to see journalists who write about special education and disabilities have a strong and well-informed background about our world. I’ve discussed this concern with a couple of reporters.
You, Dear Readers, know what is the usual coverage of special education. There are the usual up-lifting success stories (often around graduation season). some occasional coverage of some new initiative by local schools that is supposed to help kids with some certain disability, the search-and-rescue effort for an individual with disabilities who wandered off from a recreation facility, and so forth. And, press coverage sometimes carries misinformation (e.g., the term “learning disability” is used as a generic descriptor for students with disabilities; reporters uncritically advance discredited ideas such as learning styles, etc.).
So I’ll be contacting some of the folks at EWA with questions and suggestions. If you have some ideas about how to build up a strong base of knowledge for reporters covering special education and disabilities, please write me a note about them—or just share those ideas as a comment on this post.