StateImpact Florida Is A Winner

Susan Ujka Larson Collection / Flickr

StateImpact Florida won first place for journalism blogging in the Education Writers Association awards.

The Education Writers Association announced its national awards today, and StateImpact Florida took home the top prize for journalism blogging.

Our collaborative investigation with the Miami Herald looking at the number of charter schools enrolling students with severe disabilities took second place in the investigative broadcast category.

We’ve only been up and running since August, but the blogging award recognizes our coverage of a range of pressing education issues including how well schools serve students with disabilities, recent changes to Florida’s system of lottery-funded college scholarships, and Gov. Rick Scott’s singling out  anthropologists as a means of overhauling state universities.

The broadcast investigative reporting award is for an extensive collaboration between StateImpact and The Miami Herald that first aired in December 2011 called, “No Choice: Florida Charter Schools Failing To Serve Students With Disabilities.”

The investigation found that 86 percent of Florida charter schools failed to enroll any students with severe disabilities, despite state and federal laws requiring charter schools to provide equal access to such students.

The awards will be presented on May 19th at the EWA’s annual conference in Philadelphia.

Here’s a sampling of some of our favorite stories. Thanks for reading.