We have exciting news: As we previewed in March, we’ve spent the last 10 months working with EdNews Colorado, the award-winning education news site based in Denver, to form a national education news network. Now we can tell you the new name of that network.
Meet Chalkbeat. Here in New York, you’ll know us as Chalkbeat New York.
And that’s the other news. We’re also opening two new bureaus, one in Memphis, Tenn., and the other in Indianapolis. Those are Chalkbeat Tennessee and Chalkbeat Indiana.
Why are we going national? We launched GothamSchools five years ago because we believe in the power of excellent education reporting that lives in and holds itself accountable to a local community. And almost since we started, we’ve gotten requests to bring our models to other communities.
We took a giant step toward doing just that when we teamed up with EdNews Colorado. By sharing some of the core tasks it takes to run a sustainable news organization across multiple “bureaus,” we realized we could make our reporting better and ensure that it lives longer, too, even in a time when journalism can be an uncertain endeavor.
Seeking strength in numbers has allowed us to make our New York City team larger and stronger than ever. Since the beginning of 2013, we have expanded our reporting staff and added a community editor to improve the way we interact with the people and communities that we cover.
Becoming Chalkbeat brings us even more talented colleagues. Scott Elliott, the president of the Education Writers Association and until a few days ago the education reporter at the Indianapolis Star, will lead Chalkbeat Indiana. Daarel Burnette, who just left the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s all-star education team to create one of his own, will run Chalkbeat Tennessee. Their reporting starts today; you can start following along as they get started here and here.
USA Today got word of our news and ran a story about Chalkbeat today. Check it out for more about how we got here and where we’re going — plus glamour shots of our fancy Brooklyn office.
We saved some details for our faithful local readers, though, and you’ll learn more in the coming weeks. Here’s one hint: Our website will get a long-overdue facelift.
Until then, look out for interesting links from Memphis and Indianapolis here — and know that we could not and would not be doing this without you.