Resource Center

Stories

The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast.

These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need.

Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:



Search results for "Education" ...

  • Public Service Journalism Via Apps and Interactives

    The Texas Tribune uses government records lawmakers, agency chiefs, educators and influential state figures would rather not be public. Projects include a campaign finance database offers a comprehensive, searchable tool to see who's bankrolling their representatives. The public schools database provides extensive access to comparative data on all of Texas' school districts.

    Tags: data; government; statistics

    By n/a

    Texas Tribune

    2011

  • Spanish-language FOIA requests

    We undertook the project to explore the issue of language access and freedom of information. Our goals were threefold. First, we wanted to break new ground in open government with regards to language access by submitting FOI requests in Spanish. Second, we wanted to receive data from officials at city, country, state and federal levels to use as the basis for stories and articles that fulfilled our watchdog and public service mission. Third, we wanted to educated our colleagues and readers about their information rights so that they could have additional tools for their news production and consumption, respectively.

    Tags: FOIA; Spanish

    By Fernando Diaz; Jeff Kelly Lowenstein; Octavio Lopez; Jaime Reyes; Leticia Espinosa

    Hoy

    2011

  • Vitalistic Therapeutic Charter School

    The story focused on an obscure 10-year-old charter school in Bethlehem, Pa that taught mostly poor, mentally disabled and minority students through curriculum laden with intensive mental health therapy.

    Tags: Vitalistic Therapeautic Charter School; taxpayer; education funds; Bethlehem

    By Steve Esack; Devon Lash

    Morning Call (Allentown

    2011

  • Sink or Swim: Mavericks High Schools claim to help trouble students, but questions persist about their quest for profits from taxpayer money

    The investigation reveals that the for-profit charter school Mavericks in Education Florida drive for profit conflicts with the company's mission of helping at-risk kids graduate from high school. Maverick's graduation rates are abysmal, former employees allege its attendance records and grades are falsified, and the schcools receive "incomplete" grades from the Florida Department of Education. Using taxpayer funds, the company is promising thousands of kinds an education that it does not deliver.

    Tags: high school; mavericks; falsified; grades; frank biden

    By Lisa Rab

    Village Voice Media/New Times

    2011

  • Passing On Education

    "Passing On Education" details how administrators at one of Denver's lowest-performing public high schools, North High School, allowed students to cheat in online "credit recovery" courses, therefore artificially boosting the school's graduation rate amd making those administrators look good.

    Tags: Education; High Schools

    By Melanie Asmar

    Village Voice Media/Westword

    2011

  • A Shameful Low in Higher Education

    "This article uncovered flagrant disregard of the rights of disabled students at the University of Buffalo and highlighted how the university was breaking laws outlined by the ADA"

    Tags: ADA; higher education; student newspaper

    By Amanda Jonas

    The Spectrum

    2011

  • Rotten to the Core (McKay Scholarship Series)

    The story exposes fraud, mismanagement, and dangerous abuses in Florida's $150-million-a-year scholarship program. The story showed that the Florida Department of Education has almost no oversight over the schools receiving funds.

    Tags: scholarship; oversight; Department of Education

    By Gus Garcia-Roberts

    Village Voice Media/Miami News Times

    2011

  • No Choice: Florida Charter Schools Failing to Serve Students with Disabilities

    While Florida law says schools aren't allowed to turn kids away because it's too expensive to educate them, there is a loophole. The law says students with severe disabilities can only go to schools that provide the services they need. However, the investigation finds that most Florida charter schools do not offer those services.

    Tags: mental disabilties; disability; loophole

    By Sarah Gonzalez; John O'Connor

    WUSF Public Media/State Impact Florida

    2012

  • Your Right to Know

    A reporter for the Columbus Dispatch began publishing a blog designed to educate Ohioans about their rights to access public records and meetings. The blog is also used as a bully pulpit to point out government abuses in withholding records from the public and news media.

    Tags: blog; open records; Sunshine Laws; FOIA; Freedom of Information Act; public records

    By Randy Ludlow

    Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio)

    2010

  • Inside and Out

    Three years after Illinois broke off its youth prisons from the adult system, WBEZ set off to see what changed and found very little. Libraries without proper books, a locked computer lab, abysmal vocational education, and increasing suicide attempts characterized the youth prisons.

    Tags: youth prison; juvenile; prison; jail; treatment

    By Robert Wildeboer; Gabriel Spitzer; Adriene Hill; Sam Hudzik; Linda Paul; Carlos Javier Ortiz; Bill Healy; Cate Cahan

    WBEZ Radio (Chicago)

    2010