Eleven new students in the New York City area signed up to join the Report Card! Since it’s important to Report Card’s mission to be able to provide students with the resources they need to do reporting –– which we humbly attempt to fulfill with a $100 stipend for students’ reporting expenses –– I’m going to temporarily close the application until Report Card reaches its funding goal. Student stipends are supposed to be generated from audience donations, so Report Card can only be sustainable if we can make the $1100 for stipends for all 11 students. Donations will be used exclusively for student stipends.
After listening to feedback, I realized many folks aren’t fans of subscription-based donations. So in addition to Report Card’s Patreon for recurring monthly donors, I set up a GoFundMe for people who prefer one-time donations. Our immediate goal is to raise $1,100 so that all 11 students can receive a $100 stipend to cover their reporting costs.
Creating journalism costs money, which is a major barrier to entering the journalism world. In the city, you need to pay for transportation to get to the events you’re covering. You probably need to buy a drink or a snack somewhere because the city does not have sufficient access to public bathrooms and reporting in the field can take hours (especially when you factor in transportation time). In a school system where nearly 80% of the student population is considered “economically disadvantaged” and about 10% of the student population doesn’t have stable housing, the costs are an especially prominent barrier to journalism for students. Most of Report Card’s meetings will be held remotely, which means access to the internet is essential. Approximately 100,000 students in NYC (about ten percent) don’t have access to the internet at home, according to Chalkbeat reporting about a 2020 analysis from the city’s former comptroller. Some students may need to use some of their stipend to access the internet or pay for wifi. Then there’s all the equipment you need to record conversations, take photos and participate in our virtual meetings.
When donors contribute to Report Card, they are helping equip the next generation of journalists. In New York City, where 73% of public high schools don’t have a school newspaper, Report Card’s mission is to help equip students with the training, resources and guidance they need to hold their school system accountable with the power of journalism. When students join, they get trained to co-report a story about a local education issue. The training I provide is based on my experience as a middle school teacher, an independent education reporter and a journalism student in a masters program at CUNY. I believe the best way to learn how to be a better journalist is by doing journalism, so I have students get started right away. Students pick a local education issue they find interesting or important and then they dive in with research and reporting. I provide guidance and help throughout the entire process. The reporting and writing process can be time consuming, but hopefully educational and exciting.
Student reporting is published here, on Report Card’s Substack-based newsletter. Check out our pilot story about school admissions, written and reported by Report Card’s founding members. I think the work we did is proof Report Card can have an impact.
In addition to helping train the next generation of journalists, donors are also helping to fill a gap in the journalism ecosystem by providing resources for students to create student-centric education reporting. In New York City, we are lucky to have quite a bit of quality education journalism. But we don’t have enough education reporting that focuses on student perspectives. And we certainly don’t have enough student-centric reporting by student journalists. Since students are the most impacted group by the education system, they should be treated as the system’s most important stakeholders. As a student-powered news publication, Report Card aims to cover the education system from a student perspective and hold the system accountable to serving students’ needs. Donations will serve this goal.
Here is the GoFundMe once again. Here is the Patreon.
Thanks, everyone!