Tampa Bay Times reporters Michael LaForgia, Cara Fitzpatrick and Lisa Gartner won the Pulitzer Prize in local reporting Monday for their coverage of a local school board’s “failure factories.”
Gartner was an education reporter at The Washington Examiner before she went to the Tampa Bay Times.
The trio investigated the Pinellas County School Board, exposing dreadful academics and violence in five St. Petersburg, Fla., elementary schools. According to the Pulitzer entry cover letter, “Just five days after the Tampa Bay Times published ‘Failure Factories,’ the opening of its investigation into the re-segregation of Pinellas County schools and the neglect of black students, the superintendent stood before a meeting of angry parents and grandparents. … School leaders — through their actions, their neglect and a blind-eye to the consequences of both — created five of the worst schools in Florida.” Their reporting led to a federal investigation into how the district uses federally-provided funds for schools serving low-income families.
“This is a great honor and recognition of the Times’ commitment to its community,” said Tampa Bay Times editor Neil Brown.
In the five schools investigated, 95 percent of black students were failing reading or math.
That level of academic failure is shameful, but the violence at the schools is even more shocking. “At one of the schools, a second-grader threatened to kill and rape two girls while brandishing a kitchen knife he carried to school in his backpack. At another, a 9-year-old hit a pair of kindergartners in the head with a souvenir baseball bat,” the Tampa Bay Times’ Aaron Sharockman writes in the paper’s Tuesday front-page story covering its prizes.
The schools also struggle with teacher turnover. “In some cases, children cycled through a dozen instructors in a single year.”
The schools all ranked among the 15 worst schools in Florida. But it wasn’t always that way. In 2007, none of the schools ranked lower than a C (today they all have F ratings). In December 2007, the school board ended integration and started funding the schools “erratically.”
Secretary of Education John King congratulated the three reporters on Twitter Monday, saying “Congrats @laforgia_, @Fitz_ly, @lisagartner & @fstockman on @PulitzerPrize. You wrote powerful education stories that needed to be told.”
Congrats @laforgia_, @Fitz_ly, @lisagartner & @fstockman on @PulitzerPrize. You wrote powerful education stories that needed to be told.
— John King (@SecretaryKing44) April 18, 2016
Gartner tweeted, “Thank you, everyone, so so much. We are lucky and grateful to work for the @TB_Times. #FailureFactories.”
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
