WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS

💥 Mission High School has sent the highest percentage of students to UC Berkeley of any California public high school during the past four years, but its students aren't prepared for the workload once they're admitted (SF Standard).

💥 This TikTok about a Texas district prohibiting teachers from posting Amazon wish lists has generated 377 comments — and traditional news coverage.

💥 In honor of Laura Meckler’s recently- announced move to another team at the Washington Post, here’s one of the bravest education stories she wrote: States are rushing to close schools. But what does the science on closures say?

💥 “When you repeat the outlandish claims made by tech barons, but put at the end of it ‘but that’s bad!’ in brackets, you’re just helping them sell (On The Media).”

FRIDAY’S SECRET BONUS SECTION

SECRET VIDEO: The 74’s Emmeline Zhao describes the outlet’s ambitious goal of ramping up its video journalism in order to win readers’ attention and break into the mainstream:

WRONG ON SCHOOL SHOOTINGS: Kudos to researcher Ron Avi Astor for rethinking the motivations behind school shooters — and giving journalists a lot to think about. In A leading school shootings researcher says he was wrong, Astor admits that anti-bullying and social-emotional learning haven’t reduced school shootings, but minimizing public attention on shooters might. “What was missed, I believe, was that each shooter wanted to make sure that this was national,” says Astor in the piece. “Their number one audience was the media. That’s really clear to me now.”

However, “if traditional news outlets pull back, but social media and the dark web continue to amplify shooters, the publicity is still there and the opportunity to gain notoriety remains,” Hechinger’s Jill Barshay told me via email. “How can our fractured media industry adopt collective guidelines to serve a common good?”

MISSING FAUCI COVERAGE: Not to belabor the point, but education journalism was largely MIA on the Fauci story. There was some great coverage including The Unmaking of Anthony Fauci (Atlantic), 6 lessons from Anthony Fauci’s diary (Vinay Prasad), and What Fauci’s diary says about COVID’s origins, schools, and boosters (Celine Gounder). I am thankful for useful analysis and moving firsthand stories from Dissident Teacher, Ed Realist, Evil Chem Teacher, and Audra McCauley among others. But as far as I know The 74 is so far the only education-focused outlet to cover the story.

SUBSTACKS: The week’s best essays, commentary, and feature writing about schools:

You can’t diversify the finish line (The Argument)

Anthropic Launched Claude for Teachers. We Blocked It for Our District. (Dr. Joe)

Big tech pitches AI for teacher burnout. Educators call it a Band-Aid (SAN)

Why Is Claude For Teachers? (Benjamin Riley)

It’s not the left rising. It’s the center falling. (Vox)

Fisher-Price Is Pivoting to AI-Powered Autonomous Weapons Manufacturing (McSweeneys)

NOTABLE: If you invite a reporter to attend your event — especially one as tenacious as my friend Greg Toppo — be prepared for them to want to poke around or make his displeasure clear.

Friday’s newsletter: A tough start to 2026-27, Meckler on the move, & pepper spray drones: 🏆 Best Education Journalism of the Week 🏆 (07/31/2026)