Matt Barnum is the editor and a columnist for Chalkbeat Ideas, a section devoted to explaining and examining the ideas and debates shaping American schools. Before launching this section, Matt covered K-12 education for the Wall Street Journal. While there, he chronicled the ways technology is changing schools and broke news about the Trump administration’s plans to close the Education Department. Prior to that, he helped start Chalkbeat’s national coverage in 2017 as that team’s first reporter. Matt’s reporting has been recognized by the Education Writers Association and the American Educational Research Association. He was also a Spencer fellow in education journalism at Columbia University and started his career as a middle school language arts teacher.
