Jennifer Smith Richards on Muck Rack

Jennifer Smith Richards

Verified
Chicago
As seen in: ProPublica, MSN, Chicago Tribune, Flipboard, Salon, Harper's Bazaar, The Daily Dot, Yahoo, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Advocate Magazine, Arizona Daily Star and
Investigations in the Midwest at ProPublica. Past: Chicago Tribune by way of OH/GA/NY/WV. Enthusiastic about FOIA + data. Tell me everything.

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Jennifer Smith Richards’s Biography

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Jennifer Smith Richards has been a data reporter at the Chicago Tribune since 2015. Smith Richards previously covered schools and education for more than a decade at newspapers in Huntington, W.Va.; Utica, N.Y.; Savannah, Ga.; and Columbus, Ohio. Her work has touched on everything from sexual abuse in schools to police accountability to school choice.

Jennifer Smith Richards’s Journalist Portfolio

Betrayed: Chicago Public Schools fail to protect students from sexual abuse

Betrayed: Chicago Public Schools fail to protect students from sexual abuse

Chicago Public Schools has failed to protect students from sexual abuse and assault, according to a Chicago T…

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Columbus school attendance scandal

Columbus school attendance scandal

Columbus City Schools employees - and perhaps others in schools throughout the state - are accused of falsify…

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Locked Away

Locked Away

Some Ohio children with disabilities are regularly isolated in cell-like rooms, closets or old offices when t…

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Help wanted: Jobs for the disabled

Help wanted: Jobs for the disabled

Thousands of adults with Down syndrome, autism and other developmental disabilities work in Ohio at jobs that…

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The ABCs of Betrayal

The ABCs of Betrayal

How can a child rapist still have a teaching license? Why is a teacher who married his student still in th…

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Articles

Education Department Withholding Records on Discrimination Cases, ProPublica Lawsuit Alleges

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By Jennifer Smith Richards Verified, Jodi S. Cohen Verified
| ProPublica
ProPublica has sued the U.S. Department of Education in federal court in New York, accusing it of withholding public records about how it’s enforcing civil rights protections for millions of American students. The Education Department has failed to provide public records related to its investigations, communications and other work that ProPublica sought through four Freedom of Information Act requests filed last year.
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Monkey Sounds, “White Power” and the N-Word: Racial Harassment Against Black Students Ignored Under Trump

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By Jennifer Smith Richards Verified, Megan O’Matz, Jodi S. Cohen Verified
| Flipboard
The new American Dream has parents easing up on college expectations for their kids—1 in 3 are now open to trade school instead Many parents and kids alike are wondering whether college has the same return on investment it once did. Going to college was once seen as a one-way …
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This Is Ground Zero in the Conservative Quest for More Patriotic and Christian Public Schools

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By Jennifer Smith Richards Verified, Jodi S. Cohen Verified, Megan O’Matz, Asia Fields Verified
| ProPublica
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week. Long before the Trump administration began pushing patriotic curricula and expanding private school choice, Oklahoma experimented with many of those conservative ideas. State law restricts how teachers handle lessons about racism and gender — and the materials they keep in their classrooms.
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