Hi! I'm Ruth Serven Smith, editor of The Alabama Education Lab team at AL.com.
A new school year began in August and our journalists – Rebecca, Savannah Kalyn and Trish (photos above, from left) – are hard at work amplifying voices, spotlighting underappreciated schools and profiling everyday problem solvers who are making a difference for children.
AL.com is launching a crowdfunding campaign to support the Ed Lab. Every donation gets a match from our national partner Report for America. And thanks to RFA, donations are tax-deductible. Donations will show up on your credit card statement as "GroundTruth," RFA's parent organization.
The Ed Lab is donor- and grant-supported. We need your help to fund journalism that makes an impact.
I want to share one recent example of our work’s impact. In 2021, Trisha Powell Crain published a great series, “High Flyers,” that reverberated across Alabama. She featured under-resourced schools that out-performed their peers.
"I knew that Alabama educators would be inspired and motivated to see schools in our state that are facing high levels of student poverty, not a lot of local tax money, and yet are seeing a lot of success in achievement," Trish said.
The series has been highlighted multiple times by the state's Office for School Improvement as it helps Alabama's struggling schools improve.
This fall, Mobile principals used the series during a training program as they imagined how to pursue real change in their schools. That’s two years of making a difference for one project!
And we loved seeing one of the schools she featured, Cordova Elementary, win a National Blue Ribbon award this year.
Trish has worked for AL.com since 2018 and helped start the Ed Lab team in 2021. She’s passionate about kids, knowledgeable about instruction and an expert about data.
If you have benefited from one of Trish’s stories, please contribute to the Ed Lab. Funding directly supports staff positions.
