Just 90 NYC high schools offer journalism classes. A new movement is trying to change that.

CHALKBEAT NEW YORK—Brooklyn English teacher Sydney Kukoda launched her new journalism elective class last week with an unconventional assignment. She emptied the contents of her wallet onto a desk and asked her students to investigate, take notes, and then write a short biography of her based on facts they had independently verified. 

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The lesson was part of a new curriculum launched this year at the High School for Global Citizenship through Journalism for All, an initiative aimed at expanding access and equity in youth journalism in New York City’s public high schools.

Just 1% — or nearly 3,220 — of roughly 290,000 public high school students had access to some type of journalism course last year, according to an inaugural report from the New York City Department of Education, released Monday. The report, based on self-reported school data, showed the students were spread across 90 of the city’s roughly 400 public high schools. (The report also included a list of 35 high schools that had print or online student newspapers, but that tally appeared to be incomplete. The coalition has a “newsstand” website with links to about 90 student publications across the city.)

The report comes following advocacy by the Youth Journalism Coalition, a project of the youth journalism nonprofit The Bell. (The Bell partners with Chalkbeat on the P.S. Weekly podcast.) Last year, the coalition pushed the New York City Council to pass Local Law 27, which requires the chancellor to publish an annual report on journalism programming in New York City high schools.

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