This gets my idealistic juices flowing. Small Newspaper Group, a small publisher in Illinois (has three or four local papers) has recently published a six-month investigation, the largest they have ever attempted.
The result is a strong and poignant series on the state of teachers tenure in Illinois. Apparently things have gotten so bad only two teachers out of 95,500 are fired for incompetence a year. More than that, the newspaper exposes a few teachers who had sexual relations with students and weren’t fired because tenured teachers are so strongly protected.
Small Newspaper group isn’t the New York Times, but they show that a small publishing group and one reporter can still make a difference. I hope they get the recognition they deserve. And they deserve more than just a post from a struggling freelance writer like me.