Erin Richards is currently enterprise reporter at USA Today. After her Spencer Fellowship she returned to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel to cover education in urban and suburban Milwaukee. She was awarded the O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Reporting in 2018, where she and her team of interns launched an online and print series called “Lessons Lost.” It examines the academic impact of student turnover between schools in Wisconsin and across the nation.
Richards’ Spencer supported work on Milwaukee’s Voucher Verdict, about what 26 years of vouchers can teach the private-school choice movement, was published in the American Prospect in 2016. Her piece on School vouchers’ impact on Catholic schools, was published in February of 2017 by USA Today.
Before the fellowship, Richards worked as education reporter and part-time news editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from 2007 to 2018, covering suburban government before moving to urban education and state education policy. She also herded the newspaper’s summer interns and has been a journalism instructor at Carroll University in Waukesha, Wis.
From Spencer Fellows
“Fed-up youth are agitating for movement on a variety of causes, from a cleaner environment and stricter gun control to more social and educational equality.”
