This week UEN Homeroom welcomes Chris Jones and Nadia Pflaum, from KUTV's Beyond the Books series. We discuss the role of media in education, how citizens can get involved in education oversight, and where all the great stories about education originate. We're lucky to Jared Fawson sub for Dani for this conversation.
This week UEN Homeroom welcomes Chris Jones and Nadia Pflaum, from KUTV's Beyond the Books series. We discuss the role of media in education, how citizens can get involved in education oversight, and where all the great stories about education originate. We're lucky to Jared Fawson sub for Dani for this conversation.
Welcome to today's episode of UEN Homeroom. Dani, as a full-time teacher, is a little bit under the weather as some teachers get during the wintertime. So today, we are lucky to have a substitute teacher with us today. Jared Fawson, from the UEN professional development team, is going to jump in and help us out a little bit. Jared, what do you want to tell our listening audience today?
I just don't want to be treated like a sub. That's the real thing.
Oh. So no throwing spit wads or--
The toughest time I ever had as a teacher was when I was a substitute teacher. So I hope that you'll be a little nicer than the students were. Highland HIgh, I'm talking to you.
[LAUGHS] I think every teacher needs to have at least a couple of days as a sub to figure out whether this is really the world they want to be in.
Oh, yeah. Well, I will say, when I did have my own class, that my biggest worry ever was when I was absent and I had a sub, how they would treat the sub. And I would really make it clear to my students, like, I better get a really nice report when I come back.
Yeah, yeah. Well, today, Jared, we're really lucky. We've got two members of our community that are actually part of the media today. We're going to have a little discussion about the role that the media plays in education. Have you seen the TV series on Channel 2 News, Beyond the Books?
Oh, with Chris Jones?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's very informative and good journalism.
Yeah, it's going to be fun to hear a little bit more about the stories behind their stories and to find out maybe a little bit about how they got started looking into education. And maybe we'll find out some of the things they're finding.
Yeah, this would be great. I'm excited to be part of this. And hopefully Dani will be better soon and be back, but I'm happy to be the sub for the day.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So today in UEN Homeroom, we're glad to welcome Chris Jones to our program. Chris Jones is an investigative reporter with KUTV's Beyond the Books education unit. Beyond the Books takes a deep dive into issues affecting education in Utah. The investigations are once a week on Channel 2 at 10:00 PM.
Chris is a veteran of Utah journalism. He joined KUTV in 2008 after 10 years on ABC 4 News. He's been voted Utah's best television reporters by readers of City Weekly three years in a row. In fact, Chris won an Emmy in 2016 for his story about a transgendered member of the LDS Church trying to live openly as a woman while keep her faith in the church. We're pleased to welcome Chris Jones.
Thank you. Glad to be here.
We're also here with Nadia Pflaum, who is Chris's producer, right?
Yeah.
So we'll go over her bio as well. Nadia Pflaum is an Emmy-winning investigative producer who has been with KUTV since May 2018. Prior to producing the Beyond the Book series with reporter Chris Jones, she worked for PolitiFact covering the 2016 election in Cleveland as an investigative producer at WUSA in Washington, DC.
She has investigated cases of wrongfully convicted men and women for the Midwest Innocence Project and began her career as a newspaper reporter for the alt weekly Pitch in Kansas City, Missouri. She is a native of Denver, Colorado. We're happy to have you with us, Nadia.
Thanks. I always have to shout that out.
Well, today as guests on our podcast, we want to welcome you and we want to give you the same welcome that we have with all of our guests. We'd love to get to know you a little bit better by having some of the students around Utah ask you some of their favorite questions when they get adults in the room.
Do they know that we're reporters, or is this just for anybody who--
These are questions for all of our guests.
Got you. All right.
Hard-hitting questions for hard-hitting reporters.
Don't know that I can handle it.
These are future reporters.
OK, good. Good.
I don't know anything about Fortnite.
[LAUGHS]
Oh. Well, we'll cross that one off the list. So our first question for both of you--
What is your favorite holiday?
Favorite holiday? All the traditional ones, but my son, who's four years old, just loves Halloween.
Who doesn't?
And during Christmas, we were celebrating Halloween. Yesterday, we were talking about Halloween. So--
He's got to get ready.
Right. And so in our house, Halloween is a 12-month-a-year holiday. So Christmas because of the presents, but because of my son, Halloween has become our most favorite holiday.
So do you have candy all over the house because of this? Like, if you celebrate it 12 months out of the year?
Well, the only thing the kid will eat is sugar. So in a way, yes. That's not a celebration for us. That's a celebration for him.
Got you.
Did he make you dress up as well for Halloween?
He wanted me to, but I won't. I refuse. 49--
You went in as a reporter for the 10th straight year?
Right, yeah. 49-year-old men should not dress as pirates. That's been my rule for many years. But yeah, Halloween is the holiday of choice at our house.
Wonderful. How about you, Nadia?
I wanted to say something different, but it's also Halloween. But I have this group of friends who we still act like teenagers. So they--
So you trick or treat?
No. No, more like--
They just do tricks.
They smash pumpkins in the neighborhood.
You egg people.
The mailboxes are all toast. No, they have a costume party every year. And so I always try to do some things dorky and news-current. So last year, I was the red wave-- or the blue wave, excuse me.
Yeah, that was a different story.
And then the year before that, I was a dumpster fire.
Oh.
[LAUGHS] So unlike me, who says you shouldn't dress like that, Nadia's the opposite.
Ah, she's--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
It's a good team.
Well, let's go to our second question. Nadia, we'll start with you this time.
When you go to the zoo, what animal will you see first?
When I go to the zoo, what animal do I see first?
What animal do you see first?
I go straight to the otters.
And why?
Well, you know how they play and they-- I mean, they always look like they're having the most fun. I'm not a big, huge fan of zoos. Sometimes, the bigger mammals don't always look like they're having the best time. But the otters, guaranteed, look like they're having a blast.
I have to agree. I love the otter exhibit. And they just look like they're just having a great time.
For me, I think at the aquarium, it's the sharks. Because unlike the polar bears who, I think Nadia's right, the polar bear at the Hogle Zoo does not look happy. I do feel sad for him. The sharks, they don't care.
[LAUGHTER]
They don't care where they are. They look like they're always looking for prey. But--
They have a singular focus.
Yeah, exactly. And that's how we are with our Beyond the Books investigations.
[INAUDIBLE]
So probably shouldn't have compared us to sharks, I would assume.
Well, they come up later.
Yeah. Right, exactly. That's in the Twitter feed. But the sharks are my favorite. They're also my wife's favorite. She is a yoga instructor who, once a month, gets to do yoga with the sharks. And she has 100 people who come, and they get to actually do yoga outside the big--
In that tunnel?
No, there's a big display room, which a lot of people don't get to see. But it's a big, huge wall, and you get to do yoga with the sharks. So in our family, sharks and Halloween are our two big things.
I'm seeing a trend there.
Yeah, right. [LAUGHS]
Our last question from our students.
What is your favorite snack?
Favorite snack. Let's see. Do you know Talenti ice cream? Are you familiar with--
I've seen it, yeah.
--with that stuff? Yeah, it's addictive, and it's terrible for you. And we try to have a couple of those a week at our house.
Wow.
Do you have a favorite flavor?
Yeah, it's raspberry sorbet, is what we love in our house. So William likes ice cream sandwiches. My wife and I, we like that. And it's so sugary. It's the worst, and I'm sure that we've gained two pounds a week because of it. But I don't care.
[INAUDIBLE] yoga with sharks.
That's right. And then you lose a few pounds and come home and eat Halloween candy all day long.
[LAUGHS] How about you, Nadia?
Oh, I've been having a problem lately with jalapeno-flavored cheese-- is it-- Cheetos, jalapeno Cheetos.
That's right. She eats those in the car when we get to stories. I've seen a few bags of those in the vehicle.
It's my car. It's just entire bags.
So not the flaming hot ones, right? Not the flaming hot ones, the jalapeno-flavored ones?
The flaming hot ones are good too, but yeah.
You're no respecter of Cheetos. Anything's good.
Yeah, I don't discriminate.
OK.
Well, what's great is all the different-- I mean, the number of different titles that they're putting in Cheetos. There's jalapeno, hot--
Yeah.
Right? I mean, now there's five or six different ingredients.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
Well, we appreciate you guys being good sports and participating in that section of our podcast. We always think it's a great way for us to get to know you a bit better as well as for our students to participate.
So today as we get started, we wanted to talk a little bit about your program, your series that you're running on KUTV, Beyond the Books, and maybe get a little sense of how that originally got started and what you're interest in that project was as it got off the ground.
Well, it started as a project that one of our sister stations in Baltimore was working on. Their project was called Project Baltimore. And Baltimore, I think, has a reputation for just, I think as Nadia mentioned, a dumpster fire earlier. I think that there are a lot of problems when it comes to education in Baltimore.
So they decided that they wanted to take that on, and they've had some success. And a lot of what they focus on is spending and attendance of teachers and that sort of thing. And so they found a lot of success there.
And so what they wanted to do is extrapolate out that same idea for other stations and in Utah. And so when my news director came to me and said we want to do this, I'm thinking-- I mean, in Utah-- I mean, there's a lot you can say about education and the way we spend money. But I wouldn't compare it to a dumpster fire.
I mean, you can complain about the amount of money that goes towards education. But when it comes to problems with the education system, I don't think that they're nearly the kinds of issues that they're facing in a major city like Baltimore, Washington DC, that sort of thing. So I was a little reluctant to do that.
But the one thing that kept coming home for me is the fact that this is the largest line item in the state budget. And when you're an investigative reporter, I mean, that's the kind of thing you want to investigate. Where is the money going? And a lot of what our stories have been is where's the money going.
And I didn't think it would be this interesting, to be quite frank with you. And it has been. I mean, it's been fascinating to me the way that the money is spent, who spends it, who gets it, the difference between charter schools and your traditional public schools. So for me, it's been incredibly fascinating.
And like I said initially, it wasn't something that I thought would be that interesting. I come from a crime and justice background. So for me, that's kind of the wheelhouse that I was in for a long time. So this just didn't seem like it would be interesting, but it has been extremely interesting, in my opinion.
Yeah, I was going to say, it seems like it's quite a bit different from the things that you had done in the past 10 years, right?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is the-- I mean, when you go and you cover the legislature, I mean, education is, of course, one of those issues that's always there. But to tell a television story, a lot of times, education is the kind of thing that you avoid because it's not visual and it doesn't have the, I guess, for lack of a better word, pizzazz to it.
But what I'm finding now is the fact that we have been avoiding it, maybe that's why there are so many interesting stories to do, because we've been afraid to look at it, I think, in this type of media. I think we've been afraid to look at it. And what I'm finding is that there's so much. There's really so much to look at. And I think Nadia would agree.
Yeah, Nadia, your background sounds like you've been involved in reporting politics a lot. So tell us about your journey into education and starting this new idea of reporting.
I think it was the fact that it's investigative that was attractive to me. That's my background. And also, I'm like Chris. I did a lot of crime and justice reporting also. So this is obviously a wild departure from that.
But I think when you have investigative skills, that you can apply them to any subject. So actually prior to PolitiFact, I had zero background doing any political reporting. So I was not a political wonk, and I learned on the fly. And so this has been like that also where it's a new subject for me and I don't come from a background of knowing the policy and really being in the weeds with it. But that challenge of getting familiar with it has been a part of the fun.
Were you reluctant at first too when they said education and investigation?
Yeah, I was like, why education? Shoot, if only it was about some-- if it had been like a crime or criminal justice project, that would have been great. But it didn't take long to sell me on it just because of the possibilities of looking into holding people accountable, holding lawmakers and the policy-shapers accountable.
Well, and that was the thing. I mean, it didn't take us long to-- I mean, I had to tidy up what I was doing, my projects. And Nadia had started working on this project before I did. And we would sit down and do a little debrief at the beginning of the day. And she would say, OK, well, here's something I'm looking at. Here's another story. So every day, something would come up.
And I'm like, wow, I didn't think that it would be that interesting. And our first story was about a controversial member of the Utah State Board of Education, some of the things that she had been posting on Facebook and online and that sort of thing. And it was the kind of thing that a lot of people gloss over.
But when you look at it, I mean, this is a person who has so much say over what your kids learn and what goes on in the schools. And it was the kind of thing that was being ignored on some level. And so that was an exciting thing for us to get into.
And then a lot of our stories started to become how money is spent. And no matter what-- I think with education, people care about it, obviously, because either they were a student or they have a child in the system.
Sure, they've got some--
You've got some connection, right?
--background in it, yeah.
And then if you tell them, well, maybe the money's not being spent as frugally as it should be, particularly in a system where the complaint is, over and over again, that we don't have enough. So we found that people have been really, really interested particularly in those stories. And we don't-- and I think Nadia would agree. We're not doing this because we want to get ratings, right? And I don't think that when we presented this idea, education investigation, oh, it's going to be a ratings bonanza. But the truth is--
Yeah, you usually don't think of those two things being hand in hand.
Right. But the truth is, they have been interesting enough that they have been successful from a ratings standpoint. So it's been one of those things that it was an unexpected byproduct of what we were doing. We didn't go into this project saying, man, this is just going to blow the top off of the ratings world. But it's been one of those things that we've got to do both. We've got to do something that has been interesting and has also been-- it's been exposing some things.
And on the other hand, people have been really interested in it too. So I've been really satisfied by the fact that we've been able to get both out of that, something that actually does make a difference and is also making a difference from bottom-line standpoint too.
So overall, what would you say is the role of media in overseeing education and the money in education and policy and education?
I'll come from a place first where the media is in a very different place today than it was five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago. This idea of us as a watchdog of media or as a watchdog of government has changed significantly because we don't have as many reporters. We don't have as many eyes on the government as we used to.
And that's a sad thing for me. And we've seen layoffs at the [INAUDIBLE]. We've seen layoffs in our industry. We just saw layoffs at BuzzFeed and other entities as well. So it's concerning, where we are in terms of being a watchdog of government entities.
That being said, the fact that we're doing this in broadcast is very rare. Even in the heyday of broadcast television, there were very few places that were doing this, this idea where you could take two people, two salaries, two 401(k)s, two medical plans, and say, spend a week researching these stories and come back to us. And if you don't have something this week, come back next week. That's an oddity in maybe the history of broadcast journalism, really.
So what we're able to do in this current environment is really a big deal, I think, because I come from a world where your daily turn-- come in at 2:00, go to the meeting at 2:30, go out to the shooting or the fire at 3:30, put something on it 5:00, 6:00, and then another thing at 10:00, and then put something on the web all in one day. We don't--
And every day, you do something else.
Every day. And we don't have to do that. And so that is a luxury that I'm thankful for. And I think for educators in the state of Utah, I really feel like this is something special that we're able to do because you don't get to really do that very often in this business.
Yeah, I think it really says something for our station and for the ownership of KUTV that they're willing to invest in this kind of work. It's expensive and it's risky, but it's really important. And as previously a print reporter, I used to really look down on TV journalists.
There's a bit of a rivalry-- or there's mutual respect, but it's like, ah, you guys are to the showbiz guys. And we're the ink-stained wretches really doing journalism. And obviously, this proves me wrong. And I'm really thankful that newspaper reporter, digging skills are also valued and that we can produce smart journalism and put it on TV.
So that seems like something that incorporates your background into your new line of work, right?
Right.
Which I'm sure it gives you a lot of satisfaction as well.
Yeah, yeah. I'm just really proud that they went this direction and decided that this was important because it really does give a much bigger platform. Between having an article come out in a paper, you might get a phone call. You might get an email about it. It might just end up in Tweety bird's cage.
Not that people aren't reading the paper, but the reactions that you get from the audience from a TV broadcast, it's night and day, having seen both. It's really incredible what kind of reach you get with broadcast. So that we can do these stories that are about taxpayer money and who's educating our kids, it's really great. The feedback that we've gotten has been really cool too.
And I've also been surprised by-- a couple of weeks ago, I called somebody, a public information officer, for an entity, and I won't say who. And I called, and they were like, what can we do for you? And I asked, and I said, well, we just need some numbers on this. And the person was just like, oh, thank god.
[LAUGHS]
Oh, my gosh. I did not know why you were calling. And when we--
When your number pops up on the caller ID?
Right, right. And that's not the goal. You don't want to make people not want to talk to you. But at the same time, I think what we've learned from this project is that people in education are paying attention. And they know who we are and what we're doing. And that's also felt really nice to know that people have been watching this.
And the fact that we're being taken seriously I think is also a big deal. And a lot of that comes from Nadia's newspaper background, her ability to gin up these stories that maybe I, as a TV reporter, might gloss over or maybe not recognize as a story. And I think that's what's good about our teamwork, is that she can find some things on a global level, and then I can help to whittle it down to make it work on a smaller-- like, for TV a little bit. So that's what we've been able to do. She's been able to find these bigger issues, and then we can whittle it down to something that is bit-sized on some level.
So that's been fun, and it's also been interesting to hear state lawmakers reach out to us and say this is important, what you guys are doing. Because you didn't hear that when you're covering a murder on the West Side or the East Side or some fire somewhere. Nobody-- yes, people care about it, but does it have the kind of reach and effect that something like education does? Somebody being hit by a car in Murray is sad for that person and for their family, and it's a terrible story. But let's be honest. How much does it matter on a global level?
Well, like you're kind of saying, a lot of what you did in the past maybe had the 24-hour news cycle. For those 24 hours, it was the big story. But this is something that's going on well beyond the legislative session of the next a month and a half, well beyond the news cycle. This is something that impacts us daily.
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like you can chew a gumball and the flavor's gone a few minutes. You can chew Extra gum, and that stuff's with you for an hour or so. So I mean, it's the amount of time that something matters, I think, too.
So maybe tell us a little bit about the public's reaction to some of the stories. As you mentioned, you've done a lot of investigating on crime stories where people are interested in it, but it really doesn't impact them on a personal level. Whereas these stories, regardless of whether you're looking at a school in their district or in their area, there's still a school in their district or their area that's dealing with some of the same issues. How's the public response?
Well, and I think that's what's interesting, is, if, say, for example we were investigating a story about Susan and Josh Powell, right? People can watch that story and have some interest, but they don't have a connection to Susan or Josh Powell. But if we do a story about the lack of nurses in your public school, a parent can really-- they can really put their hands on that because their child has diabetes and is not getting the kind of care that they really need.
So the kind of reaction that we're getting from people is they're reaching out to us maybe not necessarily with a tip for a story, but their stories, their personal stories. They'll reach out and they'll say, yeah, my son doesn't have a nurse four days a week. And my son, we're concerned about him getting his shots correctly. So I think that's the kind of reaction that we're getting from people, people who have real, day-to-day issues and day-to-day-- they can feel the stories a little bit more than your typical crime story.
And Nadia responds to a lot of the stuff too. But I feel like a lot of it is people can really relate. They can really relate to-- if you do a story about the lack of nurses, that's thousands of people in our schools who say, you know what? That is an issue that I deal with.
Nadia, do you take a lot of those calls from parents or get emails and have to go through some of those stories? Maybe tell us a little bit about your experience with that.
Yeah, we actually had picked up a message over the weekend from a kid, like probably elementary school-sounding--
Wow.
--aged kid who said we had done a story about his school. And it was critical of the school. And I think he took it personally and was standing up for x school and was like, well, maybe if you had gone to x school, you'd be a little brighter.
[LAUGHTER]
But that is rough because we know that if we're critical sometimes of something-- and we've got the example and it's x, y, z school-- that we needed an example to show some maybe greater issue. And it just so happened that we chose this school, but we know that that's going to affect everybody who works there, everybody who goes there, everyone who's an alumni from there. And so it's really--
Yeah, you'll get a lot of emotion from them.
Yeah, it's sensitive. And we have to be mindful of how we do that.
I was happy to hear that that kid-- he was critical of us, but I was also happy. When she read what he said about us, I was like, well, right on. I mean, because that means that it mattered to him enough to reach out and say something. And we're not just going to sit back and say, well, you don't know what you're talking about, because we also understand that there's a lot to these stories. And his part of the story maybe wasn't told, but it was also great to know that he would take the time to reach out.
And that's what we're-- like I said, people are reaching out not to say I got a big tip for you. They're reaching out to say, this affects me on that level.
We'll take big tips too, though.
Yeah, we don't mind those either.
So is that how you get most of the stories, is from people coming to you?
It doesn't start that way ever. I mean, to establish our project when no one knew what it was, including us to some level-- no, the first probably handful of stories that we did were from talking to-- we just had conversations with calling people on the school board, on local boards, on the state board, talking to people of different districts and just anybody that I felt like I could poll about what are some of the biggest problems, what are some of the challenges that deserve attention.
And now we've started getting tips, which is great because there's some stuff-- I mean, this is all public information when you're talking about public dollars. But there are some stories that there's no way that you would know to write this public records request unless someone tells you, listen, I think this is happening. And someone has to point you in the right direction. And so I'm happy that we're getting more tips to that nature.
Well, and I think a lot of it at the beginning was Nadia just GRAMA request after GRAMA request. In fact, didn't the superintendent of schools, didn't she say-- she called her up and said, OK, look, we get it. We know you're doing GRAMA requests. But let's try and maybe alleviate some of the paperwork.
So a lot of it was just chipping away. But yeah, now, like Nadia said, I think a lot of it is people are beginning to realize that they can turn to us and they can trust us. And we'll do the story right, and we'll also protect their anonymity as well.
One of the questions I have is parents and community members obviously are watching your program. What would be some of your suggestions to them as to how they can get involved to help solve some of the challenges that you're seeing? I mean, you're reporting about some of these stories, and people are clearly telling you that they have an impact on them. What would be maybe some of your suggestions on how they can be more mindful of what's going on at school?
I would say you've got to go to those meetings, and you've got to know who you're voting for too. We did a story about a school that it was-- as I recall, they couldn't get their kid the kind of health help that he needed at school. And they kept reaching out to the leaders, and the leaders weren't responding. And so we actually literally went to that particular leader, and that person blew us off. That was the first time that people realized that we had time, that we were going to go and wait outside of meetings to talk to members of these councils and that sort of thing.
But I would say you've got to know who sits in those seats. And when you vote, flip through and read about them on Facebook and know what they stand for because you might be surprised that they don't think like you think. So know that. If there's an issue that affects you, go to the meeting. Because we've been to so many meetings, schools. And there's nobody there. There's nobody there.
Yeah, it's not uncommon.
Right, so you've got to go. And on the Utah State School Board, these people represent thousands and thousands of parents and students. And I bet you 5% of the people know who they are. And I didn't know who they were before I started getting involved. But now that I am, it's like, wow, I do realize how important it is to know who the people are who you elect. And they have to listen to you. They do listen. If you speak out, they generally will listen. That's been my experience.
Any thoughts, Nadia, about that idea?
I guess I do echo the point about going to meetings and being informed about what's coming up. I mean, there were-- this might be too specific. It might actually point out what school I'm talking about. But there's a school that's being closed, and it's been on the endangered list of schools for three years. And the program that is supposed to fix what's wrong takes three years, and then there's consequences to not improving. And one of them is that the school can close.
Well, now that it's been announced that the school is closing, there are people showing up now to meetings saying, you can't just drop this on us, and this is out of left field. And no, this has been in the works for three years. So yeah, it's just engagement.
And I know it's hard. I mean, everybody's got a life and a job, and you're parenting. And you're picking people up and dropping them off. And to go sit in a meeting is maybe asking a lot sometimes. But they're always online. There's always recordings. There's supposed to be audio if you want it.
Well, and one of the things I'm hearing from you is no one will advocate for your children the way that you will.
Yeah, that's right.
Right? So if parents want to get involved, they're the best advocate for their local kids, their local school.
But it is hard. I've got a four-year-old. And at the end of the day, and trying-- I mean, I get it. I don't want parents to look at this and say, well, that's easy for you to say, because I get it. It's hard to try and keep up with your local government, your local school, your job, and your kids, and then try to worry about what's going on at the Granite School District or Jordan School District. So I get it's a challenge. It's a challenge trying to track all of this stuff down.
Well, and I will say we're seeing more teacher advocate groups where they're trying to educate parents and PTAs and these kinds of things about the same issues that you guys are addressing, that they're taking it upon themselves to let their faculties know about the legislators or what bills are coming up and how they can get involved. Well, we appreciate your time today.
We appreciate being on.
Yeah, it's fun to have a conversation beyond the books.
There you go. Very true, yeah.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So Jared, as our sub today, would you be willing to fill in for Dani? She was supposed to do our lazy teachers tech tip. Do you have something that maybe you could share with us?
Should I act like Dani and go, um, really? Yeah, I guess.
You're way more enthusiastic than that.
No, I'm happy to do this. This would be fine. The other day, I was a little put off by the keyboard that I was using on my cell phone. I was messaging somebody, and it didn't have a few of the features that I used to have on my old phone and they weren't on this one. And so I decided I was going to research the different keyboards that you can get as an app and put onto your phone.
And so I downloaded about five of them, tried them all out. And the one that I like the best is called SwiftKey. And you can get it either on an iPhone or on an Android. It works on either one. But it just has a lot of really nice features.
And I would just say, overall, if you're not 100% satisfied with your keyboard-- and maybe you are and you don't realize that there are some other features that you might be missing out on. Download a couple of these. You can certainly try SwiftKey. I liked it the best, but there's some other ones as well. And maybe it'll replace what you're doing, but I quite like it.
I love that idea. So often on our phones, we just stick with the defaults and we never think, is there anything better that's out there?
Right, and that was-- I had been frustrated with a couple things that I used to be able to do and I couldn't do anymore. And so then I did a little searching and found what I was looking for. So that's our tech tip. Check out the keyboard apps on your Android or iPhone.
And the one you liked the best was?
SwiftKey.
SwiftKey. So that's a great suggestion for all of us teachers out there who need a little help in a hurry, right?
There you go.
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So Jared, we just finished our discussion with Chris and Nadia. What did you think about finding out the backstory behind investigative journalism in education?
Well, I thought it was interesting that they looked at what other states were doing and that's where they first got the idea. And then when they were directed to it, both of them were like, education, really?
Yeah.
Like, is this really the hard-hitting journalism that we're used to? And then both of them, really as soon as they got started, realized that there was a lot of stories to tell.
That was one of the things that I took away, was just the idea that education, everyone has a role in it in some way, shape, or form. Whether it's you currently have kids in the system, whether it's because you just remember your time in the education system, or maybe it's just the fact that your tax dollars are going into education, everybody has an interest in it. And so I think that's one of the things that I got, especially from Chris, is that these stories resonate with the audience because they all feel like they have some skin in the game.
Right, and I think for everybody, we all want money that we pay in our taxes to go where it should go. And I think overall, we want kids to benefit from it.
Yeah. And I would say a lot of our audience that are teachers or people in education, they're the same way. It's not just parents. We're all on the same team. We want all of our resources in education to be used appropriately and to find the best way to help kids.
Exactly.
Well, that concludes our episode of UEN Homeroom. I think I just heard our closing bell. Did you hear that, Jared?
Oh, yeah. I'm done being a sub.
All right, you survived your day as a sub. See you next time.
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