Get to Know Your Reporter: Jackie Mader, Senior Reporter at The Hechinger Report

“Get to Know Your Reporter” is a series of interviews we’re having with journalists covering topics that are both timely and relevant to our audiences. Our aim is to advocate for and highlight the issues & policies that affect the children and families we serve, and one way is by providing information directly from experts in the field.

In continuing this series, we had the opportunity to sit down with Jackie Mader, an award-winning reporter from The Hechinger Report.

Thank you, Jackie, for taking time to meet with us. We are honored to have this time with you. Could you please start off by telling us about yourself?

I’m Jackie Mader, Senior Reporter for Early Childhood at The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit news organization dedicated exclusively to reporting on education. Based out of Columbia University’s Teachers College, we collaborate with both local and national news outlets to publish in-depth stories on critical education issues, including early childhood, which I define as spanning from prenatal family support programs and infancy through third grade, covering the developmental period up to eight years of age.

What motivates you to cover early childhood education and development?

I am deeply passionate about early childhood education. My journey into covering this critical age group began about nine years ago, while I was living and reporting in Mississippi for The Hechinger Report. I was on assignment, visiting childcare centers as the state debated funding preschool programs. That was my first introduction to early learning and it sparked my interest in this field. Prior to journalism, I worked as a middle school teacher, where I saw firsthand the lack of foundational skills many students had. It became clear to me how vital those early years are, as I witnessed the long-term effects of missed opportunities for quality early learning.

When I first began reporting on early childhood, I was astonished by how essential those first few years are to a person’s development and yet, how little attention they received in media coverage. While education reporting largely focuses on K-12 and higher education, early childhood is often overlooked.

Around the same time, I became pregnant with my first child, who is now eight and a half. Reporting on early childhood issues while pregnant brought a new depth to my work. As I visited childcare programs, I imagined leaving my own child in those settings, knowing I would soon rely on these services. This personal connection strengthened my desire to cover early childhood and deepened my understanding of the issues. It also made me more aware of how policy decisions affect parents on the ground, myself included.

I’m so passionate about this subject because of the general lack of public understanding about the first few years of life and how profoundly they impact a child’s brain development. I strive to highlight this in my reporting because those early interactions – between caregivers and children and within home and childcare environments, have lasting consequences on a child’s development. This period shapes the rest of their lives and it’s a critical time that is too often overlooked. I feel a sense of urgency to raise awareness because many people don’t yet grasp the importance of early childhood. That’s what drives me – to educate the public on these crucial early years and bring them into public discourse.

Can you tell us about your career in journalism? What advice would you give young people interested in pursuing a career in journalism?

My path to journalism was a bit unconventional. My undergraduate degrees were in screenwriting and elementary education, and I spent several years teaching. It was during my time as a teacher that I realized I wanted to write about education, which ultimately led me to graduate school for journalism. From there, I transitioned into education reporting.

For those interested in journalism, my biggest advice is to start writing as much as possible. Take every opportunity you can to write, whether it’s for school publications, blogs or even internships. The more you write, the better you’ll become. I also recommend studying the work of great writers and journalists, paying close attention to their techniques, storytelling and how they structure their pieces. While there’s a lot you can learn on the job, taking journalism classes is also valuable if they’re available to you. Those classes can provide you with useful tools and foundational skills for the field.

Are there any upcoming projects that you’re excited about?

Yes, I’m really excited about a few things I’ve been working on. Last year, I took a fellowship leave and traveled to Norway, where I studied their early childhood education system. I’ll soon be publishing stories from that experience. It’s been fascinating to explore what the U.S. can learn from countries that have heavily invested in their childcare systems and in creating a high-quality childhood for children. I plan to continue pursuing international comparisons in my reporting, looking at how different countries approach early childhood education.

Another project I’m working on focuses on the quality of childcare in the U.S. In the aftermath of the pandemic, there’s been a push for deregulation to fix the childcare system, but some of these proposed solutions, such as increasing child-to-staff ratios or reducing staff training requirements, could harm the quality of care. I’m investigating these issues to better understand their potential impact.

I’m also delving into classroom management, which is a topic I’ve been interested in since my own days as a teacher. I’m currently working on a story inspired by my children’s experiences in school and what I’ve observed as a parent. Classroom management is a major challenge for teachers, and it’s often cited as one of the main reasons educators leave the profession. My goal is to explore both personal experiences and research to understand the best practices and ongoing challenges in this area.

Jackie Mader can be reached at mader@hechingerreport.org

See below for recent articles by Jackie:

For Norwegian children, access to child care that supports a joyful childhood is a right

My year researching child care policy

Study finds ‘opportunity gap’ can come down to just six missed chances

Head Start funding formula needs fixing, advocates say

The Hechinger Report is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based at Teachers College, Columbia University, covering issues of inequality and innovation in education, from the earliest years through college and careers. We tell stories that will have an impact on the future of American schooling. The news industry faces collapse in many parts of the country. Thorough, reliable news is needed more than ever. As the corporate journalism industry struggles, The Hechinger Report fills the gaps and elevates the quality of coverage about education.