Amanda is a Staff Reporter at The 74. She joined the site after reporting internships at The Maine Monitor and The Miami Herald, where she covered book bans, homeschooling regulations, the substitute teacher shortage, stagnant teacher salaries and private for-profit universities. Amanda was a Stabile Investigative Fellow at Columbia’s School of Journalism where she was the 2023 class salutatorian and the recipient of the Fred. M. Hechinger Education Journalism Award and a Pulitzer Travel fellowship. Her path to journalism went through the classroom: After receiving her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College and a master's in education from Boston University, she spent six years teaching high school English in urban public schools in Boston and New York City. During the pandemic, she began publishing op-eds about life as a teacher. Her experiences with students — especially surrounding grading practices, equity, and discipline — continue to inform and inspire her work. She published a major investigation in 2023 into a COVID-era grading policy by the New York City Department of Education which seemingly inflated high school graduation rates. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Chalkbeat, CNN Digital and elsewhere.