Andrew Ujifusa

@andrewujifusa.bsky.social

I'm an editor at Chalkbeat, a national nonprofit news organization and a division of Civic News Company. I previously worked at Education Week's Politics K-12 vertical, and also at Maryland and Mississippi newspapers. I taught at two high schools in Japan.

"His salary ... felt stagnant and mediocre. He coached basketball and football, so his days often stretched from early morning to late evening. And 'teacher appreciation week' began to feel borderline demeaning: You can wear jeans all week! There's free pizza!" www.chalkbeat.org/2026/07/30/t...

A ‘lost generation’ of teachers left the classroom. Schools are still dealing with the consequences.

Veteran teachers left, principals cycled through too, and high-poverty schools likely faced the greatest strain. Here’s what years of churn did to classrooms.

chalkbeat.org

Want to put up a motivational poster in this school district? You'll have to pick from one of 32 pre-approved phrases, or else there's a 4-step process that might include a lawyer's eyes. The reason? It's probably not hard to guess. www.chalkbeat.org/2026/07/08/s... via @lilyalta.bsky.social

The most heated school debate isn't curriculum. It's what's hanging on the wall.

Even a motivational poster could require legal review under one Michigan school district's new policy.

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New– There was recently a massive wave of attention on a report from the University of California San Diego, noting a sharp increase in the number of students who required remedial math. I talked to one of the students at the center of the controversy. www.chalkbeat.org/2026/05/05/u...

She got A’s and B’s in high school math. Then came college.

Cecilia Lopez Alvarado passed high school math with A’s and B’s. But in college, she effectively had to start over. Here’s why students like her are at the center of a debate in American education.

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"Just 38.9% of third graders were proficient on the English language arts portion of the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress last year. It was the lowest performance of third graders in the exam’s 11-year history." www.chalkbeat.org/detroit/2026...

‘A tragedy we are responsible for’: Why Michigan lawmakers are trying to fix K-12 literacy challenges

Michigan has had a student literacy problem for years. Can current efforts change that?

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“A narrow reading of the ruling could be that schools need to respond honestly to parent questions, but don’t have an obligation “to get on the phone and say, ‘Hey, did you know that Jane is going by John now?’” Black said. “That would be kind of absurd actually.” www.chalkbeat.org/2026/03/07/s...

Does a Supreme Court gender identity ruling end ‘secrecy regimes’ or take away ‘pieces of independence’?

The conservative majority’s opinion in Mirabelli v. Bonta favors parental rights. But it leaves schools a lot of tricky questions about the right course of action when it comes to students and gender ...

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