In 13 Years of Education Reporting, So Much Has Changed

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.I first met Alex Caputo-Pearl, the strike-leading president of the Los Angeles teachers’ union, in 2011, when I shadowed him for a day at Crenshaw High School.I was working on a book about the history of public school teaching, and Mr. Caputo-Pearl, then a social studies teacher, had a fascinating personal story. He had served in the very first class of Teach for America recruits, in 1990, and was part of a small group of original T.F.A. members who were, 20 years later, still working in urban public school classrooms.But Mr. Caputo-Pearl didn’t remain in the Teach for America fold. He became a union activist and a critic of T.F.A., charter schools and the entire landscape of test-driven accountability for children and educators. At Crenshaw High, he helped develop a social-justice curriculum in which students organized their learning around the question of how to improve conditions in their low-income South Los Angeles neighborhood. It was unapologetically activist — outside the mainstream of what education reform looked like at the time.