Erica L. Green is a correspondent for The New York Times in Washington, covering domestic policy.
Green joined The Times in 2017 as an education reporter, focusing on the U.S. Department of Education and issues related to civil rights and educational equity in the nation’s schools. Her coverage documented how the nation’s schools navigated historic challenges in recent years, including the divisive political and social climate that arose during the presidency of Donald J. Trump and a once-in-a generation pandemic.
Her coverage has also illuminated some of the undercovered issues facing the most marginalized students, from the dismal educational outcomes for Native American students to the disproportionate disciplining of Black girls in school to the secret and illegal suspensions of special education students. She also co-authored the explosive Times investigation exposing leaders of a celebrated school in Louisiana who abused students and falsified their college applications to get them into Ivy League schools. The story was featured as the debut episode of The Times’s television show “The Weekly” and is the subject of a coming book.
Green’s education coverage at The Times won first place in the Education Writers Association’s beat reporting category in 2021; that year, she was also awarded the Ronald Moskowitz Prize for Outstanding Beat Reporting, which recognizes the best education reporter in the country. She had previously won first place in the association’s beat reporting category in 2018, and first place in its investigative reporting category in 2015.
Before joining The Times, Green covered education for The Baltimore Sun, where she produced award-winning coverage on a range of topics including school funding, special education, school violence, school segregation, and children in Maryland’s foster care and juvenile justice systems. In addition to winning more than one dozen local and national awards for her education coverage at The Sun, Green was also part of the Sun team that was named a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist for breaking news coverage of the death of Freddie Gray, and the Baltimore riots that followed. In addition to the Spencer board, Green serves as vice president for journalists for the national Education Writers Association board of directors.