Laura Isensee is taking over the Houston Chronicle education team in the midst of a new private school choice program, heated school culture wars, & the state takeover of Houston ISD.

While several other education teams around the nation are downsizing, the Houston Chronicle education team remains one of the largest around. At the helm is former Houston Public Radio reporter Laura Isensee, replacing longtime editor Jennifer Radcliffe.

Isensee has trained and mentored other reporters before, and she worked at the Miami Herald before moving to public radio. Her work for Houston Public Media was frequently outstanding.

But assigning and editing a compelling mix of different kinds of stories is a challenge for any journalist, and lots has changed in the education landscape, locally and otherwise. The state is just embarking on a billion-dollar private school choice program. Higher education has turned into a school culture wars minefield — as have a few nearby suburban school districts. The Houston Independent School District is in its third year of a state takeover.

Despite all this, Isensee doesn’t envision major changes — only deeper coverage.

“I think the team is on a really strong trajectory,” she says , citing both recent accountability coverage and enterprise stories from the previous year. “I see my role and really my vision is helping them do the best work that they can and to grow as as reporters.”

Watch above or on YouTube, listen to it on Spotify or Apple, Uncorrected transcript here.

Previously from The Grade

Coverage lessons from the Houston takeover (Jennifer Radcliffe and others)

Urgency, experimentation, and expansion at The Baltimore Banner (Ruth Ciera Mull)

Making education news more useful at the AL Ed Lab (Ruth Serven Smith)

How WBEZ breaks free from the ‘hamster wheel’ of daily news (Kate Grossman)