Amanda Geduld

About Me

I'm a Stabile Investigative Fellow  at Columbia's School of Journalism. In my previous career, I was a high school English teacher in The Bronx. As a journalist,  I specialize in education and equity investigative reporting. I have exposed wrongdoing by the Department of Education-- from fraudulent grading practices to a school busing crisis-- and written about the public systems that failed a Brooklyn mother accused of murder. I am particularly passionate about reporting on the various institutions that intersect with public education, such as the housing, carceral, and child welfare systems. For my culminating master's thesis, I am investigating pandemic-era grading policies and their lasting impacts on students. My work has appeared in The Washington Post, Chalkbeat, CNN, Columbia News Service, and amNewYork.


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My Latest Work

Chalkbeat New York •

School bus delays help drive chronic absenteeism, parents and advocates say

One morning in late October, 8-year-old Eric Vilchis’s school bus picked him up on Bushwick Avenue at 7:30 a.m. About three and a half hours later, his mother, Araselis Pedrasa, received a phone call from his school: Her son had never arrived.

Panicked, the Brooklyn mom began calling the bus driver and bus attendant. Neither answered their phones.

“We didn’t know where the bus was,” she said in an interview translated from Spanish.

Pedrasa learned later that the bus had never left Brooklyn. A
Columbia News Service •

Brooklyn Mother Indicted On Murder Charges Says She Went to Beach to Hurt Herself, Not Kids

A Brooklyn mother accused of murdering her three children was indicted Tuesday in Kings County Criminal Court.

Erin Merdy, 30, is accused of drowning her children, aged between 3 months and 7 years, in the early hours of Monday Sept. 12 on the beaches of Coney Island.

The most serious of the charges is first-degree murder, which carries a potential sentence of 30 years to life.

According to the police report, Merdy told an officer that following a phone argument with her ex-husband, she walke
amNewYork •

Op-Ed | The mayor & union must finally collaborate for the good of our students

A few mornings ago, I awoke from a back-to-school nightmare. Any teacher will tell you this is common at the start of the year, but we’re halfway through the year, and this one was different. I was not trapped in front of a classroom without a lesson plan or walking through the halls in horror, realizing I was still in pajamas. In this dream, I was getting in trouble for sneaking a student into the school building.

As a pre-pandemic high school teacher, I spent much of my career trying to convi
CNN •

NYC's disastrous start to the school year is a cautionary tale

Editor’s Note: Amanda Geduld has a B.A. in English literature from Dartmouth College and a master’s degree in education from Boston University. She is a high school English teacher in the Bronx. The views expressed here are her own. Read more opinion on CNN.

On Thursday, September 17, in the early morning, I entered my eerily empty classroom in the Bronx, cracked the windows, and counted the tiles on the floor to ensure that my desk was, in fact, 6 feet apart from the teacher with whom I share
Washington Post •

Opinion | I’m a New York public-school teacher. A safe return to school simply isn’t possible right now.

After the town hall’s ominous start, it continued in a similar vein. The schools chancellor discussed budget cuts, layoffs and his desperate hope to receive last-minute state or federal funding. That didn’t inspire confidence that Carranza or his staff had adequately prepared for our return to school buildings in three weeks.

The start date has not been confirmed, just as schools don’t have a calendar for the year. I’m dubious that the city has an effective plan to supply personal protective eq

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