Michael LaForgia

Michael LaForgia is an investigative reporter for the New York Times. He previously worked as an investigative reporter for the Tampa Bay Times. He was a 2016 National Fellow, and in 2017, he and several colleagues won a Pulitzer Prize for his Fellowship project. In 2014, he and and a colleague won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting for a series of stories about a government program that housed the homeless in squalor. He joined the Times in 2012. Before that, he spent six years as a reporter for The Palm Beach Post, where he covered gang wars, Florida's prescription painkiller crisis and abuses within state juvenile jails. A graduate of the University of South Carolina, he grew up in Summerville, S.C.

Articles

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan called out the Pinellas School Board for “education malpractice” after the Tampa Bay Times published its series. (Photo courtesy Tampa Bay Times/Dirk Shadd)

Pulitzer Winner: How reporters can trace tough social problems back to officials’ concrete choices

On Tuesday, National Fellow Michael LaForgia and two colleagues received the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. In this essay, he shares some of the lessons he learned while reporting the series.

Poverty and Class

When Madeira Beach Fundamental K-8 was located in St. Petersburg, it was 25 percent black. Today, blacks make up just 2 percent of the school’s students.

Health Equity & Social Justice

Children & Families

'Failure Factories': Fundamentally unequal

For 30 years, the best school in Florida's Pinellas County was in a black neighborhood. Then the School Board stepped in.

Race and Equity

Health Equity & Social Justice

'Failure Factories': In Pinellas County, kids can be suspended for almost anything. And black students are.

Most large Florida school districts are moving away from suspending children for nonviolent misbehavior — part of a nationwide consensus that harsh discipline falls unfairly on black kids and leaves struggling students too far behind. The Pinellas County School District is an outlier.

Race and Equity

Poverty and Class

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, right, said of the problems in five south St. Petersburg schools, "The thing that hit us is that this seemed like a manmade disaster. There are some horrific things that happened here. Let's be clear." He and John King, a deputy secretary of education, visited Campbell Park Elementary on Friday. DIRK SHADD | Times

Health Equity & Social Justice

'Failure Factories': Duncan blasts Pinellas school system for 'education malpractice'

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan delivered a stinging rebuke to Florida's Pinellas County School District, calling the rapid decline of five predominantly black neighborhood schools a "man-made disaster" and "education malpractice."

Race and Equity

James Sampson gets help from his mother Tameka Lindsey as he tries to do his homework.

Health Equity & Social Justice

'Failure Factories': Who's my teacher today? (Part Three)

Using state and district personnel records, Times reporters compared teachers hired by the five resegregated schools with those hired at schools in wealthier, whiter neighborhoods. They found teachers in the whiter schools are more experienced and more likely to stay in their jobs.

Race and Equity

Health Equity & Social Justice

Children & Families

'Failure Factories': For 31 kids, this is what it’s like to go to resegregated schools

To Campbell Park. To Fairmount Park. To Lakewood, Maximo, or Melrose. The five worst elementary schools in Pinellas County — all among the very worst schools in Florida — have seats with their name tags on them.

Race and Equity

Activist Sammi Leigh Scott holds a Confederate flag at Tuesday’s Pinellas School Board meeting. “This is the flag the Pinellas County School District is offering us for our black children,” she said.

Health Equity & Social Justice

Confederate flag punctuates Pinellas School Board discussion on failing schools

With a dramatic flourish, a longtime education activist recently unfurled a Confederate battle flag in front of Pinellas County School Board members, saying they had failed black students in five neighborhood schools in south St. Petersburg.

Race and Equity

Poverty and Class

The letter was delivered to school chief Michael Grego, who speaks at a community forum he and School Board member Rene Flowers hosted Friday.

Health Equity & Social Justice

Black leaders say Florida school district broke promises made to settle lawsuit

Black leaders in Florida's Pinellas County say the school district broke promises they made to settle a lawsuit accusing them of shortchanging black students. The criticism comes in the wake of the publication of "Failure Factories," a yearlong investigation by the Tampa Bay Times.

Race and Equity

Poverty and Class

Lakewood Elementary principal Cynthia Kidd talks with students. [Photographs by Tampa Bay Times/Dirk Shadd.]

Health Equity & Social Justice

Community & Public Health

Failure Factories: Lessons in fear (Part Two)

Violence is a part of daily life in the most segregated elementary schools in Pinellas County, Florida. Five elementary schools had more violence than all 17 high schools combined.

Race and Equity

Poverty and Class

Community Safety

Kindergartner Tyree Parker waits for his grandmother, Loneiyce Washington, to pick him up from Maximo Elementary.

Health Equity & Social Justice

How the Pinellas County School Board neglected five schools until they became the worst in Florida (Part One)

First the School Board abandoned integration, leaving the schools overwhelmingly poor and black. Then they broke promises to help and stood by and did nothing as black children started failing at outrageous rates.

Race and Equity

Poverty and Class

Reporting Topics

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Michael LaForgia

Articles

Pulitzer Winner: How reporters can trace tough social problems back to officials’ concrete choices

'Failure Factories': Fundamentally unequal

'Failure Factories': In Pinellas County, kids can be suspended for almost anything. And black students are.

'Failure Factories': Duncan blasts Pinellas school system for 'education malpractice'

'Failure Factories': Who's my teacher today? (Part Three)

'Failure Factories': For 31 kids, this is what it’s like to go to resegregated schools

Confederate flag punctuates Pinellas School Board discussion on failing schools

Black leaders say Florida school district broke promises made to settle lawsuit

Failure Factories: Lessons in fear (Part Two)

How the Pinellas County School Board neglected five schools until they became the worst in Florida (Part One)