Fort Worth Report: Journalism as Part of the Solution – George W. Bush Presidential Center

Fort Worth Report: Journalism as Part of the Solution  George W. Bush Presidential Center

The George W. Bush Institute will explore some of those models through a series of case studies that detail how local publishers are creating newsrooms, building community, and strengthening our democracy. “Sixty to seventy percent of my job is listening,” explains Matthew Sgroi. An education reporter for the Fort Worth Report (FWR), Sgroi and Jacob Sanchez, the digital site’s education editor, provide daily and in-depth stories about the challenges facing parents, teachers, and administrators across Fort Worth’s 12 independent school districts. In 2025 alone, their nonprofit news organization published more than 400 stories about education in Fort Worth and surrounding Tarrant County. The pair attended school board meetings; spoke with administrators, educators, and parents; and combed through reams of data.

In other words, listening and digging, two of journalism’s most important tools. Their focus particularly has been on the Fort Worth Independent School District along with the Lake Worth Independent School District. The Texas Education Agency announced in late 2025 that, following state law, the agency was taking over those two districts because of the consistent failure of some individual campuses. Beyond those failing campuses, though, the city faces troubling illiteracy rates. Only 46 percent of students across all 12 Fort Worth districts read at grade level, according to state data for the 2024-2025 academic year. (FWISD students did show