WFPL Wraps Up 'Next Louisville' Education Project, Education Reporting Continues

Joe Franzen is an optimistic teacher. “You all have heard it, JCPS is going to be the best urban school district around. And I believe it."The crowd cheers.Then, Franzen—who teaches at Fern Creek High School—proceeds to say how he believes this can happen, but why it's not.Franzen presented at a Pecha Kucha event earlier this year. The theme was education. The event was one of several WFPL hosted as part of our year-long education reporting initiative called The Next Louisville. Over the past year, WFPL has expanded its education coverage and has discussed important topics like early childhood education, how we connect with at-risk youth, what alternative education can look like, and how a city tries to engage its communities to improve the lives of its people.Listen to the one hour news special that aired Friday.The idea of The Next Louisville was to connect more deeply with the Louisville region and to discuss those ideas and to find the stories that can help explain where we are and where we could go in public education.It's clear that people think public education can be improved. But how to do it is not always obvious.( Click here to see our education coverage)We've completed our year-long education initiative, but our education coverage will continue on. Please continue staying engaged with us through social media or by other means. And to those who participated in the conversations this year, we thank you.The Next Louisville project is a partnership of  WFPL News, the Community Foundation of Louisville, the  JPMorgan Chase Foundation and

  The Gheens Foundation, Inc.