Movement Building Across the Country
NLP is the leading provider of free news literacy programs and resources for students and adults.
Our vision is that all students in the United States are skilled in news literacy before they graduate high school, giving them the knowledge and ability to participate in civic society as informed, critical thinkers. We are working to establish news and media literacy as a graduation requirement and as a priority for educator professional learning. And our efforts are gaining momentum in your state!
Read more below for insight into our efforts in California, Texas, Florida and the tri-state area to continue building a more news-literate nation.
Champions in your state help NLP’s movement keep going!
Our champions in California, Texas, Florida and the tri-state area are helping NLP have a transformative impact, and we can’t continue to build a more news-literate America without you. Help us keep the movement’s momentum going:
- Share the District Fellowship application with an educator you know.
- We’re looking for a Senior Director of District Engagement to help us expand our work to more districts across the country! Share this opportunity in your circle.
- Browse and register for upcoming events.
- Support NLP’s work with a donation.
California
Current Landscape Snapshot
- With its 6.7 million public school students and $130 billion education budget, California has passed a comprehensive media literacy law.*
- California requires the Instructional Quality Commission (within the Department of Education) to consider incorporating media literacy content into English Language Arts/English Language Development, mathematics, science, and history-social science curriculum frameworks in 2024.*
- California requires the state Department of Education to identify a list of resources and instructional materials on media literacy to be available to school districts on its website, including media literacy professional development programs for teachers.*
Prioritizing news and media literacy education in California is critical because of the size of the state’s public-school population—6.7 million future leaders and decision-makers need access to tools to distinguish credible information from misinformation.*
Movement Building in California
NLP News Literacy Ambassadors support local community organizing efforts to fight misinformation and pursue a mutual objective of creating a more news-literate generation of news consumers.
Merl Corpuz
San Francisco Bay Area
Merl is an education specialist teaching core academic classes and world language at various schools in the West Contra Costa Unified School District. She is also a Next Generation Personal Finance Distinguished Educator.
Read more about Merl here.
Jason Hensley, Ph.D.
Southern California
Jason teaches language, history, public speaking and news literacy at the Heritage School, a private school in Los Angeles. When asked about his commitment to news and media literacy education, Jason said: “Our decisions as a society are only as good as the information we have, and if we are consistently making decisions with incorrect information that we believe to be correct, we’re in trouble.”
Read more about Jason here.
Did you know?
NLP is partnering with the California Department of Education, Fresno County Office of Education, San Diego County Office of Education, Santa Clara County Office of Education and the California School Library Association to host the “News and media literacy for all” webinar series. These professional development webinars train educators on how to integrate news literacy lessons into their civics, history, English language arts and STEM lessons. They also align with requirements that help students qualify for California’s State Seal of Civic Engagement, recognizing their excellence in civics education and participation. See more info about the webinars here.
Read more movement building updates
Texas
Current Landscape Snapshot
- Texas requires a civics training program for teachers and administrators that must include training in media literacy.*
- Texas also mandates that each school district incorporate instruction on digital citizenship, which refers to applying the standards of appropriate, responsible, and healthy online behavior, including the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act on all forms of digital communication.*
Prioritizing news and media literacy education in Texas is critical because of the size of the state’s public-school population. More than 5 million future leaders and decision-makers need access to tools to distinguish credible information from misinformation.
Movement Building in Texas
NLP News Literacy Ambassadors support local community organizing efforts to fight misinformation and pursue a mutual objective of creating a more news-literate generation of news consumers.
Juan Alvarado, Pharr-Hidalgo, Texas
Juan is an English, STEM and Pre-Advanced Placement (AP) teacher at Valley View High School in Hidalgo, Texas. He shared: “It is not easy to live in an area that very often gets a bad reputation for being less informed or misinformed, but that is why being an ambassador has gone a long way in gaining my community’s trust. It is my goal to get not only my school but also neighboring districts to see Newslit.org as their go-to source for news literacy.”
Get to know Juan here.
David Doerr, Austin, Texas
David Doerr has taught journalism and career and technology classes in Austin, Texas’s ISD (Independent School District), since 2010, serving as a faculty adviser for student publications. Currently, his students produce the award-winning print and online student newspaper The Eagle’s Eye. He’s used Checkology® and NLP resources in journalism classes since 2018 and encourages the use of Checkology in student journalism education.
Learn more about David here.
Sara E. Gonzales, Houston, Texas
Sara is a nationally recognized journalism advisor and a teacher for Patricia E. Paetow High School in Katy, Texas. She also serves as the Houston leader for the Online News Association and was the only teacher in the country accepted into the American Society of News Editors Emerging Leaders Institute. Sara shared, “Every single day in my journalism classes we go over news from the previous 24-hour cycle and cross-verify stories from multiple outlets. If my students learn only one thing out of my journalism classes, I want them to learn how to truly understand the news and media today and how they impact their lives.
Read more about Sara here.
Did you know?
The Texas Association of Journalism Educators, in partnership with the News Literacy Project, is hosting the PitchIt! Texas student essay contest in Texas for the first time this year. PitchIt! Texas gives students across the state the opportunity to respond to news literacy writing prompts on topics like the First Amendment, news literacy standards for social media and the potential consequences of cognitive biases, discussing how it relates to a local, national or international news article of their choice. Students participate to further develop their critical thinking and news literacy skills to find reliable information to make decisions, take action and responsibly share news through social media.
Take a look at winners from last year’s competition or read more details for this year’s PitchIt! Texas. If you’re an educator, be sure to subscribe to The Sift® to get updates on the contest winner and other educator insights.
Read more movement building updates
Florida
Current Landscape Snapshot
- A new Florida law (Ch. 2023-36) requires instruction in social media safety and the social, emotional, and physical effects of social media. This law also restricts social media and phones in schools. The required instruction for grades 6–12 includes information that students need for media literacy — such as how the social media platforms work. This law will likely provide skills that help young people practice greater discernment when consuming media.*
- The instruction must include: “The negative effects of social media on mental health, including addiction; the distribution of misinformation on social media; how social media manipulates behavior; the permanency of sharing materials online; [and] how to maintain personal security and identify cyberbullying, predatory behavior, and human trafficking on the Internet.”*
Florida’s new law on social media will provide essential media literacy lessons for the state’s nearly 3 million public school students and help equip these future leaders and decision-makers with access to tools to distinguish credible information from misinformation.*
Movement Building in Florida
NLP News Literacy Ambassadors support local community organizing efforts to fight misinformation and pursue a mutual objective of creating a more news-literate generation of news consumers.
Monica Valdes, Miami, Florida
Monica is an acclaimed Miami Social Studies teacher with 18 years of experience in education. During her time as an ambassador, she helped create the PitchIt! student essay competition, which exercises students’ critical thinking and news literacy skills while amplifying their voices on current events and topics relevant to them.
Get to know more about Monica here.
Did you know?
Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS), in partnership with the News Literacy Project, is hosting the 2024 PitchIt! Florida student essay contest. PitchIt! gives students across the state the opportunity to respond to news literacy writing prompts on topics like the First Amendment, news literacy standards for social media and the potential consequences of cognitive biases, discussing how it relates to a local, national or international news article of their choice. Students participate to further develop their critical thinking and news literacy skills, take action and responsibly share news through social media.
Take a look at winners from last year’s competition or read more details for this year’s PitchIt! Florida. If you’re an educator, be sure to subscribe to The Sift® to get updates on the contest winner and other educator insights.
Read more movement building updates
New York, New Jersey, Connecticut
Current Landscape Snapshot
- New York has pending legislation that would create a set of media literacy standards for K-12 students that focuses on internet safety, civility and digital citizenship.
- New Jersey requires that each school district incorporate instruction in information literacy in grades K–12 as part of the districts’ implementation of the Student Learning Standards and requires the school library media specialist to be included in the development of the information literacy curriculum “whenever possible.” *
- Connecticut requires that, as of July 1, 2025, civics and media literacy shall be included in the social studies program of instruction in public schools. The state is also establishing the Civics Education, Civics Engagement and Media Literacy Task Force to “study and develop strategies to improve and promote civic engagement and instruction on civics, citizenship, media literacy and American government.” *
Prioritizing news and media literacy education in the tri-state area is critical because of the size of the region’s public-school population. Nearly 3 million future leaders and decision-makers need access to tools to distinguish credible information from misinformation.
Movement Building in the Tri-State Area
NLP News Literacy Ambassadors support local community organizing efforts to fight misinformation and pursue a mutual objective of creating a more news-literate generation of news consumers.
Alesha Smith, New York City, New York
Alesha teaches for the New York City Department of Education at Eagle Academy for Young Men of Harlem in Manhattan. One of her goals is to ensure that students of all learning capabilities have access to information, resources, and experiences to cultivate a love for learning and zest for exploring the world.
Get to know more about Alesha here.
Steve Tetreault, Holmdel, New Jersey
After more than 20 years as an English language arts teacher for grades 7-12, Steve created and taught a required information literacy class for his seventh graders and made the transition into the library. He also created SchoolLibrarianLearningNetwork.org, a site that collects free learning opportunities and resources of interest to school librarians.
Read more about Steve here.
Aishwarya Saminathan, Princeton, New Jersey
Aish is a former journalist turned Montessori teacher at Princeton Montessori School in New Jersey. She teaches math and science for upper elementary students and critical media literacy for middle school students.
As a first-generation immigrant and a mother of two daughters, she is passionately dedicated to educating adolescents about information and misinformation in the digital age.
Learn more about Aish here.
NLP’s District Fellowship program
NLP’s District Fellowship program unites education leaders to build a sustainable and actionable plan for news literacy education implementation in their schools.
NLP is now accepting applications for the next cohort of District Fellows. Read more about the program here, and share with educators in your circle before the deadline on May 3!
North Salem Central School District
Location: North Salem, NY
Number of schools: 2
Number of students: 1,000+
Did you know?
NLP is partnering with the O2CM School Library System team at the Onondaga-Cortland-Madison Board of Cooperative Educational Services (OCM BOCES), a public entity serving 23 school districts in New York State, to host the Empowering Minds: navigating the information landscape in a digital age professional learning webinar series for educators. See more info about the webinars here.
Read more movement building updates
Apply now for the News Literacy District Fellowship
NLP’s District Fellowship program unites education leaders to build a sustainable and actionable plan for news literacy education implementation in their schools.
NLP is now accepting applications for the next cohort of District Fellows from education leaders looking to improve education and civic engagement for students by developing and implementing news literacy education in their schools. Read more about the program here, and share with educators in your circle before the deadline on May 3!