Linda Lenz died April 28, 2023, age 77. She was a reporter for the
Chicago Sun-Times on the education beat.

As part of Chicago public school reform, the advisory local school councils
gained control over curriculum, could appoint a principal, and some power
to spend small discretionary budgets specific to their schools.

Lenz was aware that the parents on the councils were provided with very
little information and founded the free education newspaper Catalyst,
mailed to parents throughout Chicago.

She provided important budget analysis to give parents some clue what
was actually being spent in their schools and not just what was being
spent at district offices for the benefit of their schools, depending on
the vagaries of how the numbers were disclosed.

She reported on curriculum innovations and tried to offer some
statistical analysis as to what worked and what didn't.

She encouraged her reporters to do long-form investigative journalism
and one of them broke a massive bribery scandal story concerning a
no-bid contract awarded to the former employer of the incoming school
superintendant. People went to prison.

Catalyst was published from 1990 till 2016.

Catalyst was published by a nonprofit, one of the first in the country
to have a nonprofit take over a specific newspaper beat as the news
business was changing for the worse. Today, investigative journalism is
generally conducted by nonprofits, and in some metropolitan areas, the
general newspaper is published by a nonprofit.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/obituaries/2023/5/1/23706876/linda-lenz-education-news-catalyst-founder-obituary

In article <u2q3hs$jq6j$1@dont-email.me>, Adam H. Kerman
<ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

> Linda Lenz died April 28, 2023, age 77. She was a reporter for the
> Chicago Sun-Times on the education beat.

I remember her from her younger days on the Daily Planet.