About me / Dylan Peers McCoy

My writing reveals how policy choices impact Indianapolis students, parents and teachers. I have the relentless drive to report until I have the essentials of a great story — and the judgment to know what subjects are worth that dedication. My stories are about people and informed by data.

I report on education policy for Chalkbeat Indiana, a non-profit news organization devoted to covering education for poor communities and children of color. My work has appeared in the Atlantic, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Indianapolis Star. My radio work has aired on Studio 360, Latino USA and WCAI. I am a graduate of the Transom Story Workshop and Smith College.

When I’m not reporting, I spend my time eating, making pottery and reading about urban planning. A native of Massachusetts, I live and work in Indianapolis.

Chalkbeat • 17th September 2019

Hidden dropouts: How Indiana schools can write off struggling students as home-schoolers

When students are recorded as leaving to home-school in Indiana, they’re left out of a school’s graduation calculations, as though they never attended at all.

Chalkbeat • 12th November 2019

Over 1,000 students have left this Indiana district to home-school. Can it solve its hidden dropout problem?

Out of all high schools in the state, Muncie Central recorded the highest number of students in the class of 2018 leaving to home-school.

Chalkbeat • 12th November 2019

Find how many students left your high school to home-school

More than 3,700 Indiana students who were expected to graduate last year left without diplomas. Most were clustered in just 61 schools.

Chalkbeat • 22nd January 2019

Rocked by scandal, a weakened Indianapolis Public Schools teachers union faces an uncertain future

The anger was palpable when more than 50 teachers gathered for their monthly union meeting on the northeast side of Indianapolis. The crowd was about twice as large as usual, with many newcomers packed into the conference room.

Chalkbeat • 7th February 2019

How Lewis Ferebee forged peace with charter competitors to reshape Indianapolis schools

Five years ago, a young superintendent months into his first job running a school district walked into the Indiana Statehouse to ask for an unprecedented change. Lewis Ferebee felt Indianapolis Public Schools should run more like its steepest competitors: charter schools.

Chalkbeat • 8th June 2018

Purdue is trying to upend the traditional high school model. Here’s what it looks like

All it takes to know that Purdue Polytechnic High School is doing something different is a walk through the campus in the basement of a technology office building. Instead of sitting in classrooms, students are spread across an open room, talking with teachers on a sofa or working on quadratic equations at a table.

Chalkbeat • 17th August 2018

Inside a struggling Indianapolis school during its pivotal first year of ‘innovation’

When Deonah Doyle first heard the elementary school her two children attend could be overhauled with a new principal and new teachers, she was afraid.

Chalkbeat • 9th February 2017

Teaching when students are full of fear: Inside Indiana’s first school for new immigrants

It’s first period on a Wednesday, and Alejandra is chewing gum, bouncing her foot and goofing with friends in a reading class for students learning English. The teacher — a substitute for the morning — writes vocabulary words on the whiteboard: “improves,” “silence,” “activists.” When she gets to “dangerous,” Alejandra springs to life. “Not safe!” she bursts out.

Chalkbeat • 6th October 2017

How Indiana’s A-F rules created a two-tiered system that benefits innovation schools

Cold Spring School and School 79 were standouts on the recent ISTEP test. At both schools, more kids passed the state exam than the average for Indianapolis Public Schools, and their students made solid gains over last year. So why did Cold Spring earn an A from the state while School 79 received a C?