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Brian Thevenot

Brian Thevenot’s staff photo

Brian Thevenot was an education editor at the Tribune in 2009-10. Previously he spent a dozen years at The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, most recently as special projects editor. As part of a team that covered the worst of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, Thevenot contributed multiple bylines to two winning entries for Pulitzer Prizes in breaking news and public service. His Katrina reporting also won the Mongerson Prize for Investigative Reporting on the News from Northwestern University, and the Medal of Valor from the National Association of Minority Media Executives. In 2009, an eight-part series Thevenot edited, chronicling the investigation into an all-too-routine murder of a New Orleans teenager, was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in local reporting. In 2005, just before Katrina, Thevenot spent a month reporting on Louisiana soldiers in Baghdad and produced a three-part deadline narrative about squad of soldiers hit by a deadly roadside bomb, which was a finalist for Livingston Award. In 2003, he won a National Headliner Award for education reporting for his 2002 five-part narrative tracking an eighth-grader's struggle to pass Louisiana’s high-stakes standardized test. Before joining the Times-Picayune, Thevenot worked as a suburban reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Oklahoma City, Thevenot has a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Past Contributions

  • For Their Own Good

    By Brian Thevenot

    With a new policy of firing teachers whose students fail to improve, Houston ISD is "is without a doubt the most data-driven district not just in the state, but in the country,” says school board president Greg Meyers. Full Story 

  • The Firing Line

    By Brian Thevenot

    After years of fiddling with merit-pay schemes, the Houston ISD is tying student test scores to the decision to ax teachers. Not surprisingly, the move — on the cutting edge of reforms nationally — has teachers howling in protest. Full Story 

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    Credit: Jacob Villanueva

  • From Bust to Boom

    By Brian Thevenot

    The recession has caused a spike in enrollment at two-year schools like Austin Community College, which now educates more than 40,000 students — within striking distance of the great behemoth, the University of Texas at Austin. Full Story 

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    Credit: Jacob Villanueva

  • Reform Follows Function

    By Brian Thevenot

    The federal push for accountability at "persistently low-achieving" schools across Texas is running smack into the hard, slow work of improvement at the local level. Full Story 

    Use our data app to find "persistently lowest performing" schools in Texas.
    Credit: Matt Stiles

  • Burned Orange

    By Brian Thevenot

    A clash over a beloved campus music club at UT-Austin portends the gnashing of teeth at schools statewide as a budgetary winter threatens to envelop higher education. Full Story 

    Bill Powers speaks about budget cuts at The University of Texas on Tuesday, February 2nd.
    Credit: Jacqueline Mermea

  • A Matter of Degrees

    By Brian Thevenot

    Community colleges pitch themselves as the gateway to prosperity for lower-income students who've been historically shut out of higher education. Trouble is, despite increasing enrollment numbers, few of them graduate. Full Story 

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    Credit: Jacob Villanueva

  • Charter Churn

    By Brian Thevenot

    Teachers quit Texas charter schools at nearly three times the rate of traditional public school districts, according to state data. Dozens of individual schools lost well over half their teachers in the latest year. Full Story 

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  • TribBlog: Paycheck U.

    By Brian Thevenot

    A new study gives a window into the wide variety of ways college presidents get paid. Think houses, cars, deferred comp — and private monies supplementing public funds. Full Story 

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    Credit: Jacob Villanueva