Founded by the Bezos Family Foundation in 2018, Early Learning Nation has evolved into an acclaimed independent magazine dedicated to coverage of the news, policies and research shaping early learners, their families and the broader child care system. 

“The key issues affecting America’s K-12 students begin well before kindergarten and continue well beyond high school graduation,” said Steve Snyder, CEO of The 74. “Our partnership with Early Learning Nation underscores The 74’s commitment in broadening our editorial priorities and deepening our coverage of equity, solutions and progress as we follow children from cradle to career.” 

The 74 has hired Marisa Busch to oversee integration of Early Learning Nation and the expansion of the site’s broader mission. Busch previously served as an Editorial Director at EdSurge, where she played a key role in launching the organization’s early childhood coverage. She brings more than 20 years of education experience to The 74’s national newsroom, both between education outlets and a decade spent in classrooms as an educator and instructional coach serving students from early childhood through middle grades.

Busch will partner closely with Chief Creative Officer Emmeline Zhao and Editor in Chief Nicole Ridgway, who joined The 74 this summer after a lengthy tenure at CNN Business, to expand Early Learning Nation’s brand and footprint. 

“As the new home of Early Learning Nation, The 74 is well-positioned to expand awareness about the challenges and success in early learning and the science of the developing brain,” said Bezos Family Foundation President John Deasy. “We look forward to following their coverage about the factors affecting young learners, their families, and their communities and seeing how the discourse is extended to a wider demographic of readers.” 

Over the past year, The 74 has launched and expanded an array of special initiatives focused on students, families and educators.

In August, The 74 introduced its newest national newsletter, The Catch-Up, offering rolling updates on the state of learning losses after the pandemic as well as breakthrough efforts to catch students up specifically in the arenas of math and reading. (Sign up here)

The publisher also recently scaled its partnership with the University of Southern California and the Annenberg School of Journalism, where a new cohort of undergraduate and graduate students are being trained by 74 journalists to cover students and education issues through the lens of LAUSD, the nation’s second-largest school district. That program has produced a wide-ranging series of impactful features that have been published at both The 74 and LA School Report. Many have also been syndicated by national and local partners, including the LA Daily News. 

In recent semesters, The 74 has ramped up its coverage of America’s most innovative high schools and how the K-12 system is evolving to better prepare today’s teenagers for the future workforce. Across multiple road trips, feature articles and documentaries, the newsroom has helped spotlight campuses, educators and communities that are rethinking the conventional high school experience.

Since launching in 2015, The 74 has been widely recognized for its expanding slate of education coverage. Its work has been cited thousands of times by outlets across the industry; in 2023 alone, The 74 was credited or co-published by nearly 400 outlets. The organization has also won multiple awards from the Online News Association, Institute for Nonprofit News and the Education Writers Association. 

Ridgway arrives at The 74 with more than 25 years of experience leading newsrooms, steering news coverage, overseeing editorial and product strategy, and driving innovations at some of the world’s largest digital media brands. 

Most recently, she served as Managing Editor of CNN Business, where she guided breaking news, analysis and enterprise coverage, managed multiple teams of writers and editors, and played a leading role in driving the site’s editorial expansion. Among the CNN initiatives Ridgway helped spearhead was a new editorial team focused on the growing wealth gap in America, which put a national spotlight on efforts to offer underserved communities more opportunities in education, healthcare and the workforce. She also launched CNN Business’ first investigative team, which went on to produce several award-winning investigations. 

Prior to CNN, Ridgway held various leadership positions at AOL, Forbes and Dow Jones. She’s also the author of the 2005 book The Running of the Bulls: Inside the Cutthroat Race from Wharton to Wall Street. 

Her arrival completes Snyder’s new senior leadership team, with Ridgway serving alongside Chief Development Officer Nicole Harris and Chief Creative Officer Emmeline Zhao. Jim Roberts, previously the site’s publisher, continues to assist with the leadership transition as a contributing editor.

Under the joint leadership of Snyder and Roberts in recent years, The 74 has been recognized widely for its journalistic excellence with top industry awards, including The Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award presented by the Online News Association, top news prizes from the Education Writers Association and the Insight Award for Visual Journalism from the Institute for Nonprofit News. The 74 has also quadrupled its overall readership and audience, and partnered in its storytelling with a growing universe of national outlets, including The Atlantic, Axios, The Guardian, Fast Company, The Texas Tribune, The Trace, Honolulu Civil Beat, The Boston Globe, AMNY and MinnPost.

In his announcement to The 74 team, Snyder wrote that he had already found himself inspired by Ridgway’s “energy and enthusiasm — for empowering journalists to identify and craft impactful journalism, maintaining the highest of journalistic standards, and helping her teams elevate their work through awards, community impact and reaching new audiences.” 

He also noted Ridgway’s “passion for our mission, and her repeated celebration of The 74 as a student-focused newsroom that sets out daily to ‘challenge the status quo, expose corruption and inequality, spotlight solutions, confront the impact of systemic racism, and champion the heroes bringing positive change to our schools.’ ”

We’ll send you a weekly update on Fridays with the most important education stories of the week, plus occasional breaking news updates. You’ll be able to text with our team if you have story ideas, feedback or questions, and we’ll respond directly to you.

Here’s how it works: Once you sign up, we’ll send occasional updates straight to your phone as a text message. It’s totally free, and you can unsubscribe anytime by texting STOP. When you reply, the message will come only to our team, not to the rest of the audience. We’ll be able to respond directly to you, or — if lots of people are asking the same question — we might share the answer with everyone. 

We won’t share your information with anyone, and Subtext, the platform that makes this service possible, , too. 

The best part: It’s all free. 

Part of The 74’s mission has always been to lead an honest, fact-based conversation about American education, and this effort is an extension of that. 

We look forward to hearing from you!

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