John Merrow began his career as an education reporter with National Public Radio in 1974 and later served for 32 years as Education Correspondent for the PBS NewsHour until retiring in 2015.  During his 41-year career he received two George Foster Peabody Awards, the George Polk Award, three Emmy nominations, four CINE Golden Eagles, and more than two dozen reporting awards from the Education Writers Association.  He is the only journalist who has been honored with the prestigious McGraw Prize in Education, often referred to as “education’s Nobel Prize,” which he received in 2012.

An occasional contributor to the opinion pages of USA Today, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and Education Week during his long career, Merrow is the author of Addicted to Reform: A 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education (2017); The Influence of Teachers(2011); Choosing Excellence (2001); and co-editor of Declining by Degrees (2005). He blogs regularly at Themerrowreport.com. John and his wife, the distinguished educator Joan Lonergan, divide their time between New York City and Edgartown, MA.