Caroline Beck covers K-12 education in Indianapolis, Indiana for the IndyStar, reporting on all 11 school districts in Marion County. Prior to joining the IndyStar, she covered the state legislature for Alabama Daily News, and also reported on education, prisons and parole boards, unemployment benefits and health care. Her interest in journalism began in college where she reported for the student-run paper, including covering a Ku Klux Klan rally and cutbacks in college staffing, then becoming the paper’s editor. She has interned for In These Times magazine in Chicago. A native of Speedway, a town on the west side of Indianapolis, Beck has attended the Indy 500 every year since 2016.
Beat: K-12 education in Marion County
The reporter examines wider trends and issues in higher education that cut across institutions: equity, enrollment, sexual assault, expense, completion rate and nontraditional students. Covering diversity and rural communities and holding elected officials accountable for the use of taxpayer money in education, the journalist's reporting reaches communities beyond the greater Indianapolis area as other Gannett-owned papers also publish these stories.