Daarel Burnette II covers school funding and finance for Education Week. He joined EPE in 2015 as a state policy reporter. He previously served as the bureau chief of Chalkbeat Tennessee, a startup news organization based in Memphis. He has worked as an education reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Louisville Courier-Journal. He also worked as a general assignment reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He received his undergraduate degree in print journalism from Hampton University and an M.A. in politics and journalism from Columbia University.