Paper Tigers

The votes are in, and Robin Gibson Sawyer, an English and journalism teacher and the adviser to the Sound to Sea newspaper at Manteo High School in North Carolina's Outer Banks region, is the 2000 National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year. Each fall, the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, a foundation that supports journalism education, awards the title to an outstanding journalism instructor. It's quite an honor, especially considering the average tenure of a school newspaper adviser is two-and-a-half years. "We've got a tough job, and I'm not sure which is more difficult—discovering truth or teaching people to live by it," Randy Swikle, the 1999 title-holder, told the Journalism Education Association and the National Scholastic Press Association last fall.

Advisers who encourage student reporters to pursue important, investigative stories about school issues do so in a censorial climate. In its 1988 Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmeier decision, the Supreme Court case ruled that school-sponsored publications are not "forums for public expression," giving school administrators the right to quash stories at will. Although six states—Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, and Massachusetts—have since amended the law to permit student journalists to print any story that's not libelous, the publishing rights of school newspaper staffs in most states are limited. It's no wonder that many student scribes are bypassing the school newspaper experience and self-publishing articles on the Internet—in the process, missing out on the creative and ethical guidance a knowledgeable adviser can provide. Clearly, journalism teachers who can rally 21st-century students around a courageous school paper are more valuable than ever.

Following are five papers with top-notch advisers. Four are led by National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year award winners or finalists from past years; the fifth is a middle school paper that regularly beats high school entries in...