Mackenzie Wilkes

About

I’m currently an education reporter at POLITICO covering national education policy. I also author Morning Education, POLITICO Pro’s daily education policy newsletter. If it touches the nation’s education system, I’ve probably written about it. I’ve covered government spending, K-12 and early childhood education, labor, economics, child nutrition and more. Before joining the education team, I was a POLITICO fellow where I did stints on breaking news, politics, data graphics and education. I’m obsessed with the complex ways policy decisions (or lack thereof) influence people’s lives and shape communities. If there’s a follow-the-money story to be done — I’m on it.Previously at FiveThirtyEight, I covered redistricting and wrote polling analysis related to the 2022 midterms. During an eight month fellowship, I also did field reporting on the federal pandemic response in Indigenous communities, with a focus on how federal aid helped address compounding health, nutrition and infrastructure issues.