We have a chat with education reporter Kavitha Cardoza, who was recently named the recipient of the 2026 American Mosaic Journalism Prize for elevating stories of underrepresented school children and educators in the US.

Kavitha Cardoza is a Washington, D.C.–based journalist known for deep reporting on children, education, and poverty. Cardoza is widely recognized for seeing education not as a standalone beat, but as inseparable from poverty and inequality. Her work has appeared in NPR, The Hechinger Report, and The Guardian, among other outlets. Cardoza’s international upbringing and cross-cultural education strongly shape both the topics she covers and the way she covers them.

Cardoza holds a master’s in broadcast journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, as well as a master’s from the Manipal Institute of Communication in India. In her early career, Cardoza worked as bureau chief for the NPR affiliate in Springfield, Illinois, and later in Washington, D.C., eventually becoming a special correspondent covering children, education, and poverty. In 2022, Cardoza became a public editor at the Education Writers Association (EWA) and host of the EWA Radio podcast, helping train and support education reporters.

Cardoza has been a keynote speaker and moderator at various national education and poverty conferences, including The Aspen Institute, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, United Way, Committee of Education Funding, and American Institutes of Research.

“My life’s mantra can be summed up by the saying, ‘a society will be judged by how it treats its last, its least and its littlest’- which is why I am so passionate about covering populations that are overlooked and underrepresented. Children and teens often don’t have a voice in matters that affect them, and I am so grateful that this Prize will enable me to continue shedding light on their stories.” — Kavitha Cardoza, 2026 American Mosaic Journalism Prize Recipient