Larry Abramson
Larry Abramson is NPR's National Security Correspondent. He covers the Pentagon, as well as issues relating to the thousands of vets returning home from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Prior to his current role, Abramson was NPR's Education Correspondent covering a wide variety of issues related to education, from federal policy to testing to instructional techniques in the classroom. His reporting focused on the impact of for-profit colleges and universities, and on the role of technology in the classroom. He made a number of trips to New Orleans to chart the progress of school reform there since Hurricane Katrina. Abramson also covers a variety of news stories beyond the education beat.
In 2006, Abramson returned to the education beat after spending nine years covering national security and technology issues for NPR. Since 9/11, Abramson has covered telecommunications regulation, computer privacy, legal issues in cyberspace, and legal issues related to the war on terrorism.
During the late 1990s, Abramson was involved in several special projects related to education. He followed the efforts of a school in Fairfax County, Virginia, to include severely disabled students in regular classroom settings. He joined the National Desk reporting staff in 1997.
For seven years prior to his position as a reporter on the National Desk, Abramson was senior editor for NPR's National Desk. His department was responsible for approximately 25 staff reporters across the United States, five editors in Washington, and news bureaus in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. The National Desk also coordinated domestic news coverage with news departments at many of NPR's member stations. The desk doubled in size during Abramson's tenure. He oversaw the development of specialized beats in general business, high-technology, workplace issues, small business, education, and criminal justice.
Abramson joined NPR in 1985 as a production assistant with Morning Edition. He moved to the National Desk, where he served for two years as Western editor. From there, he became the deputy science editor with NPR's Science Unit, where he helped win a duPont-Columbia Award as editor of a special series on Black Americans and AIDS.
Prior to his work at NPR, Abramson was a freelance reporter in San Francisco and worked with Voice of America in California and in Washington, D.C.
He has a master's degree in comparative literature from the University of California at Berkeley. Abramson also studied overseas at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, and at the Free University in Berlin, Germany.
-
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta travels to Brussels this week to meet with NATO ministers. The U.S. is desperate to get NATO countries to pony up more money for Afghanistan, to keep the security effort from collapsing once NATO pulls out and Afghan forces take over. -
Veterans, with their post-Sept. 11 education benefits, have been an important driver in the growth of for-profit colleges and universities in recent years. Some lawmakers say for-profit schools are ripping off veterans, and the government, by luring students into programs that seldom lead to good jobs. -
Growing awareness about PTSD has had a downside, namely that civilians now assume veterans are likely to have psychological issues. Yet while in the military, many say they feel pressure to hide their problems. The recent mass shooting in Afghanistan has fueled misconceptions and further complicated efforts to treat PTSD. -
The top military commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, testified on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. It's his first public appearance before Congress since the killings of 16 Afghan civilians, apparently by a U.S. soldier. That incident and others, have caused new tensions between the U.S. and Afghanistan's government, and prompted some to reappraise America's strategy for the war. Nevertheless, Allen insisted that the strategy remains on course.
-
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai Thursday. A U.S. soldier is accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians in Kandahar on Sunday. The incident has raised questions about the future of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.
-
Dismal attendance rates have put Detroit Public Schools at risk of losing vital state funding, so the city has launched an assault on truancy. Attendance agent George Eason says, "If we see that the parent is willfully ... not sending the child to school, then we will take every means necessary to enforce the law." -
Tired of tuition increases within the cash-strapped University of California system, a group of students has suggested eliminating tuition entirely. Instead, they propose that graduates pay the system a percentage of their income over the subsequent 20 years. -
Entrepreneurs and researchers are looking for ways to bring the cost of eye care down in the developing world. One group is working on technology that turns a smartphone into an eye exam machine, while another has developed glasses with liquid lenses that change prescriptions with the help of a pump. -
The president says he's putting colleges "on notice" about tuition hikes. College officials say the White House shouldn't be prescribing how schools cut costs. -
Many students say they were lured into law school by the promise of high salaries upon graduation, but instead ended up with just a major debt load. How exactly schools calculate their graduates' employment statistics isn't regulated — it's up to students to scrutinize it, the ABA says.
