Mike Hixenbaugh: On Writing About Current History

Mike Hixenbaugh, senior investigative reporter for NBC News, has been named a Pulitzer Prize-finalist and won a Peabody Award for his reporting on the battle over race, gender, and sexuality in American classrooms. They Came for the Schools, his first book, is the winner of the prestigious Lukas Work-in-Progress Award. Hixenbaugh’s work at newspapers in Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, and Texas has uncovered deadly failures in the U.S. military, abuses in the child welfare system, and safety lapses at major hospitals. He lives in Maryland with his wife and four children. Learn more at MikeHixenbaugh.com, and follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Mike Hixenbaugh

Photo by Frank Thorp V

In this post, Mike discusses the process of researching and writing his new political nonfiction book, They Came for the Schools, his hope for readers, and more!

Name: Mike Hixenbaugh
Literary agent: Lauren Sharp, Aevitas
Book title: They Came for the Schools: One Town’s Fight over Race and Identity, and the New War for America’s Classrooms
Publisher: Mariner Books
Release date: May 14, 2024
Genre/category: Politics, Education, Religion, Extremism
Elevator pitch: They Came for the School is an investigation into the growing far-right movement to remake public education in America, told through a suburb at the epicenter of the conflict, as well as the students and educators whose lives have been reshaped and disrupted by it.

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What prompted you to write this book?

Much has been written about the political fights raging through schools in recent years. Most people have probably seen news coverage of angry parents speaking out against “critical race theory” or LGBTQ-affirming library books.

But that’s not the whole story.

I set out to write a book that would place these incendiary debates in their full context—revealing how the new conservative backlash against school diversity programs followed years of modest efforts to protect students of color and LGBTQ+ teens from bullying, particularly after President Donald Trump’s election seemed to usher a wave of racist and xenophobic harassment in schools.

I also sought to show how this moment in our history fits into a much longer story, connecting the Moms for Liberty of 2024 with the white suburban parent groups of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s that also sought control what children were allowed to learn at school.

For anyone who’s watched their local school board descend into chaos in recent years and wondered why it was happening—and who stood to benefit from the acrimony—They Came for the Schools provides the answer.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

In early 2022, after I’d spent more than a year reporting on the anti-CRT and anti-LGBTQ+ backlash for NBC News, I realized there was more to this story than could fit into a news article or even a podcast series like the one my colleague Antonia Hylton had produced about the conservative uprising in Southlake, Texas.

I started working on a book proposal in January of that year; by May, we were ready to pitch it to publishers. Given the urgency of this story, which is still reverberating in communities across the country, with implications for the presidential election, we set a tight deadline to ensure the book would be published by the spring of 2024.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

As a first-time author, I found learning moments at every step of the process. Fortunately, I made it through thanks to a lot of handholding from my editor, Deanne Urmy, who kindly agreed to read sections of the manuscript as I finished them. Getting feedback along the way saved me a lot of time and stress as my deadline approached.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

I was surprised—and I think readers will be, too—to discover throughout my reporting that the fractures dividing suburban communities across the country don’t break cleanly along the traditional left vs. right political divide.

Many of the school board members, teachers, librarians, and administrators now being accused of forcing a far-left ideology on students are themselves Christian, conservative Republicans. Some have lost friendships or been ostracized from their churches for their continued support of program, curriculum, and library books aimed at making all students feel welcome at school.

This reality has been missing from much of the national conversation.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I want readers to come away with a richer, more nuanced understanding of what’s driving political extremism in school politics. And even more importantly, I want them to understand how these conflicts are affecting children and educators.

Readers will meet a Black student scarred by the repeated use of racial slurs at her high school, an LGBTQ+ teen who fought to get an out-of-touch principal to protect her from verbally abusive classmates, a mother who came to question her decision to raise her Black children in a wealthy suburb, and a white teacher determined to do right by marginalized students—and who paid a steep price for it in the end.

These stories are too-often drowned out when news coverage focuses only on the loudest voices at school board meetings. They Came for the Schools instead puts them front and center.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Don’t be afraid to share your unfinished drafts with trusted loved ones. My wife’s early reads were a gut check on whether I was heading in the right direction. She also flagged sections that dragged or where there wasn’t enough context for the average reader to follow along.

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