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NIE Survey





The scope and nature of Newspaper in Education programs:  A national survey
By

Patrick C. Meirick
Ph.D. Student

and

Daniel J. Sullivan
Professor

School of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of Minnesota

Submitted to the Newspaper Division
2001 AEJMC Convention
Washington. D.C.

Address correspondence concerning this paper to the first author at 111 Murphy Hall, 206 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN  55455.  He may be contacted at (612) 729-7826 or by e-mail at <a href="/cgi-bin/wa?LOGON=A3%3Dind0109B%26L%3DAEJMC%26E%3D8bit%26P%3D8344839%26B%3D--%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D_171707601%253D%253D_%26T%3Dtext%252Fplain%3B%2520charset%3Diso-8859-1" >[log in to unmask]</a>

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Newspaper Association of America Foundation, which helped fund this research.



RUNNING HEAD:  NIE Survey

 The scope and nature of Newspaper in Education programs:
A national survey

ABSTRACT

Even though there are fewer participating newspapers than in 1992, NIE programs now reach an estimated 14.4 million students, up 33 percent.  More than twice as many newspapers provide school copies free of charge, thanks to the growing role of sponsors.  An increasing emphasis on circulation is apparent: Circulation departments are now primarily responsible for 69 percent of NIE programs, and newspapers were much more likely to rate "immediate circulation gains" as an extremely important reason for the program.
 Introduction
Newspapers in Education (NIE) is perhaps the nation's largest partnership program between schools and private industry.  Through NIE, schools get newspapers for classroom use free or at a reduced rate, often with special curricular materials and teacher training workshops.
The program is widely regarded as a win-win proposition.  Schools get current materials that may improve students' reading (Edfeldt, 1990) and writing (Ringler and Rhodes, 1990).  Newspapers get to claim a larger circulation in the short term, and they hope that boosting students' attitudes toward newspapers (Lentnek, 1997) and reading (Alpert, 1991) will cultivate them as future subscribers.  The short-term and long-term goals are not mutually exclusive, but they can clash.  Focusing on the reading curriculum can divert resources away from short-term gains, and vice-versa.
The 1980s and early 1990s saw a boom in NIE programs nationwide, an expansion documented in two national surveys commissioned by the American Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation (now known as the Newspaper Association of America Foundation), one in 1989 and one in 1992 (Newspaper Association of America Foundation, 1993).  However, there had not been a national survey since -- until now.
The larger media landscape has certainly changed in the last decade.  Hundreds of newspapers have closed their doors since 1992 (see Tables 1 and 1a), and newspapers have continued to lose readership nationwide.  Corporate ownership has become more concentrated and more profit-oriented, raising questions about the extent to which NIE will be able to pursue an educational mission.  Anecdotal evidence has suggested that NIE programs have increasingly turned to sponsors to help underwrite their costs.
Given these changes, it seemed to the researchers that another national survey was needed in order to get an accurate picture of the nature and scope of NIE programs in the 21st century.  Specifically, we wanted to find out how widely used the NIE program is.  How many newspapers have such a program?  How many schools use it?  How many teachers?  How many students?  Moreover, we wanted to examine what may have changed in:
ù       the level of service NIE programs provide
ù       which departments are running the programs
ù       the level of resources that newspapers are committing to the programs
ù       the extent of outside sponsorship
ù       the goals of the programs.
With the help of the Newspaper Association of America Foundation, this research undertook a national survey of daily newspapers in an attempt to answer these questions.

Newspapers in Education:
History, purpose and recent developments

        The idea of using newspapers as a teaching tool goes well back before the inception of formal programs run by the papers themselves.  "Recorded references to the use of the newspaper in the classroom go back to the 1890s" (Haefner, 1967, p. 6).  Educators' associations advocated this practice themselves for years.  Newspaper companies first got involved in the late 1930s when the Milwaukee Journal sponsored and distributed a book about using newspapers to teach current events; the New York Times sponsored a similar book 10 years later (Cowan, 1978).
        The acknowledged father of the Newspaper in the Classroom program, as it was originally called, was a circulation manager, C.K. Jefferson (Haefner, 1967).  In 1955, Jefferson urged the International Circulation Managers Association to study ways to augment school use of newspapers and develop newspaper reading habits in children.  The resulting study found that 40 percent of schools in a national survey used newspapers in some way, but perhaps not the most effective way (Moeller, 1957).
In 1959, the ANPA agreed to sponsor the newly created Newspaper in the Classroom program, and the ANPA Foundation began administering it in 1961; by 1978, NIE had grown to include more than 500 daily newspapers, Cowan (1978) noted, but the program still covered just 10 percent of the nation's schools.  In the ANPA Foundation's 1992 survey, 547 newspapers responded that had some form of NIE program.  Those programs reached more than 8 million students; in all, the program was estimated to reach more than 10 million.
The surveys commissioned by the ANPA Foundation also assessed the purposes and resources behind the nation's NIE programs.  From the start, NIE was considered part of the ANPA Foundation's first goal: "develop informed and intelligent newspaper readers."  The cultivation of future newspaper readers continued to be the one most frequently cited in the ANPA's 1992 survey:  82 percent of respondents said it was "extremely" important.  By comparison, immediate circulation gains were considered "extremely" or "very" important by 62 percent of respondents in 1992; still, this was up from 49 percent in the 1989 survey.  NIE began as a circulation manager's initiative, and the circulation department was primarily responsible for 47 percent of responding NIE programs in 1992.
Staffing for NIE was still low in 1992.  Sixty-four percent of newspapers with NIE programs had no full-time staff devoted solely to NIE, and 19 percent didn't have any part-time staff.  Among newspapers without NIE, 59 percent of responding newspapers cited lack of budget as the reason, up from 30 percent in 1989.
Resources offered to schools in 1992 included instructional materials (90 percent of respondents), newspaper tours (86 percent), guest speakers (78 percent) and teacher training (73 percent), some of which were for credit (32 percent).  Only 6 percent of newspapers charged for instructional materials.
Twenty percent of respondents didn't charge schools for newspapers in 1992, but this practice varied considerably by the size of the newspaper.  Almost half of newspapers with circulations of under 15,000 provided free school copies, compared to just 5 percent of papers over 100,000.  Business sponsors played the largest role in underwriting the costs of those newspapers; 69 percent of respondents said businesses helped pay for school copies.
This was the most recent look we had at NIE - until now.
Methodology
Population and survey sample
        The population for this study was daily, general-interest, community-based newspapers with paid circulation in the United States.  A Newspaper Association of America database provided a nearly exhaustive list of about 1,400 such papers.
All of these newspapers in the NAA database with circulations greater than 15,000 were included in the sample.  These medium and large newspapers were the ones most likely to have NIE programs, and they account for the overwhelming majority of the nation's NIE circulation.  Of the smaller newspapers, half were randomly selected.  A cross-check with an Audit Bureau of Circulation list came up with perhaps a dozen more newspapers.  Five large weekly newspapers with NIE programs were included in the interests of getting as complete a count as possible.
In all, surveys were mailed to 1,016 newspapers.  The mailing was addressed by name to the publisher or chief operating officer of each paper in March 2000.  A follow-up postcard was sent to NIE coordinators about six weeks later.  In late May, a researcher began calling the 90 newspapers with circulations over 50,000 that had not yet responded.  Duplicate surveys also were sent by fax and e-mail.  After follow-up efforts, 436 surveys were returned, for a response rate of 42.9 percent.[1]
Instrument
        The survey was four pages long.  It was modeled largely on the ANPA's 1992 survey to allow for comparison of findings.  The questions asked for NIE circulation information; number of schools, teachers and students participating; cost of newspapers and who pays for them; services and content provided; department responsible, as well as NIE staffing, salary and budget information; program goals and means of evaluating effectiveness; and uses of research.
Additional data
        In addition to the survey data, circulation data was obtained for 98 percent of the papers in the population through an ABC database and Standard Rate and Data Service (1999).  The ABC database also provided data on "school copies" and households for almost half of the population.  These data, in conjunction with the survey data, provide a clearer picture of the scope of NIE programs and permit a more informed estimate.
Results
Pattern of responses
        Table 2 breaks down the population into 36 categories based on 1) whether they were sampled, whether they responded, and whether they had NIE, 2) newspaper circulation size, and 3) whether the papers used the Audit Bureau of Circulation, and if so, whether the papers listed school copies in their ABC reports.  A glance at the table shows that the vast majority (95.6 percent) of the newspapers that responded to the survey did, in fact, have NIE programs.  However, the majority of newspapers didn't respond, and the greatest proportion of non-responses was from small, non-ABC newspapers, those least likely to have NIE programs.  It appears that a response bias is present.
        Tables 3 and 3a show the estimated distribution of NIE programs according to circulation category in 2000 and 1992.  The 2000 estimates are based on ABC data, our survey data, and the results of a brief telephone survey of 100 small, non-ABC papers that did not respond to our survey.  They show that the larger a newspaper is, the more likely it is to have an NIE program.  They also show that newspapers of all sizes were more likely to have NIE programs in 2000 than in 1992.  These tables provide some data to help correct the response bias.  The estimates of likelihood to have an NIE program  were used to weight the estimates that follow.
Scope
This section presents our best estimate as to the scope and reach of NIE programs in the United States today.  The first step is the raw data from the newspapers that answered our survey, which accounts for most - but not all - of the nation's NIE circulation.  Next comes information from supplementary data and regression estimates for non-responding papers.  Finally, these estimates are weighted for likelihood of having NIE programs.  See Table 4.
        The first step is the raw data for the 417 responding newspapers who had NIE programs.  Summing their responses, NIE participation totaled 77,035 schools, 280,142 teachers and 10.4 million students.  These numbers by themselves represent significant increases from the raw data of the 1992 study.  Even though that survey included responses from almost 550 newspapers that had NIE programs, the grand totals were lower in 1992:  67,438 schools, 183,854 teachers and 8,277,100 students.  However, the raw data shouldn't be considered a grand total for all of the nation's NIE programs.
Because as many as 20 of the newspapers in this sample left one or more of the questions about students, teachers and schools blank, mean values for newspapers in each circulation and ABC membership category were substituted for missing responses.  That accounts for the totals from the "returned-NIE" row in Table 4.
        Next, there 309 ABC newspapers that had either not returned the survey or not been sampled.  For these papers, we had ABC data on school copies and households in their market as well as total circulation.  Using multiple regression with those variables as predictors, the numbers of schools, teachers and students served was estimated.[2]  R2 values were .67, .59 and .55, respectively.  The regression estimates were weighted by each category's likelihood of having NIE; for these papers, the likelihood approached 1 because they listed school copies in their ABC reports.
        For ABC papers that did not claim school copies, regression predictors were households and total circulation.  R2 values were .67 for schools, .50 for teachers and .42 for students.  These estimates, too, were weighted by their category's (quite low) likelihood of having NIE programs.  Estimates for non-ABC papers were based solely on circulation (R2 values of .67 for schools, .50 for teachers and .42 for students[3]) and were weighted by (again, low) category probabilities of having NIE.  Similar regression estimates were included for responding newspapers that indicated they were starting programs again; the probability weight for these few cases was 1.
        Table 4 shows the totals from these weighted estimates.  It is estimated that over 100,000 schools, almost 400,000 teachers and about 14.4 million students participated in NIE programs in 2000.  As Table 5 shows, the estimate for number of students is up 33 percent since 1992.
        Coverage.  Although there are fewer participating newspapers today, their larger programs are more widely available.  This can be shown by combining our survey data with data from SRDS and the Department of Education.  A research assistant used SRDS data to determine the number of metro areas where at least one NIE newspaper was available. Then, working systematically to avoid duplication, the assistant totaled the population of non-urban counties in which NIE newspapers operated.
Table 6 shows that NIE programs in 2000 were available in areas that include 94 percent of U.S. students, up from 90 percent in 1992.  NIE programs also serve a greater percentage of the nation's schools, teachers and students than in 1992; almost a third of American students participated in an NIE program last year, up from 24 percent in 1992.
Nature of NIE programs
Level of service
Intensity of use.  The biggest difference here is that schools are using NIE programs for a bigger part of the school year.  See Table 7.  In 1992, 47 percent of participating schools received NIE copies for at least six months a year, which itself was up from 39 percent in 1989.  The 2000 survey shows 76 percent of participating schools were enrolled in NIE for six months or more a year.  That, combined with an increase in the frequency of newspaper deliveries to schools, resulted in students getting almost three times as many newspapers in 2000 as in 1992.
        Additional services.  There are a few differences to report with the 1992 survey.  See Table 8.  Newspapers in 2000 were somewhat more likely to provide instructional materials and special topic supplements than in 1992.  But they were less likely to provide such labor-intensive services as guest speakers or teacher training workshops.  The percentage offering lending libraries in 2000 was half of the percentage in 1992.
        Cost to schools.  The percentage of newspapers providing free copies to schools has more than doubled from the 20 percent reported in 1992.  See Table 9.  Fully 41 percent said they provided newspapers at no charge, and another 19.7 percent said they provided some newspapers at no charge; they checked the "no charge" box and another box as well.
Sponsorship
Who pays for free copies?  Of newspapers who provided some copies free to schools, 94.5 percent had business sponsorships, up from 69 percent in 1992.  See Table 10.  Individual sponsorships were up dramatically, as well, from 37 percent in 1992 to 71.1 percent.  A new option, vacation donation (in which people who temporarily stop their papers donate the cost of stopped papers to NIE), was used by 75.8 percent of respondents.  Meanwhile, the percentage of newspapers reporting that they absorbed the cost of school copies was halved, from 33 percent in 1992 to 16.4 percent in the present study.
Respondents were asked an open-ended question about what their newspaper's relationship with their sponsors was.  The question was apparently too broad, judging from the number of answers that evaluated the relationship ("Excellent!") rather than describing the nature of it.  Still, 23 percent of respondents volunteered that some or most of their sponsors advertised with the paper.  The actual percentage is probably higher, although 5.5 percent said that few of their sponsors were advertisers.
Resources provided for programs
        Staff.  Full-time staffing was up.  Table 11a shows full-time staffing for educational services and part-time staffing for NIE in 1992 and 2000.  More than half of newspapers with NIE programs in 1992 lacked a full-time worker in educational services, while only a third did in 2000.  This survey also showed more full-timers working solely on NIE:  52.3 percent in 2000, compared to 35.5 percent in 1992.  Part-time staffing was down slightly, with 73.9 percent of papers having at least one part-timer, compared to 81 percent in 1992.  In the current sample, 7.2 percent of NIE programs had no staff.  Overall, the average number of full-time equivalents working in NIE programs rose from 1.6 to 2.1.
        Budgets.   As might be expected, NIE budgets rose between 1992 and 2000.  Table 11b shows that programs in 2000 were half as likely to have no labor costs as in 1992, and they were twice as likely to be in the "over $50,000" category in labor and non-labor costs as in 1992.  Thirty-five percent of newspapers were paying an NIE chief more than $30,000 a year, Table 11c shows, compared with 15 percent in 1992.  The categorical data does not allow for exact totals.  But we can probably work safely with category midpoints (e.g., where a response category is $20,000-$30,000, we can enter $25,000; when there are many respondents, the midpoint should be close to the actual mean, and totals will be similarly close).  Doing so, it appears that NIE programs as a whole spent 29 percent more in 2000 than in 1992.  This estimate does not include the cost of newspapers, which fewer newspapers are absorbing themselves (see Sponsorship above).
        However, as Table 11d shows, in terms of dollars per student reached, newspapers actually spent somewhat less in 2000 than in 1992.  The gap becomes more dramatic when expressed in constant 1992 dollars:  $4.31 in 1992, $3.34 in 2000.  It appears that budget growth kept up with inflation, but not with the increasing reach of NIE programs.
Organizational goals and priorities
        Department responsible.  Organizational structures make priorities visible, and a shift toward circulation is evident here.  Circulation was the department primarily responsible for 69 percent of NIE programs responding, up from 47 percent in 1992.  See Table 12.  This shift was most pronounced in the smallest newspapers, where 83 percent of NIE programs are run through the circulation department; in 1992, the figure for this group was 56 percent.
The shift is also evident in the title of the person to whom the NIE head reports.  See Table 12. The chief NIE staffer reports to a circulation director at 55 percent of these newspapers, up from 30 percent in 1992.  NIE directors were half as likely to report directly to the publisher or general manager in 2000 as they were in 1992.
        Program evaluation and research.  The percentage of newspapers that evaluate the effectiveness of their NIE programs was almost unchanged, about 68 percent.  The bases for evaluation, however, have changed somewhat.  See Table 13.  Circulation and program growth are used more often, while teacher satisfaction, while still the most common factor in evaluation, is less likely to be used than it was in 1992.  The means of evaluation also have changed.  Of the 276 newspapers surveyed that evaluate effectiveness, 54 percent used surveys, up from 31 percent in 1992.  The percentage relying on feedback was unchanged at 28.6 percent.
        A slightly larger percentage of NIE programs reported using research in 2000, 67 percent.  Again, see Table 13.  Changes in emphasis were slight but consistent with other findings reported here.  Compared to 1992, research was more likely to be used to further program growth and less likely to be used for demonstrating the program's educational value.
        Accountability/Incentives.  Compensation incentives appear to reflect the changing landscape of NIE.  See Table 14.  For 44.1 percent of chief educational services staffers on surveyed newspapers, pay is tied to program outcomes.  For those whose compensation was contingent on outcomes, half (49.7 percent) of those outcomes were circulation- related.  The next most common tie (30.9 percent) was to sponsorships, sometimes in the form of commissions.
Reasons for NIE.  See Table 15.  As in 1992, future newspaper readers were considered by far the most important reason for the NIE program in 2000, cited as extremely important by 86 percent of respondents.  That was up from 82 percent in 1992.  Community service lost six points over that time (to 42 percent), and awareness of freedom of the press lost five (to 25 percent).
        The big change was for the importance of immediate circulation gains.  Forty-four percent of respondents considered that extremely important, compared with 28 percent in 1992.  (Recall that in 1989, 49 percent of respondents called circulation gains extremely or very important.  In 1992, that percentage was up to 62 percent.  In this study, it climbs to 84 percent.)
        In this survey, two new reasons were presented.  "Sense of citizenship responsibility" was called extremely important by 38 percent of respondents.  "Image-building," a somewhat more commercial motivation, was cited as extremely important by 44 percent.
Discussion
        This survey shows that NIE programs have become fewer, but larger and more pervasive.  Although the absolute number of NIE programs has dropped 16 percent since 1992, we estimate that the number of participating students has grown by 33 percent.  And those participating students are getting three times as many newspaper copies over the course of the school year.
        Compared to 1992, newspapers are more than twice as likely to provide those copies to schools free of charge, but at the same time they're half as likely to absorb the cost of those copies themselves.  Individual and business sponsors are playing a much larger role in paying for those copies.  The importance of sponsors is reflected in salary contingencies for NIE chiefs: among those whose pay is tied to program outcomes, almost a third are paid to bring in more sponsorship money.  But almost half have their pay tied to circulation goals.
        Increasingly, it appears, circulation is the name of the game in NIE.  Circulation departments are now primarily responsible for 69 percent of NIE programs, and circulation directors are the people to whom the majority of NIE chiefs report.  As a reason for NIE programs, circulation has eclipsed community service and awareness of freedom of the press.  Considering the low social desirability of "immediate circulation gains" relative to the other loftier-sounding goals, it's remarkable that as many respondents endorsed it as they did.  The "true" importance of circulation may well be greater.  But the need to cultivate future newspaper readers still is seen as the most important raison d'ˆtre for NIE.  In this respect, little has changed since 1992 - indeed, since the conception of the program.
        There are no clear signs that corners are being cut in the drive for circulation.  Additional services are about where they were in 1992.  NIE staffs have grown almost as much as the program's reach has.  Budgets have kept up with inflation, but not with the growth of the program's reach.  There may be economies of scale involved with larger programs that let them do more with less, but it's clear that per pupil spending has decreased in real terms - even without considering the costs of newspapers, which fewer newspapers are absorbing.
Conclusion
        This research has several shortcomings.  In our attempt to account for more of the nation's NIE circulation, we oversampled medium and large newspapers, and we followed up with large nonrespondents more strenuously.  That means that our sample as a whole can't be considered representative of U.S. newspapers.  To compensate for this shortcoming, we report results by circulation category; we are confident that those results are representative of newspapers in those categories with NIE programs.  Happily, the circulation breakdown of the current study is very similar to that of the 1992 survey.  A chi-square goodness-of-fit test on the two samples' circulation distribution suggested little difference between the two (P2, 3df = 1.05, p>.75), so the comparisons contained in this paper should be valid.
        The reader should keep in mind that estimates as to the scope of NIE programs in 2000 are just that:  estimates.  While we are confident that the estimates are close to the actual numbers of students, teachers and schools participating, they should not be treated as the actual figures themselves. Likewise, our use of categorical data for some measures (such as NIE budget), while probably aiding our response rate to those questions, is not exact.  Estimates of budgets and the like are probably close simply because the size of our data set makes it safer to use category midpoints in estimating totals.
        The growing emphasis on circulation in NIE deserves both welcome and wary watchfulness.  On one hand, it is clear that NIE is reaching more students than ever before, and that is good news.  But there are anecdotes about NIE "programs" that do little more than dump the day's overruns at the school steps so they can show advertisers bigger circulation numbers.  Similarly, the involvement of sponsors can increase the reach of NIE, but it could devolve into rampant product placement that has little educational value.  Fortunately, this study shows no clear signs that these "worst practices" are becoming more prevalent.  It is heartening that the top priority of NIE continues to be developing future readers.
        Future research should explore the goals of NIE programs in greater depth.  What goals are seen as compatible or incompatible with others?  How are these goals reflected in organizations?  How are these goals pursued?  How is achievement toward them measured?  How can they best be achieved?  For instance, the top goal is developing future subscribers.  Is it happening?  What evidence is there?  What programs are doing the best job of this?
        One other line of research might consider NIE from the school's perspective.  Although developing future subscribers has long been NIE's top priority, educators have been interested in the potential of the newspaper as a teaching tool for even longer.  More research on NIE's educational mission needs to be done - even if only to convince more schools and teachers of its merit.
Notes

NIE Survey
Table 1:  All U.S. daily newspapers-2000
SIZE CATEGORY
(Thousands)
NUMBER
OF
NEWSPAPERS
PERCENT OF
TOTAL
TOTAL CIRCULATION
(Millions)
PERCENT OF
TOTAL

Over 100

107

7.5%

28.1

52.9%
50 - 100
118
8.3%
7.8
14.7%
15 - 50
383
27.0%
11.6
21.9%
Under 15
812
57.2%
5.6
10.5%
TOTAL
1420
100.0%
53.1
100.0%
                        *Excludes USAToday and Wall Street Journal



Table 1a:  All U.S. daily newspapers-1992
SIZE CATEGORY
(Thousands)
NUMBER
OF
NEWSPAPERS
PERCENT OF
TOTAL
TOTAL CIRCULATION
(Millions)
PERCENT OF
TOTAL

Over 100

141

7.5%

28.2

52.6%
50 - 100
158
7.8%
7.9
14.7%
15 - 50
510
29.3%
11.8
22.1%
Under 15
995
55.4%
5.7
10.6%
TOTAL
1804
100.0%
53.6
100.0%
                        *Excludes USAToday and Wall Street Journal

NIE Survey
Table 2:  Study population by sampling/response, ABC status and size
NUMBER OF NEWSPAPERS
ABC NEWSPAPERS
NON-ABC
NEWSPAPERS

TOTAL
HAVE SCHOOL COPIES
NO SCHOOL COPIES
Large
Medium
Small
Large
Medium
Small
Large
Medium
Small


Not Sampled



1


6


65


1


4


78


0


0


269


424


Not Returned



34


158


45


0


29


55


8


14


237


580


Ret - NO NIE



1


3


2


0



3


2


0


0


8


19


Returned - NIE



182


147


22


0


9


14


4


9


30


417


TOTAL



218


314


134


1


45


149


12


23


544


1440

Large = Over 50,000             Medium = 15,000 - 49,999                Small = Under 15,000

NIE Survey
Table 3:  NIE in U.S. daily newspapers (est.) -2000
SIZE CATEGORY
(Thousands)

NUMBER OF
NEWSPAPERS
NUMBER WITH
NIE

PERCENT OF CATEGORY
Over 100
107
107
100%
50 - 100
118
116
98%
15 - 50
383
334
87%
Under 15
812
393
48%
TOTAL
1420
950
67%
                        *Excludes USAToday and Wall Street Journal


Table 3a:  NIE in U.S. daily newspapers (est.) -1992
SIZE CATEGORY
(Thousands)

NUMBER OF
NEWSPAPERS
NUMBER WITH
NIE

PERCENT OF CATEGORY
Over 100
141
135
96%
50 - 100
158
150
95%
15 - 50
510
394
78%
Under 15
995
456
46%
TOTAL
1804
1135
63%
                        *Excludes USAToday and Wall Street Journal

NIE Survey
Table 4:  Estimated numbers of schools, teachers and students in NIE programs
ABC NEWSPAPERS
NON-ABC
NEWSPAPERS

TOTAL
HAVE SCHOOL COPIES
NO SCHOOL COPIES
Large
Medium
Small
Large
Medium
Small
Large
Medium
Small


Not Sampled
(Estimated)
314

472

14,839
289

1,215

39,564
1,044

6,847

246,681
0

0

0
56

122

4,137
386

1,154

36,944
0

0

0
0

0

0
867

3,735

117,248
2,956

13,545

459,413


Not Returned
(Estimated)
11,566

41,053

1,717,509
9,106

26,513

920,883
705

4,174

152,624
0

0

0
0

0

0
0

0

0

No basis for estimate
28

108

1,660
368

1,621

50,542
21,773

73,469

2,843,218

Ret. - NO NIE
(Estimated for start-up programs)
       0

0

0
133

250

9,244
20

91

3,585
0

0

0
0

0

0
15

64

1,980
0

0

0
0

0

0
9

52

1,539
177

457

16,348

Returned - NIE
(Actual figures, with cell mean
substitution for missing values)
69,621

259,156

9,901,480
8,603

25,859

910,100
538

1,624

68,026
0

0

0
192

459

12,701
138

878

26,225
920

2,575

83,300
259

705

22,821
678

1,906

39,839
80,949

293,162

11,064,492


TOTAL

81,501

300,681

11,633,828
18,131

53,837

1,879,791
2,307

12,736

470,916
0

0

0
248

581

16,838
539

2,096

65,149
920

2,575

83,300
287

813

24,481
1,922

7,314

209,168
105,855

380,633

14,383,471

In each cell, the top number is for schools, the middle number for teachers, and the bottom number is for students
Large = Over 50,000             Medium = 15,000 - 49,999                Small = Under 15,000

NIE Survey
Table 5: Estimated reach of NIE Programs - 1992 and 2000
Total
Y2000 (by Size Category)
1992
2000
<15K
15-50K
50-99K
100K+

Schools

84,877

105,855

7,518

19,096

25,510

53,731

Teachers

294,794

380,633

22,115

60,786

95,577

202,155

Students

10,822,100

14,383,471

745,233

1,921,110

3,695,913

8,021,215


Table 6: Coverage of NIE Programs - 1992 and 2000
Total
1992
2000
Percent of elementary and secondary students living in an area served by an NIE program

90%

94%
Percent of elementary and secondary schools participating in an NIE program

31%

40%
Percent of elementary and secondary teachers participating in an NIE program

26%

35%
Percent of elementary and secondary students participating in an NIE program

24%

32%

 Table 7: Intensity of NIE programs - 1992 and 2000
Total
Y2000 (by Size Category)
1992
2000
<15K
15-50K
50-99K
100K+
LENGTH
  less than 3 mo.
  3 - 6 months
  6 - 9 months.
  full school year
38%
15%
9%
38%
13%
11%
13%
63%
16%
5%
10%
69%
7%
10%
14%
69%
10%
10%
13%
67%
15%
13%
15%
57%
FREQUENCY
  at least weekly
  more than 1/wk
  daily
55%
16%
11%
57%
22%
15%
66%
21%
19%
56%
21%
13%
54%
22%
13%
55%
24%
16%
NEWSPAPERS
average copies per delivery

23.3

44.8

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a
BOTTOM LINE
  Avg. number of
  copies/ student
  per year

5.3

15.4

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a


Table 8: Additional NIE services - 1992 and 2000
Pct. of Programs that Provide
Total
Y2000 (by Size Category)
1992
2000
<15K
15-50K
50-99K
100K+
Instruction materials (e.g., teacher guides)

90%

94%

78%

93%

100%

100%
Special topic supplements

56%

70%

41%

61%

84%

89%
Training workshops for teachers

73%

65%

27%

61%

82%

92%
guest speakers to schools (not NIE staff)

78%

61%

32%

59%

76%

74%
lend films, videos, books etc.

28%

14%

14%

14%

18%

13%
Other* support for schools

22%

22%

16%

21%

22%

32%
Internet
0%
62%
38%
52%
76%
78%
*Includes promotional activities, recognition events, and newsletters
 Table 9: Schools' price for newspapers - 1992 and 2000
Pct. of Programs that Charge:
Total
Y2000 (by Size Category)
1992
2000
<15K
15-50K
50-99K
100K+
Half of single copy price

36%

13%

8%

13%

14%

18%
Half of carrier delivery price

19%

19%

9%

16%

27%

23%
Less than half price

4%

4%

5%

5%

2%

3%
No cost to school
20%
41%
71%
45%
32%
22%
Some free,
some not

n/a

20%

5%

20%

22%

30%
Other
20%
3%
3%
2%
3%
4%




Table 10: Who pays for free copies? - 1992 and 2000
Pct. of Programs that Rely on:
Total
Y2000 (by Size Category)
1992
2000
<15K
15-50K
50-99K
100K+
Individual sponsors

37%

71%

63%

80%

66%

66%
Business sponsors
69%
95%
94%
98%
87%
98%
Parent/teacher organizations

14%

13%

6%

10%

19%

21%
Vacation donations
n/a
76%
51%
78%
83%
91%
Newspaper absorbs cost

33%

16%

20%

19%

19%

4%
Other
6%
15%
10%
16%
17%
17%

 Table 11a: Staff for NIE programs - 1992 and 2000
Pct. of Programs with ___ Staff
Total
Y2000 (by Size Category)
1992
2000
<15K
15-50K
50-99K
100K+
  Full-time
    none
    1
    2 or more
  Part-time
    none
    1-2
    3 or more


53%
35%
12%

19%
53%
28%

34%
42%
24%

27%
54%
19%

78%
18%
4%

17%
56%
27%

44%
51%
5%

28%
45%
27%

10%
70%
20%

33%
28%
39%

5%
20%
75%

23%
23%
54%
average FTE's
1.6
2.1
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a

Table 11b: Budgets for NIE programs - 1992 and 2000
Pct. of Programs with __ Budget
Total
Y2000 (by Size Category)
1992
2000
<15K
15-50K
50-99K
100K+
  Nonlabor
    Under $10,000
    $10 - $25,000
    $25 - $50,000
    Over $50,000
  Labor
    None
    Under $30,000
    $30 - $50,000
    $50 - $100,000
    Over $100,000

68%
16%
8%
8%

35%
38%
11%
11%
5%

51%
23%
11%
15%

18%
37%
20%
13%
12%

93%
7%
0%
0%

41%
50%
5%
4%
0%

65%
24%
8%
3%

19%
60%
17%
3%
1%

36%
34%
18%
12%

2%
24%
49%
17%
7%

8%
22%
14%
56%

2%
4%
16%
32%
46%

Table 11c: Base pay for NIE chiefs - 1992 and 2000
Pct. of Programs paying NIE chief
Total
Y2000 (by Size Category)
1992
2000
<15K
15-50K
50-99K
100K+
  None
  Under $30,000
  $30 - $50,000
  Over $50,000
47%
38%
13%
2%
28%
37%
27%
8%
57%
43%
0%
0%
36%
54%
9%
1%
9%
32%
56%
3%
8%
8%
55%
29%
Table 11d: Resources per student served - 1992 and 2000
Total
1992
2000
FTE Staff per Student Served

Total Expenditure per Student Served:
     Actual Dollars (cost of papers excluded)
     1992 Constant Dollars
.17


$4.31
$4.31
.14


$4.17
$3.34

Table 12: Organization of NIE programs - 1992 and 2000
Total
Y2000 (by Size Category)
1992
2000
<15K
15-50K
50-99K
100K+
DEPARTMENT RESPONSIBLE
  Circulation
  Mktg/Promo
  NIE/Ed Serv.
  News/Editorial
  Comm. Rel.
  Other
47%
21%
16%
8%
2%
6%
69%
14%
10%
2%
2%
3%
83%
3%
10%
0%
2%
2%
69%
14%
9%
1%
3%
4%
66%
19%
9%
3%
1%
2%
60%
18%
16%
3%
1%
2%
NIE HEAD REPORTS TO
  Circ. Director
  Mktg/Promo Dir
  Publisher/G.M.
  Editor
  Comm. Rel.
  Other
30%
12%
21%
5%
4%
25%
55%
19%
11%
2%
1%
12%
54%
2%
38%
0%
0%
7%
60%
15%
10%
3%
0%
11%
56%
30%
2%
1%
1%
10%
46%
26%
3%
1%
3%
21%


Table 13: Evaluation of NIE programs - 1992 and 2000
Total
Y2000 (by Size Category)
1992
2000
<15K
15-50K
50-99K
100K+
USE MEASURES TO EVALUATE
   Yes
   No
68%
32%
68%
32%
52%
48%
61%
39%
80%
20%
85%
15%
WHICH ONES
   Circulation
   NIE Growth
   Teach. Satisf.
  Internal Perf.
33%
18%
64%
12%
41%
24%
50%
10%
14%
20%
72%
4%
33%
24%
58%
10%
62%
25%
44%
14%
53%
32%
41%
18%
USE RESEARCH
   Yes
   No
62%
38%
67%
33%
31%
69%
35%
65%
44%
56%
80%
20%
FOR WHAT
   Prog. growth
   Prog. ed. value
   Student Perf.
   Grads become
       subscribers
39%
44%
3%
2%
42%
37%
4%
1%
35%
10%
0%
0%
38%
35%
1%
1%
44%
40%
5%
2%
51%
41%
5%
1%



Table 14: Incentives for NIE chiefs  - 1992 and 2000
Total
Y2000 (by Size Category)
1992
2000
<15K
15-50K
50-99K
100K+
USE PAY INCENTIVES
   Yes
   No
n/a
n/a
35%
65%
13%
87%
28%
72%
48%
52%
58%
42%
INCENTIVES TIED TO ___
   Circulation
   Sponsorships
   Student Perf.
n/a
n/a
n/a
49%
31%
3%
13%
50%
0%
38%
33%
4%
48%
36%
5%
66%
23%
3%





Table 15: Importance of reasons for NIE - 1992 and 2000
Pct. Saying ___ is "extremely important"
Total
Y2000 (by Size Category)
1992
2000
<15K
15-50K
50-99K
100K+
Immediate Circulation Gain
28%
44%
31%
36%
44%
62%
Future News-paper Readers
82%
86%
81%
85%
88%
87%
Image building
n/a
44%
37%
49%
46%
37%
Community Service
49%
43%
38%
46%
47%
40%
Awareness of Press Freedom
30%
25%
24%
28%
22%
25%
Sense of Citizen Responsibility
n/a
38%
29%
43%
41%
36%
 References

Alpert, H. (1991).  The use of newspapers with underprepared community college students as a means of improving reading and writing.  Hempstead, NY:  Hofstra University.  Unpublished dissertation.

Cowan, M.S. (1978).  History of the Newspaper in Education program.  Reston, VA:  American Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation.

Haefner, J.H. (1967).  The Daily Newspaper in the School curriculum.  Iowa City:  American Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation.

Edfeldt, A. (1990).  Teaching analytical reading with newspapers as sole reading text.  Research Bulletins, 14 (4) (April).  Stockholm:  University of Stockholm

Lentnek, L.R. (1997).  Turning the newspaper into a teaching tool:  A study of the effects of newspapers incorporated into the curriculum of a fifth-grade class.  Atlanta:  Georgia State University.  Master's thesis.

Moeller, D.W. (1957).  Classroom use of the daily newspaper in junior and senior high schools.  Iowa City:  International Circulation Managers Association Youth Reading Study Committee.

Newspaper Association of America Foundation (1993).  Survey of Newspaper in Education programs and literacy programs 1992.  Vienna, VA:  Author.

Ringler, L.H. and Rhodes, C.S. (1990).  The relationship between students' newspaper reading and students' habits, attitudes, writing ability and reading comprehension.  New York:  New York University.

Standard Rate and Data Service (1999).  Circulation 2000.  Des Plaines, IL:  Author.





[1] Where newspapers in joint operating agreements or groups did not have separate NIE programs, the joint entity was treated as one unit for analysis.
[2]  To avoid collinearity between school copies and total circulation (r=.891), just one of them was used in regression estimates, depending on which predicted better for the dependent variable in question.  For schools, total circulation was used; for teachers and students, we used school copies instead.  Where we did not have data on school copies, obviously, total circulation was used.
[3]  Although it's not evident from the R2 values, households had a significant beta for schools and teachers in the equation with total circulation, so it was retained where data on households was available.