The Positive Impact of NIE on Student Achievement

Newspapers In Education programs make a big difference in student performance. That’s the key finding of national research conducted by Dr. Dan Sullivan of the University of Minnesota and published by the Newspaper Association of America Foundation in 2002 titled “Measuring Success: The Positive Impact of Newspaper in Education Programs on Student Achievement.” Dr. Sullivan’s research was based on a sample of 22 newspapers, whose coverage area included 2,900 schools. Measuring Success reports that:

• When controlling for other factors, data suggests that having an NIE program for at least some classrooms at a school will increase the over all performance of the school, on average, by about 10 percent.

• In middle schools where virtually all the students are minority or qualify for free lunches and which have significant NIE programs, students average 30 percent higher test scores than similarly populated schools with no NIE programs. Evidence suggests one possible explanation for this phenomenon. Most students in these schools do not have newspapers in their homes, and when they take the newspaper home, they get their parents involved in their education.

• Positive effects of NIE programs are larger in metropolitan areas than in smaller communities.

• The 950 NIE programs nationally reach over 106,000 schools, 380,000 teachers and 14 million students each year.