All the School News That's Fit to Print: Postwar education news coverage in the New York Times

This dissertation aims to illuminate the strings which invariably link present-day issues and debates in education news coverage to their not-so-distant past, using the New York Times as the primary lens. Newspapers have played a crucial role in the production and circulation of public knowledge about American education since the mid-twentieth century. And, in this context, no newspaper had as great an influence on national conversations about America’s schools than the New York Times. Yet, the broader history of education news coverage, and the role this newspaper played as a circulator of knowledge about education, has not been critically examined before now. In this compilation thesis, four studies come together to explore the historical practices, actors, and material influences of the New York Times which set the agenda for public debates on education during the long-postwar era (1950-1990), while also offering methodological reflections for researchers who utilize digitized historical newspapers. By taking the first steps in establishing a postwar history of education news coverage, this research contributes a number of key findings to the fields of educational history, media history, and the history of knowledge, including insights into what (and why) education topics were considered newsworthy in different periods, how the material of the newspaper created a hierarchy of education topics and shaped educational concepts for readers, and how the New York Times and its journalists played more active roles in shaping the history of American education and educational policy than previously known.