The New York Times published its new “Learning” section in Sunday’s print edition, though the stories appeared online late last week.
The 16-page broadsheet section is the replacement for Education Life, the quarterly tabloid that the Times had published for some 30 years. As I reported here last November, section editor Jane Karr took a buyout from the paper just as the editors decided to re-assess the periodic education report.
Aside from the new name and the change from tabloid to broadsheet printing, the Learning section is not dramatically different from Education Life.
In a note to readers, Learning editor Jane Bornemeier says the new section is “a deep dive into the joys, excitement, challenges, and opportunities in the world of education and learning.”
The new “refreshed and redesigned” quarterly learning sections will cover not just higher education (which was the focus of Education Life in recent years) but also K-12, continuing education, and “alternative forms of education for nontraditional learners,” Bornemeier writes.
A page of short items called “Bulletin Board” was produced with the Hechinger Report, the independent, nonprofit education news organization based in New York City.
The section includes a mix of other long and short pieces. I had praised Education Life over the years for providing an eclectic mix of stories and other features that might have gotten lost if not collected in a quarterly section, even at a newspaper that covers education as thoroughly as the Times.
The new section is meant to continue the tradition, but it will have to earn the same level of respect on its own.