No More Weekly Reader

I haven't thought about Weekly Reader in years. Receiving those venerable, thin periodicals every week in grade school was, if not a highlight, at least a memory that generations of students have shared.

But no more. In the modern era, sadly, the Weekly Reader no longer has a place:

Weekly Reader, a staple in American classrooms for a century, has some hard news for its young readers: it’s shutting down.

Chief rival Scholastic, which bought the school newspaper earlier this year, is folding it into Scholastic News and axing all but five of Weekly Reader’s 60 employees in White Plains, NY, The Post has learned.

Like all papers, Weekly Reader was struggling with changes roiling the print world and was under pressure to develop digital editions. Along with school budget cutbacks, those challenges were compounded by ownership turmoil that left the paper with few resources to invest, sources said.

Weekly Reader and its predecessor My Weekly Reader, which grew out of Current Events magazine in 1902, was read by two-thirds of all kids in grammar school at its peak and hit a high of 13 millions subscribers across its editions for pre-school through 12th grade.

I'm feeling older by the day. But no fear, because soon every student will have their own school-issued iPad, able to access the world. (Eye roll here).

Sometimes, simpler is better. A lesson we simply cannot seem to learn.