A Study of 43 Public School Printing Departments Located in Seven Upper Midwest States

This printing education topic was selected to obtain information about high school printing laboratories in the upper Midwest for the benefit of school officials and printing teachers. (The Upper Midwest was defined to include the states of Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Montana. These states, except Wisconsin, border on South Dakota.) This study was made to enable interested school officials, printing teachers, and prospective printing teachers to determine the 1960 status of printing education in the study area. Matters considered in the study were curriculum classifications, size of high schools, number of teachers, printed forms produced, printing department enrollment, job placement services, and school newspaper production method. Commercial printing, one of the nation’s major industries, is essential to commerce, science, the arts, education, and government. Since World War II, the lithographic, or offset printing process, has considerably increased in use in printing shops. Although letterpress printing is the dominant method of printing, offset lithography has made inroads in the field of graphic reproduction. This study attempted to investigate the present role of high school printing departments in training students to meet the needs of the printing industry. The information presented in this study can serve as a basis for comparing curriculum classifications, number of semesters of printing courses offered, number of full-time and part-time teachers, number of forms printed, number of printing students enrolled in each class year, job placement procedures, general areas of instruction, and method of producing the school newspaper. This study may also help school officials, printing teachers, and prospective teachers develop high school printing curricula and printing laboratory administration procedures