This was the decade of increased development of partnerships with national education associations. The NAA Foundation and the International Reading Association joined to sponsor NIE Week each March. In 1987, more than a dozen national groups, led by the ANPA Foundation, cosponsored the bicentennial observance of the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. Newspapers were used in the classroom from kindergarten through college in almost all subjects. Newspapers could also be found outside the classroom for tutoring and adult education, in prisons, mental institutions and nursing homes.

Adult literacy became an important component of many programs. The Foundation, picking up on an idea started by local newspapers, began to offer newspapers camera-ready NIE study supplements on such topics as national elections, families reading together and the Olympic Games. Many NIE programs established their own partnerships at the local level - this time with businesses willing to sponsor and pay for the delivery of half-priced copies of the newspaper to schools. By 1989, more than 700 NIE programs were in place nationwide, many of them assisted by a growing number of regional and state NIE coalitions.