The UK's "Prime Minister's Questions"--a television program that shows parliamentary proceedings and banter between House of Commons members--can be a free, real-world resource for rhetorical analysis opportunities. In this article, the author presents the inherent value of these sessions in the classroom as a means of creatively…

Over the last three decades, cities across the United States have adopted strategies known as "proactive" or "broken windows" policing, with a focus on strict law enforcement for low-level crimes and extensive pedestrian stops. The initiatives have occurred disproportionately in poor communities of color, and an increasing…

This 2015 Brown Center Report (BCR) represents the fourteenth edition of the series since the first issue was published in 2000. It includes three studies. Like all previous BCRs, the studies explore independent topics but share two characteristics: they are empirical and based on the best evidence available. The studies in this edition are on the…

This report is made up of seven chapters relating to Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) performance level setting (PLS). Chapter one describes the goals of the PARCC program, content standards measured by PARCC, PARCC performance levels, and components of the PARCC system. Chapter two discusses the goals of…

Students, teachers, administrators, community members, and policymakers are collectively responsible for ensuring that the literacy learning required to earn a living and lead a well-rounded life is available to all. To meet that responsibility, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) urges legislators to practice civil discourse by…

An analysis of English/language arts standards development in Wisconsin and Minnesota in the late 1990s and early 2000s shows a process of compromise between neoliberal and neoconservative factions involved in promoting and writing standards, with the voices of educators conspicuously absent. Interpretive and critical discourse analyses of…

The development of a sound theory of the arguing of policy questions in debate requires that the Affirmative be obligated to demonstrate the solvency of its plan, regardless of the paradigmatic origins of the case theory. While the specific degree of demonstration which is necessary to establish solvency remains a substantive issue within the…

The Michigan English Language Arts Framework (MELAF) offers an illustrative case of top-down and bottom-up confluences in curriculum policymaking. In several distinct ways, state policy met local initiatives to create dynamic partnerships to spread change. State systematic reformers looked to the grass roots for ideas and percolating initiatives.…

Examines "the ways in which educators have not taken up social and cultural understandings of the teaching and learning of literacy." Concludes that the challenge for educators and policy makers is to make use of what is known about the cognitive, linguistic, and sociocultural processes involved in the education of all children. (SG)

Increasingly over the past decade there have appeared in the press bar graphs comparing the performance of U.S. students with their counterparts in other countries. Usually these graphs have been accompanied by dire warnings and pointing fingers. The main source of the data on international comparisons has been the International Association for…

The purpose of this study is to examine bidialectalism as an educational policy. The study is in two major sections: the first portion is concerned with the problems inherent in the policy process itself, with those aspects of educational decision-making which combine to make reasonable policy outcomes difficult to achieve; the second section…

This curriculum module, one of seven in Infusion Project, offers information and lessons on drug use prevention for integration into an existing seventh-grade middle school language arts curriculum. The module, based on a type of interactive learning called infusion learning, contains 18 lessons each providing objectives, a list of resource…

Describes the language-arts assessment instrument developed and piloted by a small urban school district that has a high percentage of students learning English as a Second Language. Developing the instrument, training teachers to be scorers, and the actual piloting of the reading and writing portions of the evaluation are detailed. (SLD)

A meta analysis of 93 research reports on school desegregation and black achievement was conducted to determine (1) why the study results differed as to apparent desegregation effects; and (2) whether some desegregation plans produced greater achievement gains than others. An analysis indicated that inconsistencies in research findings were mainly…

This case study traces the evolution of curriculum-related educational reforms in California, concentrating on those that have influenced mathematics and science. These reform efforts are examined in the framework of the state's political and policy context. Data came from interviews, a synthesis of the research literature, and newspaper accounts…