As literacy leaders, we know that printed words carry great meaning and power. Today, there is a widespread belief that advocacy over government concerns or policies can be adequately achieved using social media. While a well-timed and phrased social media post can supplement advocacy efforts, advocacy must be driven by deeds even more than words.…

The need to invest in our nation's crumbling infrastructure goes back decades. But today, with millions of people unemployed, there is unprecedented momentum to act. Women, immigrants, and people of color are disproportionately represented in these numbers as are young adults. President Joe Biden and Congress are counting on infrastructure…

Jamestown is at the heart of any teaching and learning of colonial American history. Stories of John Smith and Pocahontas are learned by elementary and secondary students across the United States. In Virginia, Jamestown is first taught in third grade and revisited five more times from historical, political, economic, and geographic perspectives.…

As state capitals and city halls influence our daily lives, how can students become active participants in the affairs of their communities (Saffell and Basehart 2009)? For students to explore this question and local policy making in general, I developed a city council simulation for a state and local government course. This article describes the…

This article discusses the findings of the commission set up jointly by NIACE, the Association of Colleges (AoC) and the 157 Group to investigate the role of colleges in their communities. The commission learned that: (1) further education colleges are, often, already embedded in their communities; (2) although there has been some simplification,…

People live in curious political times when it can be hard to match ideology to party. The outstanding example is in penal policy. Kenneth Clarke announces his Conservative determination to reduce numbers in prison, and to develop alternatives to locking people up. Labour denounces this as soft on crime. Is this how people expect things to line…

Urbanization almost invariably accompanies development, and the cities of India and China are experiencing spectacular increases in population. The concentration of millions of people in a small mass creates challenges for public policy, especially in the areas of basic infrastructure, public health, traffic congestion, and often law enforcement…

Early childhood programs, if designed correctly, pay big economic dividends down the road because they increase the skills of their participants. And since many of those participants will remain in the same state or local area as adults, the local economy benefits: more persons with better skills attract business, which provides more and better…

Youth occupy a unique place in democratic society. They must primarily rely on others to speak on their behalf as decisions are made about the allocation of resources within and across various youth-serving institutions. Advocacy organizations comprise crucial representational assets for all youth, but America's poorest children and youth…

This article summarizes 12 presentations in Group 7 of the 2007 joint symposium of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance, Society for Vocational Psychology, and National Career Development Association held in Padua, Italy, that focused on procedures for verifying the efficacy of vocational guidance programs. Three…

This essay describes my progress bringing the core ideas of economics into conversations with noneconomists about important public policy issues within my faith community, through local politics, and through interdisciplinary conversations in academia. Thinking like an economist is essential to conducting research and performing careful analysis…

What the author has learned, wandering around in the mists and fogs of the lowlands along the Potomac, is that nothing happens in Congress until there is a will, a consensus, and not just in the leadership, but in the rank and file of both parties that an issue needs to be addressed in a particular way. The problem needs to be explicated until it…

Addresses the conflicting pressures facing plurilingual societies, focusing on (1) geopolitical changes such as language decline, international languages, and the pressures of globalization and the dominance of English; (2) access to or surrender of power; and (3) the choice of which language policy to pursue. (CMK)

Describes the evaluation of the Fighting Back initiative, in which communities across the country receive funding to combat alcohol and drug use. The evaluation has been designed to be responsive to national policy agendas and local community contextual differences so that it yields important insights at both levels. (Author/SLD)

National senior service programs have had a long and relatively successful history. Emerging at the intersection of federal aging and poverty policy initiatives in the early 1960s, projects such as the Foster Grandparent Program (FGP) and the Senior Companion Program (SCP) have expanded in size and scope over the last several decades. These two…