A stratified random sample of 1,500 state legislators from 12 states was surveyed regarding their perceptions and knowledge of issues in reading instruction. The states were selected to provide a balanced mix of state sizes, state budget sizes, and geographic regions. Within states, legislators were selected to balance districts. Both mail surveys…

This newsletter reviews two books about family literacy in the United States. The first, "A Survey of Family Literacy in the United States" (edited by Lesley Mandel Morrow, Diane H. Tracey, and Caterina Marcone Maxwell), is a reference guide for educators and policymakers that includes the following: brief descriptions of programs for children and…

The National Assessment Governing Board of Educational Progress has recently adopted the position that the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) should employ within-age scaling whenever feasible. The NAEP Technical Review panel (TRP) has studied the issue at some length, and reports on it in this analysis. The first section reviews…

Ethics is of increasing concern to United States colleges and universities, according to a survey of 183 institutions on this issue focusing on two areas--public relations and advertising. A 75% return from 134 institutions disclosed that some 25% offer an ethics course but less than half require one. Overwhelmingly (93%), most respondents…

Model-based methods for estimating the population mean in stratified clustered sampling are described. The importance of adjusting the weights is assessed by an approach considering the sampling variation of the adjusted weights and its (variance) components. The resulting estimators are more efficient than the jackknife estimators for a variety…

Empirical studies on the ethical decision-making practices of school psychologists are lacking. The purpose of this study was to investigate school psychologists' preferred resolutions to a number of ethical problems and their reasons for acting in a chosen manner. Members (N=76) of the National Association of School Psychologists were surveyed. A…

A study examined the situation of the public relations profession in Spain from the point of view of public relations agencies or consultancies, and of individuals in public relations. Forty-four individuals (of a target population of 100) and 26 public relations agencies or firms (of a target population of 40) responded to questionnaires and…

This report presents results of a 1997 survey of the governing boards of public colleges and universities to identify trends in their membership and board policies and practices. Among highlights are the following: (1) boards have an average size of 11 members; (2) nearly half of board members are selected by gubernatorial appointment; (3) 41…

Since the mid-1980s, tremendous attention has been focused on what students should know and be able to do as a result of K-12 education. An overview of U.S. citizens' opinions of what standards should be emphasized in the K-12 curriculum is presented in this report. The findings are based on responses by 2,553 adults who rated whether…

A national survey of 154 scholastic press association directors (who play a crucial role in guiding and shaping high school journalism) garnered an overview of the state of scholastic journalism in the United States today. Seventy-eight scholastic press association directors, representing over 30 states and 4 national associations, responded to…

This study uses data from the 1985 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA) to explore the composition of the audience for art museums and art galleries in the United States. Organized into four parts, part 1 reports that when asked if they had visited an art museum or art gallery in the 12 months preceding their 1985 SPPA interview, 22…

This paper is directed at performing arts managers interested in developing marketing techniques in order to expand the audiences for their performances. The paper outlines a model of the process by which an individual progresses from lack of interest in the performing arts to active participation and interest. The model that describes this…

This report presents data from an annual survey of high school student leaders and high achievers. It is noted that of the nearly 700,000 high achievers featured in this edition, 5,000 students were sent the survey and 2,092 questionnaires were completed. Subjects were high school juniors and seniors selected for recognition by their principals or…

A study examined secondary scholastic journalism researchers' current and past experiences in scholastic journalism, their professional affiliations, their current responsibilities, their reasons for conducting research, their current collaborative research efforts, and their desire for future collaborative efforts. Fifty-five of the 86 members of…

This digest reports on findings from recent literacy surveys and interprets these findings in light of theoretical and definitional issues involved in estimating literacy; examines approaches commonly use to measure literacy and enumerates concerns about the limitations of these approaches in linguistically diverse contexts; and concludes with a…