Designed to remedy student's lack of opportunity to learn about the decision making process at the city or county government levels, this teacher handbook focuses on local government in Florida. The subject areas around which units and corresponding lessons are developed include: (1) the foundations of local government, history, legal roles, home…

A study conducted by the copy editor of a small daily newspaper in Porter County, Indiana examines readers' motivations for writing letters to the editor. Analysis was based on letters that appeared in "The Vidette Messenger" September 16-30, 1992. Of 75 letters, 32 were responses to information published in the paper during the last 2…

As an outgrowth of work to establish collaborative relations and to develop strategies for creating, monitoring, evaluating, and improving community programs, this planning guide has been developed to help Urban League chapters and others plan and implement programs for local needs. The guide is organized into the following nine steps: (1) build…

Findings of a longitudinal study that explored the impact of recent educational reforms in England on the nature of the relationship between headteachers and lay school governors are presented in this paper. Recent legislation, notably the 1986 Education Act (No. 2) and the 1988 Education Reform Act, have increased governors' and consumers' power…

This guidebook shows how governors and states have worked on engaging the public in education reform. It focuses on important strategies to consider during the process of building public support for education reform. It highlights state strategies for communicating about progress made toward achieving the National Education Goals and for promoting…

Data show that gangs, drugs, and random murders are becoming staples in the lives of U.S. children. Every major U.S. city is facing a deadly gang problem, exemplified by drive-by shootings and teenagers brandishing assault weapons. This document presents witness testimony, prepared statements, and panel discussions that examine the problem of gang…

Studies of criminal law practices suggest that variations in treatment from locality to locality depend on the judicial culture of the particular city, socioeconomic status of the accused, and the attitudes and actions of the police. This journal is available from the Law in American Society Foundation, 33 North LaSalle Street, Suite 1700; Chicago…

Explores possible relationships between the mass media of communication and social problems by three-way comparisons between the incidence of social problems suggested in media portrayals, conceptions of the incidence of these problems held by the public, and the relative frequency of such problems reflected in statistics accumulated by official…

Analyzes the legal, political, and administrative problems in implementing the Massachusetts Transitional Bilingual Education Act which mandates bilingual programs in public schools. (Author/DW)

The author examines the reasons for the current interest in local history and discusses the thematic approach as that most favorable for the study of local history. (DE)

This booklet on elementary and secondary education sets out the policy position reached by the Government of New Zealand following its consideration of the implications of the extensive reform of educational administration recommended by the Picot task force. It outlines the most thoroughgoing changes to the administration of education in the…

Working from a knowledge gap hypothesis stating that as amounts of information in a community or society increase, segments of the population with more education and higher socioeconomic status acquire this information at a greater rate than do lower status groups, a study examined the contributions to neighborhood residents' knowledge of local…

Four influential studies on school effectiveness reported by Brookover and Lezotte (1979), Edmonds and Frederiksen (1979), Phi Delta Kappa (1980), and Rutter and others (1979) are limited in their usefulness as recipes for creating effective schools by the following four issues: (1) The four studies differ in their definition of what…

Two unrelated studies investigated issues in newspaper journalism. The first, a replication of an earlier study, examined whether the priority given by newspapers to reporting local news was warranted. Respondents in three areas of the country were asked to rate their interest in various types of news on a five-point scale. Results indicated that…