Statute Midwifery: Nurturing Passage of a State Student Publications Act.
This paper reviews research concerning the attitudes that principals, journalism advisers, high school journalism press association directors, and student editors hold toward student publications, and it reviews research concerning effective political strategies. The study focuses particularly on the strategies employed by supporters of student press legislation in Arkansas, where such legislation, despite the state's politically conservative orientation, was passed finally in 1995. A detailed history of attempts to draft legislation palatable to all parties involved shows how convoluted a process it became. Supporters of the Arkansas Student Publications Act found that it was only by applying information from both surveys of those associated with high school publications and surveys of those involved in the political processes that they were able to draft successful legislation. First, supporters built a wide base of support for their proposed bill. When that base of support seemed about to unravel, they framed the issue in terms all could appreciate and also compromised on some issues. Second, supporters found effective legislative sponsors, all of whom were well-respected Democrats with rural constituencies, and two of whom were experienced legislators who had either media or teaching backgrounds. Third, and perhaps most importantly, supporters negotiated with the opposition before the opposition had a change to mobilize its forces. They managed to convince the opposition that the proposed act was a win-win-win situation for administrators, advisers and students. (Contains 24 references; 5 appendixes contain successive drafts of the bill). (Author/TB) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * from the original document. *********************************************************************** Statute Midwifery: Nurturing Passage of a State Student Publications Act
The Influence of Issues On Choice of Voting Cues Utilized By State Legislators
HE decision-making process of legislators has been a subject of extensive research. Although most of the early work limited its analy-*sis to Congress, a growing body of literature has explored voting behavior in state legislatures. An innovative modification of the traditional survey design developed by Kingdon (1981) for the analysis of congressional decision making has recently been applied to three state legislatures by David Ray (1982). Kingdon suggested several basic problems with the traditional use of surveys
Science fairs as learning tool for teaching excellence
Science fairs are usually considered to be a pedagogical and cultural activity that involves the students actively. Gifted students need challenges to further develop their skills while maintaining the motivation level. Science fairs may provide the informal environment that will request and allow these students of excellence to challenge themselves by developing a scientific research project. Despite being well known in different countries, in Portugal first steps are being made on the use and implementation of science fairs as effective pedagogical tool. In this work, we will present a 4 years study that was developed on a Portuguese school with the main goal of evaluating the advantages of this informal way of teaching. The study includes an analysis of the evolution of the students’ knowledge that have participated, or visited, the different science fairs. Some advices for the implementation of these projects will be given. The motivation of the students was monitored as well as the knowledge and skills effectively improved by this activity.