Civic skills need to be practiced to keep the democracy strong, and civic training materials should be exciting and linked to real-world activities. Today, teaching government and social studies can be, must be, about students' real lives. A unit of study on "Tracking Congress" would offer an opportunity to connect civics and government…

On December 10, 2009, Dr. Melissa Reeves, chair of the PREPaRE workgroup, presented oral and written testimony on behalf of NASP (National Association of School Psychologists) at a hearing of the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. This subcommittee is chaired by…

For the group Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), the drinking age recently questioned by college presidents, is not a topic for debate. In August the organization publicly berated the Amethyst Initiative, a group of 100 presidents and chancellors who signed a statement urging legislators to revisit the law and to examine its effectiveness. The…

Many school choice enthusiasts think school choice legislation can be passed if only a number of minority political leaders can be won to the cause. Polls show that African Americans are among the strongest supporters of vouchers, tax credits, and charter schools. If minority leaders can be weaned away from traditional alliances, the underlying…

A step-by-step description of the process of passing a bill into law in Congress is presented. (JD)

While legislative oversight offices, like many evaluation and policy analysis units, face substantial challenges in promoting use of their work by policymakers, they often have not taken steps to overcome these challenges by adopting the strategies suggested by the evaluation literature. Although the offices seek utilization, they have not fully…

The dataset presented here illustrates to students the utility of logistic regression. Its analysis results in a fit that explains much of how senators vote on a particular bill, and allows for quantification of the effects of ideology and money on the vote. A number of interesting quantitative interpretations follow from a good fit. A successful…

The nine articles of this theme issue provide overviews of legislative program evaluation and demonstrate the tensions caused by the conflict between utility and rigor in such evaluations. Legislative evaluation is concerned with evaluation utilization because legislators commission evaluations they expect to use. (SLD)

This paper chronicles the life of Democratic Congressman "Tip" O'Neill, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977-1986. O'Neill's life is recounted, including: (1) encountering the patronage practice in Boston politics; (2) experiences in the Massachusetts legislature; (3) work with the Kennedy brothers and Lyndon Johnson;…

This paper discusses the role of the Directorate of Studies in the legislative work of the Hellenic Parliament (Greece). The first section describes the establishment and organization of the Directorate of Studies, which consists of three departments: the department for the elaboration of bills and law proposals, the department for parliamentary…

Provides information about the 106th and 107th U.S. Congress sessions. Includes early bills in the Senate for the 107th Congress and information about low versus high bill numbers. Presents two activity ideas that accompany this information. (CMK)

Tennessee's higher education funding based on institutional performance is discussed by three key participant-observers of the state's initiatives: Steve Cobb, Arliss Roaden, and John Folger. Money for remedial education was taken out of university budgets and put in special college preparatory institutes. These institutes are discussed. (MLW)

Examines George Bush's relations with Congress early in his term, focusing on the political and legislative environment in which Bush was operating. Analyzes Bush's legislative strategy, including agenda setting and orientation to Congress. Maintains that effective leadership is defined and constrained by the configuration of political forces. (RW)

Higher education lobbyists in Washington work as liaisons between their institutions and the federal government. The experiences of several lobbyists are described. Lobbying is seen as a game of knowing the people who can help and showing the legislators how a side of an issue benefits them. (MLW)

Policymakers in many states are critical of college faculty salaries based on their ill-informed perceptions of faculty workload and perquisites, seldom acknowledging the real reason for rising costs in higher education, its rapid expansion. Faculty and administrators must work together to devise persuasive answers to hostile inquiries by critics…