Publisher Rushing Bell’s Memoirs to Press
In response to extensive advance coverage from the media, the Free Press is rushing into print Terrel H. Bell’s The Thirteenth Man: A Reagan Cabinet Memoir.
Originally scheduled for March 1988, publication of the former U.S. Secretary of Education’s book is now set for Jan. 4.
In choosing to move up its publication date, the Free Press is “riding the wave of publicity,” and seeking to maintain the “momentum” of current interest, the firm’s publicity manager, Mysia Haight, said last week.
Mr. Bell describes in his memoir the battles he fought as he strove to defend education interests against members of the Reagan Administration he characterizes as “movement conservatives.” The circulation of galleys for the book occasioned reports in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other newspapers, as well as television and radio coverage. (See Education Week, Oct. 28, 1987.)
Scholastic Inc. has launched a campaign in nine of its in-school magazines to educate schoolchildren about acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
Through articles shaped to meet age-targeted learning needs, students will learn facts about the transmission and prevention of aids.
To help teachers answer difficult questions, Scholastic has also sent more than 350,000 elementary and secondary school educators an eight-page resource guide prepared with the scientific assistance of the federal Centers for Disease Control.
Scholastic initiated its program to coincide with the “America Responds to aids” information campaign organized by the cdc Other organizations providing support for Scholastic’s project include the American Foundation for aids
Research, the National School Boards Association, and the National Council of Churches.
During the month of October, the California Department of Education sponsored the “Reading Is My Bag” campaign, an effort to make “high quality” children’s books more accessible to California families.
Two dozen supermarket, drugstore, and variety-store chains joined five publishers in developing special displays featuring books chosen from the department of education’s “Selected Readings in Literature” booklist for kindergarten to 8th grade.
In addition to displaying and selling books, the participating stores distributed shopping bags on which were printed slogans such as “Books are food for thought,” “Read/succeed,” and “Make reading your bag.”
As part of the year-old California Reading Initiative, the campaign was designed “to encourage students and their families to read more and better books.”
Shirley Hazlett, a consultant to the language-arts unit of the education department and coordinator of the initiative, commented that the response of teachers and administrators to the program was enthusiastic. She added that some of the participating stores planned to continue their displays beyond the month for which they originally committed, while others planned to use their displays again next fall.
After 18 years of service, Leanna Landsmann is leaving Instructor magazine and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Joining Instructor’s staff in 1969, Ms. Landsmann became editor in chief of the magazine for classroom teachers in 1976 and its publisher in 1978. She has also served as a member of U.S. Secretary of Education
William Bennett’s Task Force on Elementary Education.
Ms. Landsmann will remain at Instructor until the end of the year. While she has not yet resolved her plans for the future, she says she hopes “to continue in the area of communication and education.”
Her departure coincides with Harcourt Brace’s decision to move the offices of Instructor from New York City to the publisher’s headquarters in Cleveland.
A series of research-based resources for use by educators in planning and implementing local school-improvement efforts is now available on a subscription basis from the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.
Designed to make research “accessible and useful” for teachers and administrators, says Robert Blum, director of the the laboratory’s School Improvement Program, the series includes three types of resource materials: syntheses of research findings and bibliographic information in specific areas, outlines (“close-ups”) of methods and techniques, and brief descriptions (“snapshots”) of exemplary uses of effective schooling practices.
Series I, for instance, includes a topical synthesis of research on ''Effective Schooling Practices and At-Risk Youth,” two “close-ups” (“Homework” and “Instructional Grouping in the Classroom”), and four “snapshots” (e.g., “Grouping for Mastery”).
The School Improvement Research Series is being produced under a contract with the U.S. Education Department’s office of educational research and improvement.
Subscription inquiries should be addressed to the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, Office of Marketing, 101 S.W. Main St., Suite 500, Portland, Ore. 97204.--lc
