The Educational Publishing Group, an enterprise launched last year to help corporations support employees’ involvement in education, has expanded its operations to include a Spanish-language outreach program.
Aimed at encouraging low-income Hispanic parents to become involved with their schools, the program features Spanish-language telephone hotlines, studies of Hispanic parents’ attitudes, and a quarterly newsletter, La Educacion Hoy Dia.
Modeled on an English-language version, the Spanish newsletter this spring featured articles on student tracking, financing college, and standardized tests, as well as a question-and-answer section.
For more information write Customer Service, Educational Publishing Group Inc., 376 Boylston St., Boston, Mass. 02116.
Drug-exposed infants are the focus of the inaugural issue of The Future of Children, a journal for policymakers concerned about child health and welfare programs.
The quarterly, which made its debut in May, seeks to augment information available from both the academic and the popular press. Each issue of will focus on one topic, providing a summary of the problem, a list of available services, and suggested policy strategies.
Contributors will be scholars and practitioners from disciplines including child psychology, economics, juvenile justice, pediatrics, education, and child welfare.
The second issue of this free publication will focus on school-linked health and social services. For information, contact Maria Kent Rowell, Center for the Future of Children, 300 Second Street, Suite 102, Los Altos, Calif. 94022.
The terms “designated driver,” “boarder baby,” and “quality time” made it into the recently-released Random House Webster’s College Dictionary, along with a distinctly feminist perspective.
This edition of the widely-used Webster’s includes, in addition to the words common to formal usage, slang, acronyms, computer and business terms, and words from politics and the military.
It also includes an article on avoiding offensive terms and attitudes.
It suggests, for example, words that eliminate gender reference, such as “human beings” instead of “men,” or “firefighter” in place of “fireman.”
And, for good measure, expressions or terms of address considered offensive by women--"hen party,” “baby,” and “darling,” to name a few--are followed by a parenthetical warning.--S.K.G.
