States should publish guidelines for textbook publishers at least a year and a half before the deadline for new materials, a report prepared for a publishing-industry group has recommended.
The report by the Book Industry Study Group, a not-for-profit research organization supported by publishers, booksellers, and librarians, also asks states to consider staggering textbook-adoption schedules in order to ease production burdens on publishers.
The report was aimed at easing the “capacity crunch” that publishers say drives up the cost of producing textbooks and makes it difficult to develop materials adequately.
Under the current system, the report notes, states that adopt textbooks statewide require publishers to deliver samples of new materials at the same time--between March and June--that publishers must produce textbooks adopted in prior years. In addition, it points out, states often release content guidelines for new materials as little as three months before the materials are due to be submitted.
“Elementary-High School Textbooks: The Adoption Cycle/Manufacturing Capacity Dilemma,” was prepared for the study group by Strategic Information Services Inc., a research firm based in Columbus, Ohio. Copies are available for $60 each from the Book Industry Study Group, 160 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10010.
School athletic groups need a voice on the United States Olympic Committee, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and two other sports organizations.
The Olympic committee is considering a restructuring proposal that would decrease the size of the current 93-member board, in the process reducing the influence of the high-school group, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, and the National Junior College Athletic Association.
At a usoc meeting in June, however, the school representatives called for giving the ncaa two votes and maintaining the votes of the other groups.
George Killian, executive director of the junior-college association, also proposed creation of a school-college council to advise the Olympic committee on issues relating to student athletes.
Twenty teenagers from the Soviet Union will live and attend high school in the United States during the 1989-1990 school year, under the first such full-year exchange program between the two countries.
The exchange is the result of an agreement between Soviet officials and a.f.s. Intercultural Programs of New York. An exchange of 50 students from each country is planned for the following year.
A private agency has been established to provide free training and technical assistance to local family-literacy programs nationwide.
The National Center for Family Literacy, created by the William R. Kenan Charitable Trust, will be located in Louisville, Ky.
The foundation currently sponsors family-literacy programs, which teach undereducated adults along with their preschool children, in Louisville and in North Carolina.
In addition to showing other organizations how to replicate the Kenan project, the national center will assemble literacy information, publish a newsletter, and conduct seminars.
