How to Write a Letter to the Editor
Editors of most newspapers make provision for the public to be heard through letters to the editorial columns. Readership surveys show that these letters are among the best read features in the newspaper. When a letter of yours appears on the editorial page, you probably have the largest audience you will ever address. Lets estimate […]
How To Use The Media
by Rochelle Lefkowitz and Bob Schaeffer When did your organization last appear on page one or on the evening news? Did your recent demonstration draw hundreds of marchers and no reporters? Is your group Since few of us can afford to be adversaries, we must compete with the 200 press releases that cross the news […]
Media Strategy Chart: Advantages and Limitations
Strategy Advantages Limitations Press Releases (News) Reaches wide circulation through print and electronic media Free publicity Press Coverage lends clout Not good for a limited/small audience May not be best place for reaching target audience Time of day (newscast), page article appears on (print), size or length of story affect whether audience sees article and […]
PR Strategy Criteria Checklist
Is it do-able? Do you have enough time to do it in? Does the staff already have the skills necessary to do it? (If not, will it take them long to acquire those skills, or can you find someone else to do it?) Do you have the equipment/materials necessary for the project? Are there any […]
What is News?
Experts agree that defining news can be a difficult task. Most journalists agree that the following eight elements make up what is considered “news.” Immediacy: Reporting something that has just happened or is about to happen. Time is a strong ingredient, “today, yesterday, early this morning, tomorrow.” The newness of the occurrence makes up “immediacy” […]
Computerized Testing: More Questions than Answers
Despite many unresolved technical and equity-related problems, test-makers are plunging headlong into new computerized methods of administering multiple-choice exams. Unfortunately, simply automating bad tests does nothing to solve their long-standing problems and may actually compound them. The Educational Testing Service (ETS), for example, introduced its computerized Graduate Record Exam in October 1992, and has begun […]
Gender Bias in College Admissions Tests
The SAT I Approximately 1.3 million high school students annually take the Educational Testing Service’s SAT I, America’s oldest and most widely used college entrance exam. It is composed of two sections, Verbal and Math, each scored on a 200-800 point scale. Test questions are almost exclusively multiple-choice; a few “student-produced response” questions require the […]
Gender Bias in College Admissions Tests
The SAT I Approximately 1.3 million high school students annually take the Educational Testing Service’s SAT I, America’s oldest and most widely used college entrance exam. It is composed of two sections, Verbal and Math, each scored on a 200-800 point scale. Test questions are almost exclusively multiple-choice; a few “student-produced response” questions require the […]
Gender Bias in Proposition 16 and 48
The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) use of test scores to determine freshman athletic eligibility means that female athletes have two strikes against them. Not only do women have access to fewer athletic opportunities and less athletic financial aid than men, they are also more likely to be disqualified from even competing for these slots. […]
What's Wrong with Proposition 48 and 16?
What is Proposition 16? Proposition 16 governs the NCAA’s initial eligibility requirements for student-athletes at more than 300 Division I colleges and universities. Implemented in 1995, Prop. 16 is a more restrictive successor to Proposition 48, which went into effect in 1986. High school graduates who do not meet Prop. 16’s requirements are precluded from […]