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Background: Numerous reports have highlighted problems with writing instruction in American schools, yet few examine the interplay of teachers' preparation to teach writing, the instructional policies they must navigate, and the writing development of the students in their classrooms. Purpose: This study examines high school English teachers' instruction of writing while taking into account their preparation for teaching writing-both preservice and inservice, the instructional policies in place, and the learners in their classrooms. Setting: Data used come from public high school English teachers teaching in Northern California. These data were collected in 2011- 2012, when teachers were sill complying with the mandates of the No Child Left Behind legislation. Research Design: I use year-long qualitative case studies of five high school English teachers to highlight various ways teachers used their knowledge of writing instruction to negotiate the pressures of accountability policies and their students' needs as writers to teach writing. Data collected include beginning- and end-of-year interviews with each teacher, four sets of 1- to 2-day observations of each teacher's instruction of writing, and instructional documents related to each teacher's writing instruction. These data were analyzed using the constant comparative method to look for themes within the data collected from each teacher and then make comparisons across teachers. Findings from the case studies are supported by findings from a survey of 171 high school teachers who taught a representative sample of California high school students at 21 schools in 20 districts. The survey included 41 multiple-choice items that asked about teachers' instructional practices and their perceptions of high-stakes accountability pressures and their students as writers. Survey data were analyzed quantitatively using descriptive statistics and principal components analysis. Findings: Findings illustrate that significant differences existed in how the five teachers approached their writing instruction. These differences were due to both the teachers' varied preparations to teach writing and the contextual factors in place where each taught. Those teachers with more developed knowledge of writing instruction were better able to navigate the policies in place at their sites and more equipped to plan appropriate instruction to develop their students as writers. Recommendations: Findings indicate teachers would be better served by opportunities to develop their knowledge of writing instruction both prior to and once they begin their teaching careers. Additionally, the findings add to an existing body of research that demonstrates the limiting effect high-stakes assessments can have on teachers' instruction of writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: Learning to meet students' needs challenges new teachers often focused on procedures, management, materials, and curriculum. To avoid this development pattern, student teachers (STs) need opportunities to concentrate especially on needs of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students. Teacher inquiry (TI) holds promise as one such opportunity. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: We sought to understand how STs in a teacher credential program with a history of attention to diverse learners were learning about their CLD students through TI. Research Design: We examined data collected from 80 STs over a 6-year period, including 80 TIs; STs' data analysis field memos; questionnaires with reflections on TI processes and products; and taped ST peer discussions and conferences with instructor. Data also documented TI instruction, classroom culture, and opportunities to develop learning related to conducting TI. Drawing on research and theory, we developed, tested, and used a rubric of 17 indicators of attention to CLD learners as a means to examine the range of ways and the extent to which STs attended to CLD students through TI. Findings/Results: STs took actions of various kinds to learn about diverse students: researching contexts and histories; examining student work and performance at full-class, subgroup, and individual levels; and asking and listening beneath the surface to students' reasoning, attitudes, beliefs, and concerns about school learning and other issues. Various assessment and inquiry tools supported the process, helping STs develop data literacy to attend to CLD learners. However, TI elements were used to varying degrees, in various ways, and with varying levels of success. Two cases illustrate the range of TI tools that STs used to learn about their CLD learners, to generate data and evidence about learning, and to act in ways responsive to what they learned about students. Conclusions/Recommendations: Those interested in studying multiple STs' inquires for attention to CLD learners may need to develop frames and analytic methods to examine a corpus of cases. This study was grounded in an assumption that such crosscutting analyses accumulate knowledge to disseminate to larger audiences, challenging conceptions that values of TI are purely local, serving only those directly involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent flood events along the international border between the USA and Mexico resulted in significant economic damage and loss of human life. The International Boundary and Water Commission, the agency responsible for monitoring US–Mexican flood control levees, had requested funding for maintenance and improvement of these levees. However, the Office of Management and Budget requires agencies to provide benefits or in this case avoided loss estimates to justify the budget request. Due to severe time constraints in the budgetary process there was a need for a rapid assessment of the potential economic impacts from a failure of this ageing flood-control infrastructure. The economic losses avoided by four major flood-control projects on the Rio Grande were estimated using an innovative combination of satellite imagery, geographic information systems, and economic methods. The control projects apply to about 547 km (340 miles) of levees from Caballo Reservoir in New Mexico to Brownsville, Texas, and include several million people, extensive industry, and agricultural production. High resolution imagery was used to identify and quantify potential flood inundation areas, types of land use, and impacts of flood-control infrastructure failure. Value estimates of residential, industrial, and commercial property, and agricultural production at risk were developed from property assessment data, crop enterprise budgets, census data, and community leaders. Damage factors accounting for flood inundation levels and building contents were then used to develop gross economic losses avoided by flood-control infrastructure for each of the different property and land use types in each project area. The baseline analysis indicates that the four projects cumulatively prevent one time losses of US$322.9 million in flood-control protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the impact of the price chain for federally-developed irrigation water on the promotion of water conservation in Western States. Overview of the federal water pricing; Association with the irrigation district water pricing.

Water markets are increasingly being used and promoted as an economically efficient means to transfer water rights. Knowledge of water-right price determinants and trends is important in developing markets, and in evaluating the comparative benefits and costs of water supply alternatives. Potential determinants of homogeneous water-right prices are identified, and a two-equation model based on rational expectations theory is developed. The model is tested using empirical evidence from the established market for Colorado-Big Thompson water rights. The model results support observations that returns to water in irrigation do not adequately explain the level of water-right prices. Socioeconomic and speculative factors are found to explain successfully the variations in historical prices, and appear to play a substantial role in water-right price formation. These findings have important implications in assessing the benefits of proposed water-transfer policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the article "Dope Friend Mythology," by A.R. Lindesmith that was published in July-August 1940 issue of the periodical "Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology." The author says that the limitations placed upon the subject of drug addiction by Lindesmith develop a premise, which limits a rational consideration of one of the most pressing problems confronting the people of the United States. The author says that by a process of ratiocination, which for deviousness is unquestionably brilliant, Lindesmith leans away from a fact so obvious to all law enforcement officers--that addicts make addicts (by whatever process is immaterial) and that a plentiful supply of drugs makes a plentiful supply of drug users.

Little attention has been given academically to empirically tested theoretical frameworks that aim at measuring the risk of adolescents falling victim to cybergrooming. To this end, we have applied the routine activity theory (RAT) to investigate whether exposure to motivated offenders (PC/laptop ownership and Internet access in one's own bedroom), capable guardianship (parental mediation strategies of Internet use), and target suitability (adolescents' online disclosure of private information) might predict cybergrooming victimization among adolescents. Using data from a cross-sectional survey of 5,938 adolescents from Germany, India, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, and the United States, ranging in age from 12 to 18 ( M  = 14.77, SD  = 1.60), we found that PC/laptop ownership and Internet access in one's own bedroom, parental mediation, and online disclosure are all directly associated with cybergrooming victimization. Although instructive parental mediation is negatively related to online disclosure and cybergrooming victimization, restrictive mediation is positively related to both. In addition, online disclosure partially mediated the relationship between parental mediation and cybergrooming victimization. The analyses confirm the effectiveness of applying RAT to cybergrooming. Moreover, this study highlights the need for prevention programs, including lessons on age-appropriate information and communication technology usage and access, to educate parents on using instructive strategies of Internet mediation, and inform adolescents about how to avoid disclosing too much private information online. RAT could function as a theoretical framework for these programs.