The 2012 presidential campaign will, above all else, be a referendum on the Obama administration's handling of the financial crisis, recalling the period when Obama's "audacity of hope" met the austerity of reality. Central to this is the ''American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009'' -- the largest economic recovery plan in American history. Senator Mitch McConnell gave a taste of the enormity of the money committed: if you had spent 1 million a day since Jesus was born, it still would not add up to the price tag of the stimulus package. A nearly entirely partisan piece of legislation -- Democrats voted for it, Republicans against -- the story of how the bill was passed and, more importantly, how the money was spent and to what effect, is known barely at all. Stepping outside the political fray, ProPublica's Michael Grabell offers a perceptive, balanced, and dramatic story of what happened to the tax payers' money, pursuing the big question through behind-the-scenes interviews and on-the-ground reporting in more than a dozen states across the country.

For use with the Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills(TM) (TILLS(TM)), other assessments, or on its own, the TILLS Student Language Scale is a simple, cost-effective way to screen for language and literacy disorders, including dyslexia. This quick and easy 12-question screener is filled out by parents, teachers, and students to show each party's perspective on how the student is performing on academic tasks as compared to their same-age peers. The SLS helps you: Screen for language/literacy disorders such as dyslexia by gathering teachers' and parents' ratings of students. When teachers or parents rate more than two areas on items 1-8 less than 5, SLS results indicate the student is at risk and needs further assessment with TILLS. (Sensitivity and specificity are strong: sensitivity is .92 for teachers and .85 for parents, and specificity is .90 for teachers and .83 for parents.) Gather input about a struggling student's strengths and needs from multiple sources--a key requirement of IDEA Enhance home-school communication by gaining new insight into student performance, whether or not there are concerns Sold in a pack of 50, the Student Language Scale (forms only) is also included in the TILLS Examiner's Kit. It can also be used as a standalone tool to gather valuable information about a student, or used with other assessments of student performance and potential. To learn more about the SLS, watch this free webinar, Quickly and Reliably Screen Students for Language/Literacy Disordersâ "Including Dyslexia.

In a riveting account based on new documents and interviews with more than 400 sources on both sides of the aisle, award-winning reporter Michael Grunwald reveals the vivid story behind President Obama’s $800 billion stimulus bill, one of the most important and least understood pieces of legislation in the history of the country. Grunwald’s meticulous reporting shows how the stimulus, though reviled on the right and the left, helped prevent a depression while jump-starting the president’s agenda for lasting change. As ambitious and far-reaching as FDR’s New Deal, the Recovery Act is a down payment on the nation’s economic and environmental future, the purest distillation of change in the Obama era. The stimulus has launched a transition to a clean-energy economy, doubled our renewable power, and financed unprecedented investments in energy efficiency, a smarter grid, electric cars, advanced biofuels, and green manufacturing. It is computerizing America’s pen-and-paper medical system. Its Race to the Top is the boldest education reform in U.S. history. It has put in place the biggest middle-class tax cuts in a generation, the largest research investments ever, and the most extensive infrastructure investments since Eisenhower’s interstate highway system. It includes the largest expansion of antipoverty programs since the Great Society, lifting millions of Americans above the poverty line, reducing homelessness, and modernizing unemployment insurance. Like the first New Deal, Obama’s stimulus has created legacies that last: the world’s largest wind and solar projects, a new battery industry, a fledgling high-speed rail network, and the world’s highest-speed Internet network. Michael Grunwald goes behind the scenes—sitting in on cabinet meetings, as well as recounting the secret strategy sessions where Republicans devised their resistance to Obama—to show how the stimulus was born, how it fueled a resurgence on the right, and how it is changing America. The New New Deal shatters the conventional Washington narrative and it will redefine the way Obama’s first term is perceived.

This unique contribution to the ongoing discussion of language acquisition considers the Argument from the Poverty of the Stimulus in language learning in the context of the wider debate over cognitive, computational, and linguistic issues. Critically examines the Argument from the Poverty of the Stimulus - the theory that the linguistic input which children receive is insufficient to explain the rich and rapid development of their knowledge of their first language(s) through general learning mechanisms Focuses on formal learnability properties of the class of natural languages, considered from the perspective of several learning theoretic models The only current book length study of arguments for the poverty of the stimulus which focuses on the computational learning theoretic aspects of the problem

Covers rehabilitation for individuals with traumatic brain injuries, incorporating intervention strategies and approaches into programs, with the primary emphasis on improving functional behaviors in meaningful ways.

This most authoritative dictionary of Christian theology today offers a clear, up-to-date explanation of the meaning, origin, and history of key terms that teachers and students of theology need to know. Contains over 50 new entries and updated entries and references to reflect the latest scholarship and research. An index of names has been included.