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State Reports                  

Items listed under "State Documents" have been received by the Documents Unit, Illinois State Library, Springfield, and are usually available from public libraries in the state through interlibrary loan. Issuing agencies may have copies available. For items listed under "Other Reports, " write to the publisher as noted.

State Documents
• Literacy Grants, Secretary of State Literacy Office, 431 S. Fourth St., Springfield 62701 (November 1993), 30pp.

The Secretary of State's Office offers funding for three types of literacy programs: up to $10,000 in matching grants for business programs, up to $75,000 for community volunteer tutoring programs and up to $35,000 for public libraries that offer family literacy programs. This pamphlet provides the names and addresses of the businesses, community groups and libraries that received such funding for fiscal year 1994. In all there are 63 workplace programs, 108 community programs and 17 family programs, with grants totaling almost $6 million.

• Illinois History Teacher, Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, Old State Capitol, Springfield 62701 (Volume 1, 1994), 56pp.

This is the first volume of a new annual publication. Entitled "Geography in Illinois History," it is designed to help teachers demonstrate the importance of geography in settlement patterns, conflicts, social institutions, culture, immigration and transportation. It contains teaching strategies, handouts, maps, lesson plans, activities and other material that will help teachers make history lessons more interesting for their students. Each year a different theme will be treated.

• The Archeology of Frontier Taverns on the St. Louis-Vincennes Trace, Illinois State Museum and Illinois Department of Transportation, State Museum Bidg., Springfield 62706 (1993), 56pp.

The modern two-lane highway known as U.S. Highway 50 began as a rough and extremely dangerous trail in the early 1800s. The homesteads, taverns, stagecoach stops and mills that sprang up along the trail exist today only as archeological sites (or potential sites). Two of these sites, both taverns, are the basis for this fascinating and well-illustrated booklet, which opens with a history of the trace, as the roads and trails of the day were called. This is followed by descriptions of the archeological investigations and the artifacts that were uncovered. The concluding section summarizes what has been learned from the work at these two sites and the importance of that work for understanding our early history.

• Money and Elections in Illinois: 1992, Illinois State Board of Elections, 1020 S. Spring, Springfield 62704 (September 1993), 55pp.

Using readily available but widely scattered information, the Board of Elections has issued an extremely useful report summarizing the flow of dollars in the 1992 political campaigns in this state — the primary as well as the general election. It covers such areas as candidates and PACs in legislative as well as judicial campaigns, expenditures for the University of Illinois trustee campaigns and in-kind contributions. In addition, the study presents aggregate campaign finance data for all General Assembly races; for each candidate, data are presented on the amount of money that was available, the amount spent, the number of votes received and the expenditure per vote. This is the second such report produced by the board (the first came out after the 1990 election) and is an effort to contribute to the current debate on how to regulate money in political campaigns for public office in the 1990s.

Other Reports
• A View from the Elementary Schools: The State of Reform in Chicago, Consortium on Chicago School Research, 5835 South Kimbark, Chicago 60637 (December 1993), 45pp.; $3.00

The Consortium on Chicago School Research, headquartered at the University of Chicago, brings together researchers from local universities, nonprofit research groups and the Chicago public schools. This study is based on 28 case studies of neighborhood schools, as well as surveys conducted among principals and teachers at 400 elementary schools that had low levels of achievement prior to reform. Key conclusions of the study were that; about 40% of the schools are making systemic improvements, including new principal leadership, increased teacher involvement in staff development and extensive parent and community involvement; schools experiencing these improvements are spread throughout the city and cut across racial, ethnic and economic lines; nearly one-third of the schools have created strong democracies; and these strong democracies are most likely to be making systemic improvements in their educational programs. The report listed here contains an overview of the basic findings and a list of the recommendations. A longer report (106pp.), which includes additional specifics about patterns of change and the research methods used for the study, may be obtained for $5.00 from the consortium at the above address.

Anna J. Merritt

May 1994/Illinois Issues/35