� Judith Langer, Arthur Applebee, Audrey Champagne, and Vicky Kouba, all of the Department of Educational Theory and Practice (ETAP) are playing key roles in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the Congressionally mandated program that monitors achievement over time in key subject areas in individual states, and across the nation. Professor Langer has been reappointed to the NAEP Reading Committee, which oversees all aspects of the design, administration, scoring, interpretation, and reporting of NAEP reading assessments. The framework for the NAEP Reading Assessment, in place since the 1992 assessment, is based in large part on Langer’s research. Applebee has been reappointed to the NAEP Writing Committee. Champagne serves on both the NAEP Science and Science Framework Planning committees. The NAEP Science Framework Planning Committee will make recommendations to the National Assessment Governing Board about the new Science NAEP Framework. Champagne is the primary author of the committee’s paper that will outline issues to be addressed in the design of the new Science Framework. Kouba has also been a reviewer for the NAEP Mathematics Objectives; an item writer for NAEP Mathema-tics assessments; and a member of the team of researchers doing the National Council of Mathematics’ interpretations of the 1986, 1990, 1992, and 1996 NAEP Mathematics assessments (supported by grants from the National Science Foundation). Through their longstanding involvement in NAEP, UAlbany’s ETAP faculty help to ensure that the nation’s systems of curriculum, instruction, and assessment work together to support higher levels of achievement for all students – and in particular to ensure that the assessment program reflects the most current thinking about the nature of effective curriculum and instruction in each subject area.

School of Criminal Justice Professor James R. Acker took a team of students in November to compete in the American Collegiate Moot Court Association Tournament at Fitchburg State College in Massachusetts. Teams were required to argue two issues: the lawfulness of a social worker’s entry without a warrant into a couple’s home to investigate allegations of child abuse; and whether the social worker should be entitled to qualified immunity from a subsequent lawsuit even if the parents’ constitutional rights were violated. UAlbany was represented by four teams: Winston Brownlow and Daniel Ranellone; Ellen Hau-schen and Chris Willson; Jacob Fleitman and Georgette Hagan; and Jasmine James and Summer Sha-lizi. “We enjoyed unusual success on the first day of the two-day competition,” Acker said. After three sets of arguments on the first day, three of UAlbany’s four teams advanced to the round of 16 for the single-elimination arguments. When single-elimination rounds began, two of UAlbany’s three teams were ousted in the round of 16. Hauschen and Willson won their opening argument, and advanced to the round of eight. They lost a close argument to a team from Patrick Henry College, which placed all four teams among the final four in the competition. “All of the UAlbany teams performed with distinction,” said Acker, “And, I think, the tournament and preparations for it were a valuable learning experience for all involved.”

Joseph F. Zimmerman, professor of political science at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, presented a paper on November 23, The United States Federal System: A Kaleidoscopic View to faculty, fellows, and graduate students at Oxford University’s Nuffield, St. Anne’s, and St. Anthony’s colleges, and also participated in graduate student tutorials. Zimmerman is the author of many books, including Interstate Economic Relations published by the State University of New York Press in July 2004, and has received the Distinguished Federalism Scholar award of the American Political Science Association and the Donald C. Stone Award as the Outstanding Academician, Section on Intergovernmental Administration and Management of the American Society for Public Administration.