Dr. Jamieson,

I love how you use the internet to do this project. How long did it take you to find the different sites? What other websites would you recommend to do lessons? I like googlenews and sign up for that.

Michelle Stasa

Dr. Jamieson,

Columbus has a high influx of Somali immigrants/refugees.  My students are under the impression that when a new refugee/immigrant enters the country they are given thousands of dollars, a new car, exempt from paying taxes and preference when if comes to housing and college.  Could you clear this issue up for me?

Thank you,

Tina Fincher

Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson:

I liked you lesson. I also liked the lesson on following campaigns on the old Annenberg classrroom web site. I have found that some of the official U.S. websites are sometimes hard to navigate without experience. Some of the descriptions of the bills up for vote in Congress are dry and don't realy spell out the implications of the bill should it become law. Are there websites that condense a bill for the average reader, list the groups for and against the bill, and which give a summary of the arguements? In other words: are there websites that explain the battle over a bill? I know I can go to special interest groups like the Sierra Club or NRA to hear their slant on certain bills- I'm wondering if there is any single site that gives a summary digests of the major bills as a public education service.

Carl Hopple

Dr. Jamieson:

Is it useful to discuss methods of filtering the vast amount of information available just on the sites you've linked?  In other words, I've found it difficult at times to reach meaningful, focused learning objectives using the internet because students get overwhelmed without very specific direction.  Perhaps when we get into these lessons we could share (via this forum, even) specifically useful pages that we've found that are targeted to key points we would like to make with our students.

Eric

    Carl Hopple:

   Are there websites that condense a bill for the average reader, list the groups for and against the bill, and which give a summary of the arguments? In other words: are there websites that explain the battle over a bill? I know I can go to special interest groups like the Sierra Club or NRA to hear their slant on certain bills- I'm wondering if there is any single site that gives a summary digests of the major bills as a public education service.

   Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson:

   I thought that the answers Emi Kolawole could provide would be far more helpful to you than mine. She is one of our star researchers at factcheck.org.

Thanks for your question, Carl.  You are not alone when it comes to finding bill text and summaries difficult to read.  There are resources that can help you sift through the jargon.

CRS Reports: The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a government agency that creates reports on a variety of bills and issues before Congress.  These reports are exactly what you are looking for. The catch is that CRS reports are not distributed to the public – only to members of Congress and their staff.  But members of Congress occasionally place CRS reports on their websites or distribute them to members of the press.  Open CRS  and the U.S. State Department keep databases of some of these reports.   If you cannot find the CRS report you are looking for in either of these two databases a Google search using the term “CRS” and the issue or bill may help you find what you are looking for.

Congressional Quarterly: Congressional Quarterly produces daily and weekly publications that summarize popular bills before Congress.  Their articles present arguments on both sides of the debate.  Congressional Quarterly is nonpartisan, but it’s also a for-profit organization.  According to the United States Senate’s website Congressional Quarterly publications are available in most US public libraries and federal depository libraries.    

Project Vote Smart: Project Vote Smart (PVS) is another good source for easy-to-digest summaries of key votes in Congress.  PVS is a non-partisan, non-profit organization comprised of volunteers and interns who thoroughly research candidates’ and public officials’ biographical information, voting records, and campaign finances.  PVS also collects and displays rankings of candidates and public officials done by interest groups such as the NRA, NARAL, and the National Farmers Union.  PVS’s material is collected and posted after a vote has taken place, so it is worth checking out if you are interested in the history of a particular bill.

    emeast_06:

   Is it useful to discuss methods of filtering the vast amount of information available just on the sites you've linked?  In other words, I've found it difficult at times to reach meaningful, focused learning objectives using the internet because students get overwhelmed without very specific direction.  Perhaps when we get into these lessons we could share (via this forum, even) specifically useful pages that we've found that are targeted to key points we would like to make with our students.

   Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson:

   I thought that the answers Emi Kolawole could provide would be far more helpful to you than mine. She is one of our star researchers at factcheck.org.

Good point, Eric.  Some websites can be difficult to sift through and it’s not always easy to find what you are looking for.  Here are some useful tips for navigating some of the more complex websites Dr. Jamieson mentions:

Thomas: Before navigating Thomas, I suggest starting with the Help section of the website.  This will tell students how to interpret their search results, and also how to manipulate the various search parameters so they can get the results they are looking for.

Whitehouse.gov: The best way to navigate the White House website is by visiting its Current News page.  This will give an organized list of all of the President’s major engagements and policy initiatives every day of the current month.  The menu running along the left side of the website shows the month and year starting from President Bush’s inauguration in January 2001.  If you don’t know the month or year of the material you are looking for, the White House search function can usually retrieve the information you need.

GAO.gov: A great way to see the entire GAO website in one place is to go to the GAO’s site map.  This will let you see the categories and subcategories of the website in a simple, easy-to-read list.

Here are a couple helpful methods we’ve adopted at FactCheck.org to sift through the large volume of information on the web:

CTRL+F:  If you are using Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer, the Ctrl+F function can help

blaze a trail through the forest. It allows searches for a specific word on a website. It’s particularly useful when a website’s homepage contains a lot of information, or for long documents. Tell your students to press Ctrl+F (hold down the “Ctrl” key and then press “f”) and type in a keyword that might help locate the information they want.

Google: Google’s Advanced Search function is another helpful tool.  By typing in the website’s address in the Domain search you can restrict Google to searching the pages of a single website. This method is usually better than using the website’s own search engine.

    tfinch:

   Columbus has a high influx of Somali immigrants/refugees.  My students are under the impression that when a new refugee/immigrant enters the country they are given thousands of dollars, a new car, exempt from paying taxes and preference when if comes to housing and college.  Could you clear this issue up for me?

   Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson:

   I thought that the answers Emi Kolawole could provide would be far more helpful to you than mine. She is one of our star researchers at factcheck.org.

Thanks for your question, Tina.  On July 17, I spoke with a representative at the Department of Health and Human Services who said the “rumor” that refugees receive cash, a car, and preference for housing and college was “totally false.” The following day I spoke with Abdirizak Farah, a Somali refugee and an employee of the City of Columbus.  Mr. Farah said point-blank, “I did not receive a penny from anybody when I came to this country.”

While Mr. Farah may not have received any money when he arrived to the United States, some refugees do receive minimal financial and medical assistance.  The Department of Health and Human Services oversees The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which “provides funding for refugee services programs through state governments as well as through NGOs.”  The ORR also organizes transitional cash assistance programs, health benefits and a “wide variety of social services” for refugees.

The rules governing how much individual refugees can receive in cash assistance is determined by the state governments.  Many states, including Ohio, establish cash assistance for refugees that is no more beneficial than welfare.  Refugees are given the opportunity to attend public high schools and colleges, and must pay federal income taxes on the wages they earn in compliance with the law.

Some non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) raise money privately and can independently determine how they would like to spend the money they raise.  However, any organization receiving government funding may only provide basic assistance within government guidelines.  Few, if any, charitable organizations have the resources to provide the thousands of refugees in the U.S. with thousands of dollars, a car, a house or tuition payments for expensive private schools.

    micstasa9:

   I love how you use the internet to do this project. How long did it take you to find the different sites? What other websites would you recommend to do lessons? I like googlenews and sign up for that.

   Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson:

   I thought that the answers Emi Kolawole could provide would be far more helpful to you than mine. She is one of our star researchers at factcheck.org.

Thanks for your question Michelle.  Dr. Jamieson took about an hour to piece all of the material together.  And the sources she lists are her favorites regarding this topic.

Dr. Jamieson,

I am a master's student of economics at the Vienna University of Economics and

Business Administration and currently work on my thesis analysing the expansion

of consumer-driven health plans in the US.

In order to complement my research efforts, I would like to gain access to a case study of yours written on the phenomenon of the Harry & Louise-ad campaign against Clinton's health care reform proposal in the early 90s. I found a brief mentioning of your study on an Internet page, but my attempts to find it in the databases of my university were not successful.

It would contribute a great deal to the success of my thesis and would help me

gain valuable insights into the American system in the 1990s.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Kind regards,

Thomas Maurer

Master's student

h0251210 [at] wu-wien.ac.at

Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration

Augasse 2-7

1090 Vienna

Austria

http://www.wu-wien.ac.at

Dr. Jamieson,

Just curious if you were going to be writing another book...I loved "Packaging the Presidency".   I had you as a professor at the University of Texas awhile back!   I  now teach AP Government in high school.  I TRY to make my class as interesting as you made yours!  Thanks for all that you have done!

Rob Casselberry

San Antonio Lanier High School