Communications Strategy For Public Education

Maximum Impact is an affirmation of the importance of communication by America’s local boards of education and superintendents. The book is based on principles developed in our professional roles as authors, a district superintendent, educational researcher, broadcast journalist, public affairs and social media director and government spokesperson. Each chapter - highlighting critical aspects of team communication by boards of education and the superintendent - is grounded in our work and experience. Our belief in communication as a tool for district transformation leads us to focus on dynamics between school leaders and the need to deploy a strategic communication strategy, a first book in today’s literature. We endeavor to help boards of education and superintendents - aspiring, novice or veteran – to recognize the vital nature of communication in the governance and leadership of public education, now and in the future. With the call for more transparency in government, including public education, we offer our primary target audience of school leaders with new principles of communication that will help them to engage the community, employees and stakeholders in helping to make their school district successful!

Examines issues related to obesity in the U.S. Based on four panels: The Epidemiology of Obesity & Cardiovascular Disease (in children & in adults); Strategies for Obesity Prevention (school-based, family-based, & community-based), Issues in Educating the Public About Weight & Obesity (nutrition in adolescence, smoking & weight, physical activity); Communication Strategies for Educating the Public (audience segmentation, targeting children & adolescents). Contains detailed statistical information. Charts & tables.

Arvind Singhal and Everett M. Rogers have developed this unique volume focused on the history and development of entertainment-education. This approach to communication is the process of designing and implementing a media message to both entertain and educate to increase audience members' knowledge about an educational issue, create favorable attitudes, and change overt behavior. It uses the universal appeal of entertainment to show individuals how they can live safer, healthier, and happier lives. Entertainment formats such as soap operas, rock music, feature films, talk shows, cartoons, comics, and theater are utilized in various countries to promote messages about educational issues. This book presents a balanced picture of the entertainment-education strategy, identifying ethical and other problems that accompany efforts to bring about social change.

Gunther, McGowan and Donegan draw on their own experiences and those of others in the field, to explain the importance of communication in school leadership. In focusing on the communication process—why it's critical for schools, and how it can be executed well—they make the case that communication must be a primary emphasis for leaders, not an afterthought. In Strategic Communications for School Leaders, the authors provide the insights and skills necessary for understanding the role of communication in educational leadership. They also lay the foundation for helping leaders-and those that aspire to be-create and execute communication plans that help to win the trust of an increasingly skeptical public and provide a means to advocate for schools' appropriate share of scarce resources. Topics addressed in the book include the following: understanding the audiences and their information channels; aligning the school leaders' messages with their educational goals and values; telling stories and using illustrative examples; delivering honest and credible messages (including admitting mistakes); using technology intelligently and appropriately; and creating and adhering to a communications plan.

Marketing Public Health: Strategies to Promote Social Change was designed to help public health practitioners understand basic marketing principles and strategically apply these principles in planning, implementing, and evaluating public health initiatives. The first edition has been widely used by public health practitioners at all levels of government and in the private sector as a tool to help run more effective campaigns to change individual behavior, improve social and economic conditions, advance social policies, and compete successfully for public attention and resources. This thorougly revised, second edition includes new case studies, written by respected and well-known guest contributors from the front lines and will help illustrate the principles and strategies in a way that makes it immediately apparent to readers how the material can be used in modern, real-life public health campaigns. Current themes in the social marketing world, such as the concept of branding, have also been incorporated into the book in both its narrative and its case studies and examples.