Government And School Essays - Education Economics, Competition

Government And School School choice will improve education in America. Public schools are grossly inefficient, and are not educating many of America's youths adequately. Schools that are run independent from local government bureaucracy provide better education at lower cost. School choice would allow more students to attend better schools. School choice is a potent educational reform that is far more effective than increased spending. The fears of opponents of school choice are factually unfounded. School choice is necessary to improve American education. Through allowing more parental choice in education, school choice forces education into a free market environment. As it is now, parents send children to the nearest school, assigned to them by the school district. If a family is wealthy enough and chooses to do so, parents can send children to private schools. However, this family then pays twice for one education. They still pay their taxes, and they pay the tuition for the private school. Under a school choice plan, any parent who decides to send their child to a private school will receive a scholarship from the government, redeemable for tuition at scholarship accepting private schools. The scholarship dollar amount is far below that of the average cost per student per year at public schools, but would allow millions of parents who cannot presently afford private tuition to do so. If a school performed poorly, parents would choose to remove their children, and then send to them to better schools. If a school began losing all its students, and therefore all its funding, the school would desire to improve. Under the current system, government schools get your money whether they are doing a good job or not. Milton Friedman was one of the first people to propose a school choice plan. Since he did so over a quarter century ago, support has expanded rapidly. However, few plans for school choice have actually been enacted. The city of Milwaukee enacted a program designed by future choice icon Polly Williams. She asked the simple yet brilliant question, "Why not allow tax dollars to go to the schools that are working?" (Harmer, 162) The plan does not allow religious schools to participate, and allows only low-income children to take part. Schools that participate can have no more than 49% of their students are scholarship receiving students. The extremely limited scale demonstration has had little effect on Milwaukee public schools, but has enabled many students to attend better schools. The number of students in the choice program has grown every year, in 1990 there were 341, in 1994 there were 846. (McGroarty, 36) In California in 1993, the Parental Choice in Education Initiative was placed on the ballot. The initiative was defeated by more than 2 to 1. However, proponents were outspent by a factor of 4 to 1. Unions such as the AFL-CIO, Nation Education Association, and California Teachers association raised over $17 million. Proponents raised only $4.1 million, and were left with only $2.5 million once they got the initiative on the ballot. (Harmer, 147) Demonstrators attempted to physically prevent people from signing the petitions to get the initiative on the ballot. People deliberately signed the petition multiple times to hamper school choice efforts. One person signed 23 times. Principles and teachers sent home anti-school choice information with children. School boards, such as that of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), illegally used public funds and forums to send an anti-choice message. From the standpoint of well to do Washington, D.C. suburbs, a school choice plan may seem unnecessary. Choice plans are not designed to help the upper-middle or upper class children. David Harmer wrote, "In my travels as president of the Excellence through Choice in Education League (ExCEL), I rarely met rich white suburban Republicans who were desperate for alternative schools." (Harmer, 114) They already get a good education from government schools. However, rural poor and inner-city children do not have that luxury. For example, in the city of Milwaukee, only 40% of freshman will eventually graduate from high school, and the average GPA for students is a D+. (McGroarty, 30) School choice plans would help these students the most. The people most involved in the education system are the ones who most easily realize the problems of government schools. The Wall Street Journal wrote that, "The California State Census Data Center, after analyzing the 1990 Census, found that about 18.2% of the state's public school teachers send their children to private schools. That's nearly twice the statewide average for all households, which is 9.7%" (Harmer, 28) College entrance exam

Free Essays on Performance Report

PREFACE Chart a course for every endeavor that we take the people’s money for, see how well we are progressing, tell the public how we are doing, stop the things that don’t work, and never stop improving the things that we think are worth investing in.† President William J. Clinton, on signing the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 Today when we talk about customer satisfaction and quality, we talk not only about the quality of products and services that totally satisfy customer needs and expectations in every respect on a continuous basis but we also talk about the quality of processes, information, people, systems and objectives. In short, quality is all encompassing is the way of life. The greatest realization in the pursuit of quality is that all this can happen only if people have a shared vision for the company and are totally committed to giving their best. For people to cause change in technology and systems they need to demonstrate behavior, which fosters teamwork based on the values of self-discipline, patience, openness, respect and trust. Till recently, performance appraisal was seen as a prerogative of the manager, who used to write a report about his subordinates. In fact, even today performance appraisal is known as a â€Å"Confidential report† in government parlance. Times are changing. With the advent of liberalization, employees have much more employment opportunities and hence can be no more treated as commodities. Employees have a right to know how they are performing. They also have a right to conduct self-appraisal and discuss the same with their superiors. Performance management and appraisal is no more linked only to wage and salary revisions, or promotions, but concentrated more on identifying needs for employment development. This project was taken up specifically to stress the need of planning, developing and implementing a performance management and appraisal system, wh... Free Essays on Performance Report Free Essays on Performance Report PREFACE Chart a course for every endeavor that we take the people’s money for, see how well we are progressing, tell the public how we are doing, stop the things that don’t work, and never stop improving the things that we think are worth investing in.† President William J. Clinton, on signing the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 Today when we talk about customer satisfaction and quality, we talk not only about the quality of products and services that totally satisfy customer needs and expectations in every respect on a continuous basis but we also talk about the quality of processes, information, people, systems and objectives. In short, quality is all encompassing is the way of life. The greatest realization in the pursuit of quality is that all this can happen only if people have a shared vision for the company and are totally committed to giving their best. For people to cause change in technology and systems they need to demonstrate behavior, which fosters teamwork based on the values of self-discipline, patience, openness, respect and trust. Till recently, performance appraisal was seen as a prerogative of the manager, who used to write a report about his subordinates. In fact, even today performance appraisal is known as a â€Å"Confidential report† in government parlance. Times are changing. With the advent of liberalization, employees have much more employment opportunities and hence can be no more treated as commodities. Employees have a right to know how they are performing. They also have a right to conduct self-appraisal and discuss the same with their superiors. Performance management and appraisal is no more linked only to wage and salary revisions, or promotions, but concentrated more on identifying needs for employment development. This project was taken up specifically to stress the need of planning, developing and implementing a performance management and appraisal system, wh...

Discuss the two major approaches to stress management. Identify and Essay

Discuss the two major approaches to stress management. Identify and describe one example of each strategy - Essay Example This approach is not encouraged since it creates a vicious cycle of stress, which leads to usage of more medication and ultimately more psychological deterioration. The non-medical approach takes care of three components, the body, the spirit, and the mind. It is a holistic approach and ensures that all aspects of the stressed individual are treated starting from identifying the source of stress, the extent, or severity of stress and ultimately taking charge or control of the problem. The various techniques used include psychotherapy where an individual undergoes sessions of counseling in order to restore positivity encouragement and hope during tough times. Other natural alternatives include aromatherapy, homeopathy, massaging, and reflexology. In addition, positive self-talk, making time for fun for the stressed individuals, relaxation, exercise, and healthy feeding habits are other alternatives. Worth noting, different people respond differently to stress and there is no classical or single method for all. People are therefore encouraged to experiment the different available strategies of stress