Pretend you are the Education Secretary Arne Duncan. How would you go Essay

Pretend you are the Education Secretary Arne Duncan. How would you go about tweaking the NCLB What innovations would you implem - Essay Example The No Child Left Behind Act (also referred to as NCLB for short) mandated that by 2014, 90% of all schools will be meeting or exceeding state standards. One problem that NCLB does not take into account is that learning is cumulative. Therefore, if any benchmarks are missed in the beginning, it will be harder and harder for children to keep up to the standards when they are already lagging behind in test scores. The ISAT test measures elementary school childrens’ progress, while the PSAE (the Prairie State Achievement Exam) is given to 11th graders. The PSAE is helpful because it is the test that determines what a school’s Adequate Yearly Progress is. If a school fails to make AYP for a certain number of years, the school has to improve or face restructuring—which involves firing all of the staff and starting with a completely new faculty. Also, a culture open to learning is instilled in the new staff members. Schools may not make AYP for several reasons. One rea son might be that transfer students can bring down the general scores of a school. In fact, â€Å"The recent proposal of Senator Joe Lieberman on revamping NCLB school choice provisions suggested providing a safe harbor for one year from AYP calculations for the new out-of-district student transfers.†1 Schools that do not make AYP are generally schools that have a high number of at-risk students—who, for whatever reason—come from underserved and socioeconomically underprivileged populations. In sum, No Child Left Behind needs to be drastically overhauled so that schools that are not making AYP are not penalized, but rather are being given an extension past 2014 in order to improve further. Putting a timetable on when everyone should be at an ideal level of success is setting everyone up for failure—both students and teachers. Even the best teachers in the world cannot rush success. Improving schools go hand in hand with improving student performance at th ese schools that don’t make AYP on a yearly basis. â€Å"According to one survey, sixteen to nineteen year olds in the high-risk category were almost four times as likely to be high school dropouts as those not in the high-risk category.†2 Improving schools in the United States is going to be a time-consuming and rigorous task. In order to improve schools, one of the main foci will be to attempt to raise student test scores by having them take more practice tests, encouraging them to do more independent study outside the class, and encouraging them to complete their assignments in a neat and timely manner. In schools where there are a dense population of at-risk students, it’s important to stress values and social skills as part of the hidden curriculum. That notwithstanding, another integral part of any school is its teaching staff. That having been said, the next issue to be discussed is the quality of the faculty at schools across the country. There are sever al factors which influence a student. â€Å"At the classroom level there are three main variables which accounted for the learning of the pupil: time, opportunity, and the quality of instruction. Time and opportunity†¦influence†¦the pupil’s learning [directly] whereas the quality of instruction [has an impact on] time and opportunity.†3 Obviously, what would help tremendously is if a teacher knows how to properly budget his or her time, and spend a majority of class time implementing a lesson and then having the students work. This is the main idea of what education consists of at the high school and

Wireless Technology in Hotels Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Wireless Technology in Hotels - Assignment Example Later, we discover the importance of mobility and came up with a "wireless" network. Now, everybody is taking about "wireless" and we cannot help thinking of Wi-Fi, the marvel of wireless. This report details the technical aspects of Wi-Fi and its advantages over the conventional wired networks. It presents the evolution of Wi-Fi from a humble mobile device tool into a sought after device for high-speed wireless internet access. It shows the unique qualities of Wi-Fi that captures the heart of businesses around the globe and how it became so popular in the hospitality industry. It also covers the impact of wireless technology in hotels and the numerous benefits it will bring. In the past decades, the hospitality industry has witness remarkable rise in computer use. It is difficult to find an establishment in the industry without some type of information technology. IT influenced the hotels in various ways, increasing competence and reducing domestic operations cost through efficient property management systems, billing, accounting, human resources, inventories and more. It is no doubt an important tool for marketing and dissemination through the internet and digital media. It is the significant force driving change in hospitality industry and its occurring more quickly than anyone can foresee. Moreover, it has widely influence the in-room technology and gu... It seems that any hotel that does not acknowledge the vibrant nature of the hospitality industry, and appreciate the extraordinary changes taking place within it, will have a modest chance of being competitive in the 21st century. A hotel room with stunning view and high-speed broadband services are now becoming a standard request from travellers. It is an indication that the technology is already a part of the hotel industry and an essential service to implement in order to be competitive in the present industry setting. A "must have" amenity for mid-size to large hotels is the innovative technology known as Wi-Fi. It enables a person with a wireless enabled computer to connect to the internet remotely with greater transfer speed. Many hotels are now offering Wi-Fi access free as part of their standard services and are making money from this cutting-edge technology through soaring occupancy rates. THE WI-FI TECHNOLOGY Lucent and Agere Systems (formerly NCR Corporation and AT&T) with Victor Hayes invented Wi-Fi in 1991. Victor Hayes and his team design the standards such as IEEE 802.11b, 802.11a and 802.11g and later he became the father of Wi-Fi. The Agere System, without Hayes (retired in 2003), suffered strong competition from cheaper Wi-Fi solutions and later quit the Wi-Fi market in 2004. The term Wi-Fi for clarification, is not "Wireless Fidelity" but a term to described WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) products that are based on the IEEE 802.11 standards. The Interbrand Corporation developed the brand name "Wi-Fi" for the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (better known as Wi-Fi Alliance) for their marketing strategy. Audeh 2004, page