public education :: essays research papers

The topic that I am going to be talking about in this essay is a very big and controversial issue. That is rather it is a good idea or bad to charter our failing public school system. So far it seems the non-chartering path is in the lead, but charting school is catching up fast. In this essay I’m going to summarize one article title The New School, by Chester E. Finn Jr. that supports the charter system. Also I will summarize an article title To Market, To Market, by Phyllis Vine who seem to strongly opposed the charting our public system. As far as my personal opinion goes, I believe charter schools are still in it’s infancy, we should give it more time to develop before we can actually decide rather charter school is a good idea or not. I would go into greater detail later in the essay.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Pro-charter article titled The New School, by Chester E. Finn Jr. who is the former assistant secretary of education believed and I quote â€Å"charter schools offer the benefits of both public and private schools and can revitalize urban education.† He started the article by stating that currently the charter systems enrolling about 170,000 students, with about twenty-nine school authorizing and allowing charter schools to be built and operated, states such as California, Michigan, Texas, Massachusetts. What is a charter school? Well, according to the article, it is â€Å"a public school with some of the most highly prized features of private schools.† The best part is it is offered to anyone who wishes to attend, with no additional cost to the parents, because it is pay for by the tax dollars. Out of all the charter school, many are owned and operated by local community and parents. But there are about two dozen that are operated and owned by t he Edison Project and the Educational Alternatives Inc. For some other firms instead of operating and owning the entire school, they target specific area, such as the furnishing, tutoring, and technology to name a few. According to this article the educational system in the United States is $300 billion enterprise. While Chester states maybe a reason for some firms to try to jump on board the chartering business. From Chester’s article he stated that in two years time he visited about sixty schools in fourteen states and interviewed few hundreds of those either worked or attended those schools.

Pepsi Case Study Essay

Strategic issue Maintain competitive focus, while splitting PepsiCo and creating governance for the new Pepsi Bottling Group. Internal Analysis Pepsi was invented in 1893, establishing a franchise bottling system of 270 bottlers by 1910. Pepsi struggled in its early years declaring bankruptcy twice. The 1970’s and early 80’s, Pepsi surpassed Coke for the first time. Bottling was a capital-intensive business and involved highly specialized production lines. Bottling and canning could cost between $4 million to $10 million each with a minimal investment cost for a small bottling facility of $25 million to $35 million. It was estimated that 80 to 85 plants were required for full U.S.-distribution, with the cost of a fully efficient large plant with a capacity of 40 million cases to be $75 million in 1998. Among top bottlers in 1998, packaging accounted for 50 per cent of costs of goods sold, concentrate 33 per cent, sweeteners 10 per cent, and labor most of the remaining variable costs. While bottlers’ gross profits often exceeded 40 per cent, operating margins were very thin. Given the intense service prov ided by the bottlers, the relationship between the bottlers and end retailers was critical to success and sales. Pepsi structured its contracts with bottlers so that bottlers were required to purchase concentrate from Pepsi at prices set by Pepsi, giving them much greater flexibility. In the mid 80’s, Pepsi began acquiring many of its independent bottlers and by the mid 1990’s, Pepsi owned half of these outright and had equity positions in many others. Pepsi focused heavily on diversification within the beverage industry as well as beyond that in first into snack foods, with the merger forming PepsiCo and again with Frito-lay, purchased fast-food chains and casual-dining restaurants. Some of these endeavors went well such as the snack foods while restaurant expansion was failing. Analysts became concerned that Pepsi was over extending itself and was in doomed if they continued down the same path. Pepsi made the right choice exiting the casual dining market, with a slimmed down more focused future they could now focus on new profitable ventures. Pepsi’s biggest challenge now was to â€Å"reinvent itself and become a more formidable competitor.† A looming opportunity for Pepsi to be a more effective competitor would be if they were to mimic Coca-Cola’s CCE, which would raise billions of dollars. The result would make Pepsi more competitive and responsive to their  customers by allowing them to separate and focus on different functional areas of the company. The newly created Pepsi Bottling Group (PBG) would be the world’s largest manufacturer, seller and distributor of carbonated and non-carbonated beverages, which will provide PBG billion in cash when it goes public. The biggest challenge however was not the IPO, but rather creating a system of corporate governance to see PBG into the future. Craig Weatherup, current president of PepsiCo, CEO of worldwide beverages is faced with splitting PepsiCo’s worldwide bottling company from its concentrate business and the public offering of the PGB , which he would become CEO, and establishes their governance. External Analysis Business began in the Great Depression when it started competing with Coke offering twice the volume for the same price. The cola wars officially began in the 1950’s and continued throughout the century. Intense advertising battles, new packaging, new product introductions, international expansion and price wars erupted between the two companies. Pepsi captured Soviet markets and scored other international successes while Coke international success was dwindling due to poor relations with bottling partners. Pepsi profited from another of Coke’s mistakes, when Coke launched â€Å"New Coke†. However, Pepsi’s luck was short lived when Coke reinstated its old recipe. Originally Coca-Cola agreed to fix price contracts to allow for some adjustment with bottlers. In the 1980’s coke announced a refranchising plan that would eliminate weak bottlers, and expand large bottlers outside of their geographic territories. Additionally coke started to buy all of its bottlers, and created Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), and independent bottling subsidiary, selling 51% of its shares. By 1998, CCE accounted for more than 60 per cent of Coke North America’s volume and had worldwide sales of approximately $15 billion. The environment of PBG’s IPO was not ideal despite its anticipation by the market as everyone and everything was focused on the dot-com world. Identification and Evaluation of courses of action In order to stay competitive with Coca-Cola, PBG must happen in order to bring in cash flows for future investments. The most difficult task will be to assemble the new board for Pepsi Bottling Group and meeting deadlines by  which the CEO of Pepsi must have a board of directors in place. Corporate governance is the set of rules affecting the way Processes, customs, policies, laws, and institutions a corporation is directed, administered or controlled. Corporate governance also includes the relationships among the many stakeholders involved and the goals for which the corporation is governed. The most likely form of governance for Weatherup to take would be the market-based, most common in the U.S. because of its correlation with the stock market and prices. Since the markets are the primary source of capital, investors are given the most power in determining corporate policies. Therefore, the system relies on the capital markets to exert control over the corporation’s manag ement. Weatherup knew that changes of this magnitude could cause widespread confusion, so one way he could quickly assemble a board and governance would be to fall back on old colleagues and executives of PepsiCo and model PBG with similar persons and mechanisms. An option would be to try to imitate Coca-Cola’s board, and obtain members from their board. Mimicking successful past behaviors of Coca-Cola has boasted well for PepsiCo in the past, so it is likely that new governance similar to theirs would work too. In the past, it has shown that when Pepsi deviates from what Coke is doing it often results in negative outcomes for Pepsi. Having a similar board of directors could keep Pepsi in more of a Coke frame of mind and combine the best from both worlds. A negative drawback to this option would be that it would be very possible for future conflicts of interest and corruption with such close ties. Another option could be, for all of the responsibilities Weatherup is facing he could simply appoint someone else whom he sees fit, from the new board, to serve as CEO in the near future, and have them work closely with Weatherup as he establishes systems, and policies making sure everything stays in line with the original focus. That way you would have his knowledge, skills, and expertise to establish the governance and complete all of the executive duties, but his predecessor would be there watching to see how it was all created and will soon run, it would be similar to an apprenticeship. A positive outcome is that everything would occur on time by the preferred persons. A negative is that people may have doubts in the new CEO’s ability to run the company without the presence of Weatherup, and such uncertainty, could cause for stock prices to fall. Another option could be for Weatherup to ask for an  extension for when PBG goes public. He is said to be â€Å"wearing many hats, stretched too thin, etc.† Extra time would prevent Weatherup from having to rush through policy establishing processes, and could give him the option of picking the very best board of directors available rather just the first people available. Another pro to this option is that it is mentioned that the dot-com. stocks are what is making all the money, so waiting to sell the IPO’s could turn out to be more profitable in the long run.

Listening to Music Essay

Today stress is a factor that we have to learn living with, manipulating it to benefit us thereby preventing the development of depression and stress related diseases. This can be attributed to globalization which although it has greatly improved our lives and made our activities simpler it has also introduced negative aspects that lead to the development of stress. For instance programs and advertisements aired on our televisions are filled with violence which is viewed as eye catching and therefore tolerable. However, the violence has natured aggressive attitudes in children that are emanated in form of delinquent behavior in their teen lives thus developing stress from the prejudice and seclusion they receive from the community. Their parents too suffer from stress because of worrying about the safety and attitudes of their children. The community is also stressed by the menace of these teenagers. Many of you may be asking how stress can be managed especially with the little time that we have for ourselves, because most of our time is consumed by education and work. Worry no more because I have a solution that is easy to adapt to, access, simple to use and thus demands little effort from us; listening to music. My interest for music begun from childhood, whenever I was moody or angry I would lock myself in my room, turn the volume of my radio full blast and enjoy the tune of the music. Well this did not last for long because as you have all guessed I had to turn off the radio, orders from my parents, but the short period that I listened to the music did wonders because my anger subsided leaving me in a calm state. I can also attribute my success to music since while listening to its beats my concentration increases and thus develop ideas that will be beneficial to my life or solutions to problems that were disturbing me. Therefore, I am able to manage stress and its attributes (Chekitan & Schultz, 2005). Conducted research and studies have shown that music as a product is customer oriented because it portrays many benefits into our lives and acts as solutions to some of the demises that we suffer from. For instance today medical practitioners are using music to treat cancer patients whose treatment methods are painful and thus the patients require a relaxation factor to withstand the pain. Music is also used to treat children suffering from Attention deficient diseases (ADD) because it gives them a sense of belonging and increases their concentration, pain management, promote patients movement in wards as they will be tempted to move by the beat of the music, calm down patients, lower blood pressure, boost immunity and ease muscle tension for both the patients and medical practitioners (Laermer & Simmons, 2007). Music also penetrates into the brain cells stimulating the development of a brain wave whose resonance is in accordance to the tempo of the music. Music that contains fast, sharp and strong beats increases the concentration of the listeners thereby increasing their focus and thinking capacity. On the other hand music that constitutes slow beats results to the development of a calm state which has meditative therapy on the listeners thus relaxing them. Moreover, the ability of the brain to create different types of wave resonance is long lasting thus helping to manage stress. This is because these different brain waves also produce positive impacts onto the other parts of our bodies, for instance relaxation decreases breathing rate and heartbeat rate therefore reducing the chances for development of a chronic disease such as cardiac arrest. In the process havoc stress related responses are curbed because a positive state of the mind is maintained as the listeners develop an optimistic attitude. Furthermore, depending on the tempo of the music the relaxation soothes listeners to sleep a condition that eliminates stress, depression and anxiety effects (Kotler & Keller, 2005). Music also helps to improve the performance of students in class because the prominence of its beats eliminates environmental factors which distract the attention of students causing them to occasionally fidget and increase their desire to stand up and move around. This is because the repetition of the music beat contributes to the relaxation of muscles which reduces the hyperactive nature of the students thus increasing their focus on what they are learning. Music has also proved to be beneficial while exercising. This is because music helps the exerciser to concentrate on what he is doing as all the external factors that may contribute to his distraction are eliminated. Also the relaxation effect that the music creates reduces the strain that the exerciser may feel thus increasing his exercising capacity. Music also arouses psycho motor sensations improving the exercisers motor coordination (Barlon, 2006). Furthermore, there are many types of music that can suit the desires of everybody whether old, young, professional, rich or poor. Music as a product provides a wide range of selection that can be used to achieve certain benefits. The ability of music presenting a choice to its listeners proves that it is market oriented this is because people can change the type of music they are listening to suit a particular occasion. For instance when lifting weights music that contains fast and sharp beats should be used to help the exerciser increase the tension of his muscles and thus comfortably lift his weights. Contrary to this if slow music is used the exercisers tends to get tired quickly because the weights feel heavier due to the relaxation effect of the slow music (Silk & Harvard Business School Press 2006). The price of music is cheap because the benefit it prevails outweighs its monetary value. Listening to music is therefore affordable because little money is contributed to access music and listening devices. However, this is only done once because one remains with the music and the equipment thus will not need to contribute more money if he wants to listen to the music again. Moreover, the attention and energy needed to access music is little and in fact it is perceived as one of the music benefits because it increases the concentration and focus of the music seeker. Furthermore, the time spent when purchasing music is so little because music is sold by many people therefore, it is not a rare commodity. Also music is well classified and thus one cannot waste a lot of time looking for the type of music he/she desires to listen to (Sandhusen, 2008). Music is easily accessible because it can be found everywhere and there are so many devices that have been developed to aid in the simplification of attaining and storing music. Music can now be found in stores, online, itunes, mp3 sharing, ipods, from the television and the radio among other places. Thus people can enjoy the benefits of music without waiting for long periods of time because music is not located in a distant place that one needs to travel to purchase it or needs to wait for its delivery (Barlon, 2006). Media agencies are also promoting the benefits of listening to music by educating and advising people to seek this mechanism especially when under stress. The exposure on the benefits attained from listening to music that the media has done has increased the attention of many who have resulted to the conduction of research and studies that prove my contention to be true. This has also led to the establishment of music therapy a discipline that has now gained popularity as it can be used in all industries whether administration or medical. Furthermore, information about music therapy can be easily accessed online where the process used to perform music therapy, the cost of attaining these services and the location where these institutions can be found is well expressed and is in a language that is easily understood. Furthermore, music can be perceived as a universal language because music is globally listened to therefore, each one of us acts as an advertising agent for music influencing other people to start listening to a particular type of music in an attempt of attaining the same benefits (Barlon, 2006). From the above it is quite clear that listening to music can prevent the occurrence of negative stress related attributes such as suicide attempts, heart failures, loneliness and the pessimistic attitude among others. Therefore, everybody should make listening to music their hobby or increase the time they dedicate to this precious life extender and health maintainer mechanism. However, we must remember that although the power of music is good and results to unimaginable wonders to attain this, one must intelligently choose the right type of music to listen to at a certain time or occasion and use effective measures for instance while exercising low volume of the music is required to prevent further distraction of exerciser. Therefore, I would encourage people to listen to music which is productive and whose meaning or concept can easily be understood. Word Count: 1499 Reference List Barlon, K. (2006). The Concept of the Marketing Mix. Presentation on Marketing Management, 1, 2–7. Chekitan, S. D. & Schultz, E. D. (2005). In the Mix: A Customer-Focused Approach Can Bring the Current Marketing Mix into the 21st Century. Marketing Management, 14(1). Kotler, P. & Keller, L. (2005). Marketing Management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Laermer, R. & Simmons, M. (2007). Punk Marketing. New York: Harper Collins. Sandhusen, R. (2008). Marketing. 4th Edition. Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s Educational Series. Silk, J. A. & Harvard Business School Press (2006). What is Marketing. Watertown, MA: Harvard Business Press.

Existentialism And Modern Analysis

In his writing, Sartre adheres to the famous construct of † the theory of compromise† , as can be seen in his novel â€Å"Nausea†. This † theory of compromise† theme lends itself to the tenets of post-structuralism. Sartre's writings bear much truth, rather, they are all excellent and sublime in their characteristic beauty. Jean-Paul is the father of Existentialist philosophy, in the realm of Literary Studies and the Existentialist movement has been extremely popular amongst Marxists for it seems that Sartre's world view appealed greatly to Marxist sentiments and sensibilities. Sartre's passionate tone and empathic writing ( writing that has the quality of being ‘for the masses')influences one to give the subject of his fervent ruminations and expressions; only the most undivided actualization of esteem, a delegation of importance to Sartre's writings and simply put- one's full attention. The French writer Sartre never failed to extol the ideas behind how ‘Existentialist philosophy is real human philosophy'. Existentialism, in the briefest of lexical salutes, affirms this belief: that people are always in search of something to accomplish in their lives, and even if the most common observation resulting from surveys about the practices of Existentialists; is how they almost never finish what they begin to ‘do' – observations that posit negativity, focusing on the process of how individuals manage their existence instead of outcomes and products, is an immortal tribute to the quality of human living. History can only repeat itself, so much so that definable and manifested change is no longer necessary for positive developments to arise in the history of human civilization. One social institution that can be analyzed using the Existentialist paradigm would be the work force involved in public works and highways. These people dig on freeways that they close off at time in order to fix the plumbing system of cities. They also work in the suburbs. We can look into the life of the lead character of Jean Paul Sartre's â€Å" Nausea†, Antoine Roquentin. Antoine, as the narrator of â€Å"Nausea†, begins his story by saying that â€Å" Tomorrow it will rain in Bouville†. Antoine is a writer who settled in Bouvile ( France) for three years and Mr. Roquentin was conducting historical research on the life of the Marquis de Rollebon. The main concern of the existentialist musings of Antoine was the FACTICITY of life. Facticity, according to Melanie Revienne in â€Å" Existentialist Philosophy and Jean Paul Sartre† is signifies all of the concrete details against the background of which human freedom exists and is limited.. But Antoine is able to gain an epiphany regarding his existence when he thinks to himself, â€Å" People. You must love people. Men are admirable. I want to vomit-and suddenly there is Nausea†¦ Nausea-blinding evidence- I exist- the world exists-I know the world exists. That's all, it makes no difference Time. † Roquentin, at some point in his research becomes bored with the character of Marquis de Rollebon, and instead, he becomes obsessed with the idea that he is actually, writing a book. Antoine is also very preoccupied with the process of regaining the affections and feelings of his former lover Anny, to which she has this to say, â€Å" You can't begin again. † In the end, Antoine becomes fixated with the making of records- musical records- â€Å" the song of the Negresse singer- and he decides to cease working on his book and to try his hand at the production of recorded music in vinyl. â€Å" You must be like us, suffer in rhythm. SPIN ( the city is first to abandon me ) Strains of music above can proudly carry their own death within themselves like an internal necessity, only, they don't exist. A book! Be above existence, make people ashamed of their existence- beautiful, hard as steel. And I might succeed, in the past, nothing but in the past – in accepting myself. † Then Antoine, does â€Å"begin again† when he ends his story, using the same line, â€Å" Tomorrow it will rain in Bouville. † The diggers of the city have all of the systematic order and precision that Antoine evoked as the principal of life. They have the routine boredom of â€Å"nausea†. The diggers have all the time in the world to contemplate the past by the very act of using their work instruments in order to take from the surface, the concrete, grit and hollow that was, and to study the pipes of the city. The water pipes have their tales to tell. And they too can â€Å" begin again† when they close one land orifice ( hole) that they have dug, and start with another section. They make beautiful, the otherwise mundane task of working for the public works and highways.

Strategic Management Analysis - Based on case study Essay

Strategic Management Analysis - Based on case study - Essay Example Better Place opened its first car demonstration center in Israel back in February 2010. The opening of the demonstration center helped the company in showcasing its ambitious plan in challenging the status quo in the rigid and complex industry. The performance of the company has since been outstanding with the formation of partnerships and increased capital funding. Strategic purpose: Mission, Values and mission The mission of the company was to reduce and eventually eliminate oil dependence of the automobile industry. The company aims at reducing the associated health, political and environmental issues that arise from the dominance and ubiquity of internal combustion engine (ICE). The increasing number of vehicles around the globe that have high emission of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons from the use of oil is responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions. With the growing ratio in the world populations as well as the demand for personal transportation, the environment and economi c sustainability of an ICE dominated transportation sector is highly likely to increase The company aims at attaining a widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) by the creation of links between battery companies, car companies, utilities and consumers. The strategic objective of the company is to take over the market on product performance and delivery of quality and emission free cars to the consumers. This involves having a broader and deeper use of technological capabilities and they believe that the solution to electric cars does not lie in re-engineering the battery but in the re-engineering of the car. Stakeholder analysis Shareholders all those groups of individuals or individuals who depend on a given organization in order to fulfill their goals where the organization ends up benefiting. The main stakeholders of Better Place are the consumers, political groups, suppliers and competitors (Johnson, Whittington & Scholes 2011). Stakeholder management is very high in Bette r Place as they have been factored into the development of Electric Vehicles. For example, Shai Agassi the founder of Better Place believes that overcoming the problem of limited mobility is the only way that consumers would be enabled to adopt the Electric Vehicles (EVs) on a massive scale. The different stakeholders for Better Place influence each other in a positive way. The electric vehicle solution has made provisions and considerations of all the stakeholders. The political stakeholders include the state. For example, the State of Hawaii has launched a Clean Energy Initiative that is aimed at the development of clean energy alternatives by 2030. Adoption of EVs in the State would be the best clean energy alternative for people. This has had positive impacts on the consumers, suppliers and competitors. For the consumers, the move by the state will lead to the reduction of risks which results from carbon monoxide emissions and to enhance adaptability and flexibility. Maintenance costs of electric vehicles are much lower than the ICE vehicles for consumers. It is a social, economic and ethical responsibility for companies to produce and manufacture those cars that will not cause any environmental harm. Better Place owes this to its stakeholders hence the reason for the EVs. External environment analysis The macro-environment (Porter’s 5 forces analysis) Supplier power- There is few suppliers in the supply of electric vehicles around the globe. Better Place is a powerful supplier due to the

Oracle Database Concepts Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Oracle Database Concepts - Assignment Example In invoice table (2NF), item price and item description are dependent on item alone and is independent of the invoice information. Thus invoice table is further reduced to 3NF by moving the independent fields to another table named ITEM as shown below: Thus the final design has 3 tables: CUSTOMER, ITEM, and INVOICE. Customer and Item are related to INVOICE using customer id and item id respectively as foreign keys. The new tables (reduced to 3NF) are shown below: The initial design for storing invoice information had a single table. All the information was stored on the single table. This created a lot of redundancy in the database. For example, if a customer purchases three quantity of 5 items, then the information for the customer has to be repeated for all 15 (3 * 5) rows. This not only creates redundant data but also increases the database size. Further, if the customer information changes, then all the rows have to be updated. This might create a lot of update anomalies. Though this sort of anomalies can be avoided by updating all rows by using customer id in the WHERE clause, there are chances for the presence of huge records for each customer in the invoice table. This may result in heavy updates and lowers the overall efficiency and throughput. After reduction to 2NF, though the data redundancy and update anomaly is eliminated to some extent, it still exists for item information. The information for items like item description and item price is purely dependent on ITEM id and not on invoice. This may again create redundancy and update anomalies. Hence the item information is moved to a new table thereby storing each business entity in separate tables. Thus, the new design that is reduced to 3NF eliminates redundancy and update anomalies and increases the overall efficiency.

Relationship between height and weight of mother birth weight Essay

Relationship between height and weight of mother birth weight - Essay Example The study of these two quantities among mothers just after giving birth is very important as these are the quantities that is used to calculate the body mass index used for health check (Taylor, 2010, p. 258). The data provided in the spreadsheet gives information about mothers within one hour of giving birth to infants at the oxford street hospital. The information in the data includes the weight of the baby, the age of the mother, their height, weight, gestation period, and whether they smoke or not. In order to analyze the relationship between the height and weight of the mothers, I will plot the scatter graphs, cumulative frequency curve and box plot together with statistical values such as mean, mode, range and median (Cleveland, 1994). Since the population is too large, I will use random sampling method to draw 50 samples from the population to ensure that the investigation represented the population fairly (Mann, 2010). In this case a scientific calculator will be used with function â€Å"Ran#† to generate the random numbers and then multiplied by 1148 to obtain the numbers in the range of 1 to 1148. This will be done keeping in mind that no single random number will be repe ated. The sample will then be used for the study. The hypothesis of this study is that taller mothers weigh more than shorter mothers. This is the expected outcome of this study since when mothers grow tall, they add more mass to their body hence increasing their weight (Nolan & Speed, 2000). As was mentioned above, random sampling was used to obtain 50 samples from the population. The samples is shown in the table 1 below. The data is then analyzed by scatter graph for possible relationship. Frequency curve is used to obtain the lower quartile, median upper quartile (Jan, 1962). The quartile range is then calculated. Box plot is used to analyze the spread of the data. As is evident from the scatter plot above, there is a significant