Education Quality In The U.S. Essays - Youth, Education Policy

Education Quality In The U.S. Throughout time, education has been considered a process that, every so often, must be improved. The education quality in the U.S. has declined over the years and people have been looking for a way to make improvements. A more recent proposal has been to go from a traditional nine- month schedule to an all year program. Supporters of year round schooling claim it better educates the student. However, the prospect of year round schooling proves disadvantageous, and nine month schooling is more effective. One disadvantage to all-year schooling is its high cost. More funds are necessary to cover the costs of paying the teachers and staff for one full year instead of for 180 days work. Teachers currently make an average of $37, 000 in the United States. But, the costs would increase to $53, 000 to keep the teachers for a full year. Currently, a district uses a lot of its budget on paying teachers. Once the increased costs are put in place, the budget depletes rapidly. Additional funds for utilities should be considered because air conditioning systems will most likely be needed during the three additional months. During those three months, more supplies will be consumed. Costs per school for items such as copy machines and scissors increase due to constant use. Students will be deprived of simple items such as worksheets and class handouts. Transportation and equipment costs would go up for constant maintenance. Buses that travel every school day use the district's money for gasoline an d repairs; these large sums are needed to cover maintenance. These costs can be very hard for a district to swallow. Taxes have to shoot up to solve the dilemma. Overall, the costs add up and equal a loss for the students' environment. Students will also suffer educational losses because they will have less time for extracurricular activities to make them more well rounded. Many students use their summer vacations to travel and spend time with their parents. However, with school in session during the summer it would be much harder for a family to spend time together and for students to be enriched with new experiences. Research shows that students are also less likely to succeed if they are not given a large break during the summer. Teachers will be unable adjust their curriculums for their incoming classes without an extensive break, shortchanging his or her students. An unprepared teacher can only mean much more time wasted. Faculty and students find that summer breaks can be an important time for growing. Without this break, both teachers and students alike would lack the proper time necessary for maturing. It is important that students continue to mature throughout high school. Year- round schooling does not gu arantee that this will occur. Time spent with friends would also decrease as many students run on different schedules. Friendship is very important in the all around development of a child; and year round school would separate students into two or three different schedules, away from friends. Students are not given any preference as to which one they must follow and it is simply a factor of luck. The biggest problem with all-year schooling is the adaptation to a schedule by the students and teachers involved with the change. For students already in junior high or high school, year round school would be a very difficult transition to make. After years of following one method, they would be told to suddenly switch tracks completely. Students would then lose a chance for improved education. Similarly, teachers will not have the time needed to take additional classes to improve their teaching strategies. How can a district expect education to improve if teachers can't improve their own personal education? Students moving out of the district will be in conflict with a district that had a nine- month schedule. Also, special events, such as graduation, or the beginning of the school year, would all be lost in the short confusion, taking place from year to year. This means that after years of hard work in school, graduating seniors will be taken out of the limelight. A revision does indeed need to occur in the U.S. education system. The facts all

Case Study-Avon Essays - American Brands, Avon Products, Free Essays

Case Study-Avon Essays - American Brands, Avon Products, Free Essays Case Study-Avon Avon Case What direct marketing efforts would you recommend to Avon? Who would be the target market? What range of products would be sold, and how would those products be offered? What other specific price, distribution, promotion, and product mix strategies and tactics would you propose and why? When I think of Avon the first thought that comes into mind are the Avon ladies and those Avon catalogs. This is actually what most people think of I believe. Avon is a extremely well-known company but this does not mean it doesnt have its problems. During the 80s Avon has had its shares of negativity; debt reaching -$400 millions but since then has bought itself up again and now into the 21st century it is trying many different options to increase sales which have barely climbed in the last four years. The direct marketing efforts that I recommend Avon make are to definitely focus on television advertisement commercials like they did in the early 90s. To be honest the only advertisement for Avon I know of or only recognize are the print ads in magazines. Having television ads would make people more aware of Avon than they already are. It definitely would linger in peoples minds more than just seeing magazine ads. Print advertisements should also increase in number and be published in different magazines ranging from teens to woman with products being advertised that are targeted to that specific group. Telemarketing can be help but I do not think Avon needs to focus on this. Maybe having telemarketers calling during holiday seasons offering a free holiday catalog or even just calling year round asking if consumers have an Avon representative or if they wish to receive a free catalog and have a Avon representative in their area contact them. Avon has used this method in the past but this method might be expensive and not yield much profit since you are not actually taking orders during these phone calls. Direct mailing could also be of help since Avon has tried this in the past and has a greater response then the norm (11% rather then the 1% or 2% norm). This could also erase telemarketing since it basically is the same concept but no Avon representative would be given the interested customers name and address. Adding bind-ins could be useful too since the average girl or woman do read a lot of magazines and this would work well with print media advertisements. Imagine having an ad for an Avon product and then right next to it you see a postage paid reply card for a free catalog. Even though Avon has in the past sent out samples of products maybe adding samples of makeup or fragrances in magazine ads would attract people to buy them and other products. Avon has recently begun to talk about how they are going to sell a special product line at stores such as Sea rs. This is a great opportunity for Avon to put ads in local newspapers of the cities in which there are Searss stores and also to buy space in Searss weekly flyer in Sunday papers. This can be an enormous plus for sales and profits of Avon. I know this will hurt Avon representative but what is being sold is not the same product line sold in the catalog. Loyal product users of the catalog makeup will always stick with their favorite from the catalog. Avons main target market has always been woman between 35 and 54. I feel that Avon should focus in the young woman/teen market. I feel that once young women become customers that they will be customer for a long time and maybe even life. It is best to expose and introduce someone to Avon when young because I know I am still wearing some of the same brands of makeup that I did when I was younger. College students to me would be a great target market since most dont have enough money to buy department store makeup and even drugstores Avon is known for its affordability and this group would be perfect to target. Once one friend has the makeup a ripple effect usually occurs. Groups of friends

Explain the terms span of control and control loss. Are these concepts Essay - 1

Explain the terms span of control and control loss. Are these concepts useful in understanding the design of organizations - Essay Example The early researchers have given a great consideration towards the ideal specific number of span of control and it has been generally assumed that small span of control maintains close control. It is believed that if the manager fails to achieve the control over its subordinates, then the issue of control loss may arise. Control loss is another important concept in the organisations. Actually span of control gives a control to managers over their subordinates. When the span of control is wide and organisation has a decentralised structure, the managers have less control over their subordinates and they encourage their employees to work in more independence. Galbraith and Williamson argue that decentralisation in organisations reduces the information costs and enhance the organisational efficiency however; it can contribute to control loss (Stevens, 1993, pp. 10). In this essay, the importance of the concepts of span of control and control loss has been discussed to understand the org anisational designs. Span of control is very important when it comes to design the structure of the organisations. Span of control is of the major determinants of the organisational structure. A relatively wide span of control and few hierarchical levels form a flat organisational structure. ... It means that span of control, control loss and organisational design are interrelated concepts and organisations have to consider the role of span of control and control loss in the organisational designs. Ivancevich, Konopaske, & Matteson (2008, pp.540) argue that creation of organisational design involves four major decisions including the decision of division of labour, the decisions of delegation of authority, the decision of departmentalisation and decision of span of control. Actually span of control is a major determinant of organisational design because it creates the number of hierarchical levels in the organisations. Span of control not only defines the relationships of formally assigned subordinated but it also considers those who have access to manager. To achieve the defined organisation objectives, designing the right organisational design and structure if very important. The process of development of organisational design with setting the goals and objectives of organ isational design and the next step is to group or relate the various functions, in which the concept of span of control is very important (Amrine, Ritchey, Moodie & Kmec, 1993, pp.88). For example, if few functions logically relate to each, they can be groups under one group and through span of control the reporting of the employees can be determined like who will report to whom. The researchers have always been interested in determining how an ideal span of control contributes to a good organisational design. Fisch (1963 cited in Dive, 2004, pp.115) argues that if the number of subordinated reporting to each manager is too small (in other words, if the span of control is narrow), the company will be too heavy, costly to run,