education-economics

This book really helped me at work. I needed to brush up on my spreadsheet knowledge and learn how to make org charts and schedules for my new job. Also, I got help on PowerPoint and general hints for making better graphics as communication tools. The samples are clear and the information is easy to understand, which is rare for books like these that often make no sense to me.

"What Business Wants from Higher Education" lays out a blueprint for transforming higher education into a farm system for corporate America. At no point do Oblinger and Verville entertain the idea that a university and a corporation might have different (and perhaps incompatible) functions and values, or that one social contribution of a university might even be to provide an alternative to the corporate world. A university is simply a training ground for future corporate employees. It is a business like any other, with a product (degrees), customers (students), and "stakeholders" (that's right: "stakeholders," sort of like "stockholders"). And like a business, it must be competitive and strive for greater "productivity." How is productivity measured in a university? By extruding degrees more quickly, easily, and cheaply. And how is this to be accomplished? By heavy reliance on IT (instructional technology) and distance learning (spell: more sales of PC's, a not undesirable prospect for these two IBM employees). In addition to pitching electronic correspondence courses, "What Business Wants from Higher Education" endorses other educational panaceas du jour: students need less "seat time" (students don't need to go to class so darned often); students should be able to get academic credit for non-academic activities (internships and "life experience"); students need to become "active, lifetime learners" (an obvious truism the authors invoke to diminish the importance of school learning); and--oh yes--institutions must adopt "outcomes assessment" to ensure accountability. What is outcomes assessment? A euphemism for simplifying and dumbing down course objectives so that the "efficiency" of university classes can supposedly be measured. Oblinger and Verville are to be commended for their honesty, though. They make it clear that one principal attraction of outcomes assessment is that it will allow students to challenge and test out of courses more easily (we can already see campus entrepreneurs gearing up to crank out the inevitable study guides). Of course students will get their credits simply by displaying a minimal level of competency, but that is fine with the authors. Our lifetime learners are after easy credits and a quick certification, a realization that has made the founder of the University of Phoenix rich. Why all these changes? The stodgy university is falling behind the corporate world, where no paradigm lasts for more than six months (except perhaps for ideas like sending jobs offshore, employing as few people as possible, paying them the minimum, withholding job security and retirement benefits, and overcompensating corporate chieftains). Like corporations, the modern university needs to be in a constant mode of change, adopting innovations in the blink of an eye. The best way to prepare students for corporate life (presumably the only economically defensible function of a university) is to give them an early dose of impermanence, transient loyalty, and mercenary values. But knowing which band wagons to mount will require leaders with vision, leaders with flexibility, leaders with autocratic power. Our universities stand poised to leap into the future, if only their chancellors and presidents can be given dictatorial power to inflict the kind of relatively untested changes proposed by Oblinger and Verville. But they have an obstacle--those stodgy, ossified people called the faculty, the teachers and researchers who do the fundamental and defining work of the university. And trying to move them, as someone has said, is like trying to herd cats. And why can't faculty be compelled to move obediently and with sufficient dispatch? They have tenure, the power that enables them to exercise their best professional judgment. So what happens when an upper-echelon educrat proposes wide scale use of electronic correspondence courses? These mossbacks want to discuss the proposal, debate its merits, field test it, analyze its successes and failures. Only then will they consider adoption. Faculty want to look before they leap, look before they agree to turn universities into the kind of educational vending machines proposed by the authors. In sum, what does the book propose, besides a university devoted to Mammon, to the production of serfs for corporate America? In the name of competitiveness and productivity, it proposes to turn the modern American university into an Eden for educrats, a lovely field of dreams for ambitious higher education administrators. Like the person who wrote the forward (Molly Corbett Broad) and the last person quoted in this manifesto (Barry Munitz), they want to make glamorous career moves--Broad left the California State University system to become the president of the University of North Carolina system, and Munitz jumped from the chancellorship of the CSU to the Getty foundation. To make such leaps, one must have gaudy entries in one's resume, like dramatic innovations in educational structure and delivery, but under the current dispensation--where faculty still make most of the decisions governing curriculum and pedagogy--such entries are difficult to come by. But no longer if Oblinger and Verville get their way. They envision a university where the president is a CEO with autocratic power, and faculty are as weak and discardable as corporate employees. Tenure will be a thing of the past, and full professors will be an endangered species. The role of faculty will be to obey their administrative masters. A field of dreams for administrators, indeed, and all we have to do is turn our universities into diploma mills. It is not by accident that most of the changes proposed by Oblinger and Verville are already familiar fixtures of enterprises like Nova University, National University, and the University of Phoenix. For students of the corporatization of America and the bureaucratization of the university, a must read.

No kidding, where has this one been? Is everyone out there sleeping under a rock, and what happened to the Single women paying for 2 even though they are only one. Like the IRS the city and state taxes single women pay for 2 people and they also pay for things which have nothing to do with them especially if they purchase a condo, co-op, or a piece of property. Hello! In my job, though it is not even managerial but as a secretary, I pay rent, gas and electric, as if I was an executive but somehow and for some reason pay for the basic necessities as if I was either married or wealthy. We pay as a single person for hotel rooms but for two. It is just unfair. When is the world, America going to wake up and see that the single women is really a ONE!

This book is especially helpful for managers, with training employees to use knowledge effectively in group projects, team building and project management. Within intercultural work teams the book is indispensable to assist all members in moving forward with goals, projects and targets. Hands-on techniques are highlighted and several case studies show proof. Easy to read and glean the salient facts. Companion book for Individual Human Development is available in French, Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, called Enterprise of Self, also by Bob Aubrey. Timely stuff to get the team going!!

This absolutely is the best textbook on the market for preparing to teach preschool children. The quality of the book reflects the author's intense dedication to early childhood as a teacher, center director, and University professor.

The book takes a much needed "how to" approach and is written in a clear and concise style. Beginning with understanding the characteristics of young children at different ages, the book is comprehensive. It includes everything you need to know to set up a creative developmentally appropriate environment; manage a classroom; plan an inviting curriculum, work with parents, etc. The hundreds of colored photographs help the reader see and understand quality indicators needed in outstanding early childhood programs. Treat yourself and order it today!

The introduction to The Writing Coach is inspiring. Lee Clark Johns is enthusiastic about her subject. She treats her subject with the care and skill of a fine novelist. She involves the reader in the subject matter from the very beginning and then leads the way to a great adventure for the business writing community. She adds just enough humor in sample writings to keep smiles on student faces. For those of us who are involved in the honorable profession of teaching English, an enthusiastic and inspired author becomes a silent team teaching member. Lee Clark Johns is just such an author in The Writing Coach.

The material is pertinent to current business trends. Exercises present examples of documents from real world, office situations (some of them are quite funny and others leave the reader aghast, see page 13 memo) and challenge the learner to rewrite/reorganize the document to meet more current standards or more appropriate standards. These exercises are excellent in that they present learners with what not to do and then lead them to what they should do in a business-writing situation

The Writing Coach content is current and up to date. It addresses issues with which the business community is confronted every day, and it demonstrates the techniques necessary to conquer these issues with aplomb.

The Writing Coach has something for everyone and would definitely be an asset to my teaching library. I am pleased to have had the opportunity to meet Lee Clark Johns in the pages of this wonderful book.

I'm an avid reader of study skills books. This book was my very first, and the only one that I keep coming back at. Highly pleasurable to read. Each line charges my spirits. Each chapter brings me a step forward. No other book incorporates senseful motivation and effective study methods like this book. I had improved vastly. Includes 11 reasons for failure, 12 steps to effective study habits, good notetaking skills and priceless quotes and cartoons to sustain reader's interest in reading and learning. If anyone wants to get a study skills book, this is almost all that s/he needs. It guides me not only in my academic life but it provides the principles of my life. It is my bible.

THIS BOOK IS BRILLIANT! IT IS CLEAR AND CONCISE. FROM THE VERY FIRST PAGE THE READER FEELS WELCOMED BY THE AUTHOR. ALL THE BASES ARE COVERED. THE GRAPHICS ARE EASY TO ABSORB. THE AUTHOR ALSO LETS YOU IN ON THE "SECRETS" OF THE FIELD AND SO YOU KNOW SHE IS NOT PAINTING AN UNREALISTICALLY BRIGHT PICTURE OF THE OPPORTUNITIES AVAILABLE. THE READER IS ABLE TO ASSESS HIS OR HER INTERESTS REALISTICALLY. THERE ARE JUST A FEW CAREERS THAT GET DUPLICATIVE ATTENTION; OTHERWISE THE AUTHOR COVERS A WIDE VARIETY OF CHOICES. SHE ALSO ATTENDS TO PRACTICAL MATTERS, SUCH AS EARNING POWER AND THE COST OF GETTING TRAINED.

Why are the lights going out in California? Why were there lines at gasoline stations in the '70s? Why is it so difficult to find a decent appartment in NY city? How can nations with less natural resources be so much more wealthy than others? Why can't Russia and China feed it's own people even though they have tremendously rich farmland? Thomas Sowell answers these and a million more questions in this easily read book on economics. This is not a text book! Sowell spent 10 years writting this book that reads like a cross between a public policy paper and a novel!

Economics is the study of the allocation (economization) of SCARCE resourses (time, money, labor, services, natural resources, etc.) with alternate uses. How efficiently a society allocates these scarce resourses utilmately determines the standard of living of it's citizens. When citizens lack the basic understanding of these principles, they typically are indifferent to detrimental governmental action and often actually encourage it! For example, price controls have a history of producing shortages back to the Roman Empire. Why then would politicians continue to institute such disatuours policies? Because there are more consumers (voters who think they benefit) than producer (voters who get punished) and Economists (voters who know the whole thing is a losing proposition).

Dr. Sowell uses copious examples to demonstrate as he makes each point. Early on he uses the example of a Protestant and Chatholic church each pursing a building program. In a free market economy, these churches are bidding against each other for scare building materials. Based on the level of funding, the churches may decide volutarily to scale back on their building programs. But, because the competition is systemic, there is no animosity between the churches. If, however, the government determines the allocation of resources, then the Protestant and Catholic churces come into direct competition with each other and animosity will develop as any extension of resources to one church will be seen as a direct reduction of resources to the other. Additionally, neither will have any reason to scale back voluntarily.

This book will make you look very differently at the economy and consumer choices. It should be mandatory reading for all highschool students. I've been buying this book and giving it to all my family and friends. You should too!

Note: Sowell is from the Monetarist branch of economics as most associated with Miton Friedman (He is the Friedman Fellow of the Hoover Institute). While definitely better than than the long discredited Keynesian wing, I disagree with some of the premises of the monetarists (I am more aligned with the Von Mises theories), but it is irrellevant at this basic level.

Mr. Sowell begins this excellent textbook with British economist Lionel Robbins's classic definition: "Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses."

Mr. Sowell then explains the economic theory of prices, industry and commerce, work and pay, time and risk, the national economy, the international economy, and concludes with popular economic fallacies. He accomplishes this without any graphs or equations to scare some people away.

The reader, no matter his educational level or political persuasion, must come away with one overpowering and disturbing conclusion and that is: When it comes to having the most rudimentary knowledge of economics, the vast majority of politicians and talking heads are either complete idiots or socialists who are still in denial.

This book allows anyone to analyze thorny and difficult economic issues in a relative simple manner by applying basic principles. It allows one to instantly recognize the ridiculousness of so many arguments that are continually put forth.

My only criticism of the book is that the publisher did a very poor job of editing. These errors should be corrected in subsequent printings and there should be many additional ones. This is one of those rare books that everyone should read and is certainly suitable for use as an elementary economics textbook in high school and college. I highly recommend it.

Economist Thomas Sowell has chastized his profession for not doing enough to teach basic economics to the lay public. The consequence has too often been an uncritical acceptance by voters of government policies that, in the long run, do more harm than good. Taking up his own challenge, Dr. Sowell has penned this remarkable book which teaches us about free markets using a clear narrative devoid of mathematical jargon. We learn that often the best way to grasp the importance of free market ideas is to view the consequences of violating them. He provides numerous examples from the former Soviet Union and India of sometimes comic, but most often tragic, outcomes when prices are not allowed to guide the allocation of scarce resources. Often, this has lead to needless misery for millions of people.

But, let's not be smug. America is hardly immune to economic folly. A public largely ignorant of economics does not understand why outcomes sometimes fall woefully short of expectations, and continues to allow politicians to promote flawed policies. For example, why does rent control ultimately make affordable housing less available for lower income families when its intended purpose is exactly the opposite? Why do minimum wage laws reduce the number of jobs available to the young and unskilled? Why can tariffs on imported goods lead to a net loss of jobs? And why did NAFTA fail to produce the "giant sucking sound" so widely anticipated? Professor Sowell will provide the answers.

Economics is not a subject that should be blissfully ignored. When voters allow politicians to establish government policies that run afoul of free market principles, the consequences for the country as a whole can be severe. Look no further than the Great Depression to see how misguided programs can make something bad even worse.

So, by all means, read "Basic Economics" for a wonderful introduction to an important subject. Maybe you will learn to use the ballot box more effectively and help provide a better standard of living for all. Not too bad for the price of one book.

The book filled with money saving ideas, some of which I found helpful, others that were impractical for me, and others that I doubt are useful to anyone without an excess of free time and a miniscule budget. That's okay, as the author herself points out, she puts all the informations she has out there so that you can decide which money saving strategies are appropriate for your situation. I just wish she would stop at that.

Unfortunately, Ms. Dacyzyn inserts her non-budgetary opinions on a plethora of other subjects, and I found some of it downright offensive. Particularly irritating is the self-rightous assertions that we should all wash and reuse plastic baggies and aluminum foil for the environment. The woman has six children! Reducing aluminum foil and plastic baggie consumption does not balance out the resource consumption of six children! Also obnoxious is her article on preventing "picky" eaters, which really shows more about her authoritarian parenting style than a desire to save money. How does making children force down a serving of asparagus or mushrooms save money? Wouldn't the cheapest thing to do be to let the child skip the offensive food, as long as they don't make up for it by eating more of a pricier food?

I will not repeat a lot of what has been said already about the quality of information contained in this book and the talent of the author. I will admit that I have read and used this one book more than any other I own, besides the bible. There is an endorsement! Besides tons of money saving advice, Amy shares her sense of humor, creative spirit and deep philosophical insights which make this a value for any person to read, regardless of financial status. Personally, I have never really struggled financially, yet feel committed to be a good steward of the resources I have been blessed with. Please keep in mind that she is not any type of expert on investing, so look elsewhere for better reading on that topic. This is also not a parenting book, although it amuses me that a couple who have sacrificed to retire early and raise their family full time are under such scrutiny as parents. I would sooner label parents who work full time, buy fast food and come home to watch T.V. until bed time abusive, even if their kids wear designer clothes and get new toys at Christmas. It just goes to show you where many peoples' values lie. I could not say enough good things about this book and even if some ideas are over the top, there is not a more comprehensive book on the subject of saving money anywhere to be found. Enough said.

I LOVE this book. Do all the ideas apply to us? No. Do we use every idea as stated? Of course not. But as a springboard for ideas that DO apply to our situation, this book has been an exceptionally valuable resource. 2 years ago, I checked it out from the local library at a time when my husband and I were incredibly stressed about not having enough to pay the rent one month. With a renewal, I had the book for 6 weeks, completely free. In that time, we paid the rent with $100 left over, and at the end of the 6 weeks, I purchased it new (after a long and fruitless search for used!), and it had paid for itsself literally 13 times over, beyond the rent issue. In the three years since then, I can't even begin to calculate how much money we have saved from using ideas suggested and/or inspired by this book. However, I do know that in Arizona, I am able to be a full-time stay-at-home-mom while my husband earns well under $20,000 per year. We have a comfortable little apartment in a good neighborhood, we all wear nice clothes, our cars are paid off completely, we have at least 6 weeks of groceries in the house at all times, and he and I are both attending college. We pay ALL our bills on time, and our ONLY debt is student loans.

If you are in need of ideas, suggestions, or advice for cutting costs, I advise you to invest in this book.