Also, the value of critiquing popular culture should not be underestimated. Simply because a course's title sounds politically correct does not mean it is 'easy.'
What is, after all, a 'gut' course? It is true that professors today may use more subjective means of grading their students in some humanities classes. Some professors allow students to write essays and submit research, when before they would give students blue book exams. Even some computer classes may allow students to write their own code, instead of regurgitating textbook material. Composing web pages and wikis in the humanities is not unheard of as final projects requirements. Professors may feel more apt to reward hard-working students with an 'A' on such long projects, but because an 'A' is given does not mean that the 'A' was easily won. In other words, by giving students more open-ended and creative assignments and forcing them to think…...

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Reference

Kohn, Alfie. (2002, November 8). "The dangerous myth of grade inflation." The Chronicle of Higher Education. 49(11): B7.

GADE EQUATE TO BEING WELL-EDUCATED?
Does Matriculation Equate Being Well-Educated (NOTE: THIS CAN BE CHANGED) NOTE: MY BELIEF IS THAT A GOOD GADE O HIGH DEGEE DOES NOT NECESSAILY EQUATE BEING WELL-EDUCATED Draft approximately 1000-word (3-4-page) narrative essay response prompt: Use a personal narrative state views response assigned readings education.

This story begins at a time when Mark, Betty, Martin and I used to spend a lot of our free time together. We loved to engage in intellectual discussions where we debated for hours on certain topics that were the source of discussions for scholars. Mark began a discussion on education which took an interesting turn since it helped us see how grades relate to the education quality of individuals. One thing that we all accepted was that education plays a major role in providing individuals with the necessary knowledge, skills, abilities and other competencies that are needed for them to…...

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References

Close, D. (2009). Fair Grades. Teaching Philosophy, 32(4), 361-398.

Crede, M., Roch, S.G., & Kieszczynka, U.M. (2010). Class Attendance in College: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Relationship of Class Attendance with Grades and Student Characteristics. Review of Educational Research 80(2), 272-295.

Kohn, A. (2002). The Dangerous Myth of Grade Inflation. Chronicle of Higher Education, 49(11), B7-B9.

ussian Public Debt Downgrade
The ussian economy is heading into a deep recession: the projected average growth over the next three years has been estimated at 0.5%. The years of the ussian oil boom are fading fast and tensions continue to rise with the West, in light of ussian pugilistic actions in the Ukraine. Standard & Poor's has judged the ussian government's prospects for servicing the debt as continuing to narrow, with few options left for the central bank of ussia to employ: available mechanisms are scaffolding for the teetering ussian banking sector or propping up the ruble. Following the credit downgrade, the ruble fell 7% in after-hour trading to reach a new low of 68 rubles to the dollar.

In what appears to be a terrible and perfect storm, the ussian economic growth prospects are diminished, the flexibility of the monetary policy of the ussian Federation has weakened, and ussian banks…...

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References

Kramer, A.E. (2015, January 26). S.&P. cuts Russian debt one notch to junk level. The New York Times.

Krugman, P. (2014, December 18). Notes on Russian debt. The New York Times.

Meola, A. (2015, February 23). Yandex N.V. (YNDX) stock falls today on Russia debt rating downgrade, possible Ukraine sanctions. Retrieved from  http://www.thestreet.com/story/13055112/1/yandex-nv-yndx-stock-falls-today-on-russia-debt-rating-downgrade-possible-ukraine-sanctions.html 

Panin, A. (2105, January 12). Russian banks plead for interest rate cut as borrowing costs spiral. The Moscow Times. Retreived from  http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/russian-banks-plead-for-interest-rate-cut-as-borrowing-costs-spiral/514253.html

Discuss the asymmetric informational problem that arises in the case of hourly loan officers issuing loans. Propose at least two proposals to minimize these concerns.
One of the primary reasons that so many home loans were issued in recent years to individuals who were not sufficiently creditworthy to be able to make timely payments on those loans is that there was an ongoing condition of asymmetric information. The individuals seeking the loans had much more information than the loan officers; in many cases they knew that they could not reasonably meet the conditions of the loan.

The hourly loan officers in many cases could probably have been able to determine that the individual was unlikely to be able to service the loan. However, these hourly loan officers were being rewarded for making loans and they had no real personal investment in whether or not the loan conditions were honored. They were…...

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4. There has been much discussion about grade inflation at schools and universities. Discuss and display graphically the impact of grade inflation and the loosening of educational standards. Make sure to discuss how this will affect the ability of education to be used as a signal of worker quality.

One of the reasons that many individuals are focused on getting the best possible education for themselves is that they believe it will lead to a better job for them -- not just because they will have better skills and increased knowledge but also because a sparkling transcript will impress potential employers and give them a leg up in the employment process.

This is a reasonable assumption on the part of students and future employees. However, an essential part of this assumption is that there is a stable and predictable relationship between a student's efforts and abilities and the grades that that individual receives. Both the stability and predictability of this relationship are being deteriorated by grade inflation, in which students have to work less hard and demonstrate lower skills to get the same grades that more talented students once got. The following graph (  demonstrates how badly grades and scholastic accomplishment have become unhinged:http://gradeinflation.com/ )

NPSAS was the only study in 1996 that encompassed the people who enrolled in the for-profit institutions which is why not even the very basic criteria of the for-profit sector and its educational setup has been well-recognized (reneman, Pusser and Turner 2000; Chung, 2006).
The confirmation that the students who had some sort of shortcoming whether in the financial sector, minority aspect or admittance-timeline factor were the ones who mainly enrolled in the for-profit educational institution was made by Apling and Aleman in a study they conducted in 1990, and Lee and Merisotis in a study they conducted in the same year which were also then matched by Phipps et al. (2000) and JL Associates (2004).

Grubb was the only researcher who, in the year 1993, explored and assessed the influence and affect of the concept of the industrial market proceeds in relation to the non-profit institutions and education. He assessed…...

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Bibliography

Altheide, D.L., & Johnson, J.M. (1994). Criteria for assessing interpretive validity in qualitative research. In N.K. Denzin & Y.S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 485-99). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Apling, R. & Aleman, S. (1990). Proprietary schools: a description of institutions and students. (Report No, 90-428EPW). Washington, DC.: Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service.

Apling, R. (1993). Proprietary schools and their students. Journal of Higher Education 64:4, pp. 379-416.

Barone, T.E. (1992). Beyond theory and method: A case of critical storytelling. Theory into Practice, 31(2), 142-146.

Practice riting
Students are being constantly judged and analyzed based upon their academic achievements. The texts presented question the validity of assessment and question how and why students are limited in their ambitions. Emphasis is put on certain aspects of academia but others are overlooked entirely. There is a decided need for reevaluation of what should be expected of students and how they are judged by those in positions of authority over them.

Students who attend Ivy League schools are supposed to be somehow more intelligent or more capable than students who go to public schools (Easterbook). However, research indicates that the only thing that matters is that a student attends some college. People who go to college will generally earn more money than those that do not, but the type of school does not necessarily impact the income level of the person.

Research conducted by Catherine Rampell found that in private institutions…...

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Works Cited:

Average grade awarded Fall term, 1993-2006. CSU Sacramento Factbook. Office of Institutional

Research. Web. 2012. http://www.oir.csus.edu/factbook/

Average grade awarded for academic year, 1917-1948. Annual Report of the President of Stanford University. Web. 2012. http://collections.stanford.edu/university

Easterbrook, Gregg. "Who Needs Harvard?" Atlantic Magazine. Oct. 2004. Print.

against the Zero' was published by Douglas Reeves in 2004, claiming that the inclusion of the zero on a 100-point scale was not only discouraging to students, but also mathematically inaccurate. Reeves found issue with the use of the zero to correspond to grade F. In the 100-point scale. He posited that the interval between the letter and numerical grades ought to be constant for a grading scale to be mathematically accurate. To this end, the four-point scale is rational and accurate since the one-point numerical increment between the numbers 4, 3, 2, 1 and 0, is proportionate to the increment between each letter grade on the corresponding A, B, C, D, and F. grade basis. On the other hand, the 100-point is scale is inaccurate given that the numerical interval is ten points between grades A, B, C, and D, with break points at 90, 80, 70, and…...

high school, students are taught that in order to get into a good college, they have to work hard and get great grades. However, research that has been conducted recently shows that there is very little difference between schools like Harvard and the local public state colleges. Although the former is much more expensive than the latter, this research indicates that the education that students receive is actually not showing that the more expensive school is better. In fact, the research indicates that the education students get at Harvard or other ivy-league schools is worse than the education you get at the cheaper school.
One of the reasons for this is that there is such a thing in more expensive schools as grade inflation. That means that a student gets a grade for an assignment or test, but is not scored as harshly in expensive schools as they would get…...

But high schools have been reporting rising grade point averages. Regardless of whether grade inflation is to blame, or an ineffectuality on the part of standardized testing to adequately measure student achievement, this points to another difficulty of using either higher grades or higher test scores to measure student success and thus take into consideration 'teacher quality' and variables that play into assessing teacher quality when hiring new staff members or retaining existing staff members. (Daily Policy Digest, 2001)
If measuring student achievement is difficult, and thus coming to terms with an adequate assessment of teaching 'quality,' then how does one improve teacher quality. Perhaps, suggests educational researcher Victor Lavy, the real question is not the assessment of incoming teachers or outgoing students. Rather, administrators should ask the question, how to increase existing teacher's incentives to improve the quality of teaching, and once this is determined, make such incentive based-programs…...

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Works Cited

Darling-Hammond, L. (1 Jan 2000)."

Teacher Quality and Student Achievement: A Review of State Policy Evidence." Retrieved on 28 Apr 2005 at http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v8n1/

Grades Rise While Test Scores Languish" (15 Aug 2001) Daily Policy  http://www.ncpa.org/images/1pix.gif 

Education Issues.

According to these authorities, "Workplace stressors often have detrimental effects on faculty job satisfaction and may lead to decisions to leave the institution or to leave higher education entirely. Although some degree of turnover is inevitable and perhaps desirable, high rates of faculty turnover can be costly to the reputation of an institution and to the quality of instruction" (p. 776). In many cases, the very faculty members that are adversely affected in this fashion are those the school district can least afford to lose, with a concomitant negative effect on those teachers who remain: "Too often the faculty who leave are those the institution would prefer to retain. Additional negative consequences of faculty turnover include costs for recruiting replacements, reduced integration within the academic department, disruption of course offerings, and diminished morale among those employees who remain in the organization" (Daly & Dee, p. 777).
In reality, the outcomes…...

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References

Aper, J.P. & Fry, J.E. (2003). Post-tenure review at graduate institutions in the United States: Recommendations and reality. Journal of Higher Education, 74(3), 241.

Becton, J.B. & Schraeder, M. (2004). Participant input into rater selection: Potential effects on the quality and acceptance of ratings in the context of 360-degree feedback. Public Personnel Management, 33(1), 23.

Broadnax, W.D. (2000). Diversity and affirmative action in public service. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Brownell, M.T., Ross, D.D., Colon, E.P., & Mccallum, C.L. (2005). Critical features of special education teacher preparation: A comparison with general teacher education. Journal of Special Education, 38(4), 242.

point out that between 2004 and 2009, Congress approved performance-based pay scales for the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. (Perry, 2009) This shift came after Congress had previously abandoned such systems that operated from 1984 to 1991 as being ultimately ineffective. (Perry, 2009) as Perry goes on to point out, the link between pay incentive and the manifestation of desired behaviors is extremely convoluted. On the employee's side of the equation are considerations including employee age, sex, job satisfaction and pay expectations, and on the organization's side of the equation are factors including the fiscal health of the organization, how the performance review is undertaken, and organizational climate, among other factors. (Perry, 2009) Perry lists a number of conclusions indicating that, in the public sector at least, performance-based pay is not a reliable means of activating managerial goals:
"Performance-related pay often has failed to trigger expected…...

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References

Anderson, L.B. (2007). Professional Norms, Public Service Motivation, or/and Economic Incentives: What Motivates Public Employees? Presented at the European Group of Public Administration Annual Conference. Madrid, Spain: retrieved from  http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mit.ps.au.dk%2Fokinos%2FEGPA%2520BoghAndersen2007.pdf&rct=j&q=Andersen%2C%20Lotte%20B.%202007.%20Professional%20Norms%2C%20Public%20Service%20Motivation%2C%20or%2Fand%20Economic%20Incentives%3A&ei=-owLTfXrOcSclgfKt9CeDA&usg=AFQjCNFTW6JPAZ74NMUNYKYVe-7tN2FzKA&sig2=e9dUm5cKxLerc6NStqJWvw&cad=rja .

Artley, W. a. (2001). The Performance-Based Management Handbook; Vol. 2: Establishing an Integrated Performance Measurement System. Performance-Bsed Management Special Interest Group (PBM SIG), U.S. Dept. Of Energy. Oak Ridge Associated Universities.

Banks, R.L. And Wheelwright, S.C. (1979). "Operations vs. strategy ± trading tomorrow for today," Harvard Business Review, May/June, pp. 112-20.

Bourne, M. (2008). The Balanced Scorecard. (S. Maccaulay, Interviewer) Learning Services Team, Cranefield School of Management.

On the other hand, some wars resulted in massive uprisings, mass destruction of property, indiscriminate killings of people, uprooting of the power base, widespread lawlessness through revolutions like the French Revolution, the Chinese Revolution and the Russian Revolution and most recently the Iranian Revolution. These revolutions have had far reaching repercussions for the countries in which these revolutions erupted as well as for the entire regions and the world at large. French Revolution over-turned the centuries-old monarchy and brought in republic governments, which in turn changed in quick succession until the end of the Second World War. The period between the end of monarchy and the establishment of stable republic government in France is a witness to the loss of French colonies. The Chinese Revolution turned around the people from a capitalistic economic system to socialist economic system under a new political system of communism expounded by Marx. The…...

Logical Arguments
People often feel and think they are on solid ground when they make statements and assertions. Many people are wise enough to hedge and qualify their statements as their own opinion and/or something that some people believe. However, others are not quite so adept at remaining impartial and keeping a full perspective. The below statement reactions will reflect and describe the more common miscues that people can engage in. The reactions will follow the corresponding letter item in the textbook for each item. While people may be sure of themselves, it does not mean they are making a logical or reasonable point.

A is deceiving because while wealth is indeed a pursuit of many people, while it does tend to be hard and while many famous people have pursued it, it does not mean it is the goal and aim of everyone and the difficulty thereof is basically irrelevant. Some…...

Economics - Country Analysis
Country Overview and Current Events (News)

Ethiopia, traditionally known as Abyssinia, is a landlocked Sub-Saharan country located at the Horn of Africa in East Africa, bordering Somalia, Kenya, Eritrea, Djibouti, Sudan, and the newly-created South Sudan. It covers approximately 1,126,829km2 of land; about the size of the state of Texas, and was, until the split of Sudan, the second-largest country in Africa. Being landlocked, Ethiopia largely relies on the port of Djibouti, to which it is connected by both rail and road. Economic elements such as this, together with the country's history, population, geography and economic performance have been explored in the subsequent sections of this text.

Population: the U.S. Census Bureau, in June 2013, estimated Ethiopia's population to be 93,877,025; a figure that makes the country the second-most populous in Africa, after Nigeria (orld Bank, Index Mundi). Ethiopia's population has been on a steady increase and so has…...

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Works Cited

AFDB. "Inflation Dynamics in Selected East African Countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda." AFDB Brief, 2012. Web. 18 March 2014  http://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/07022012Inflatin%20East%20Africa%20-%20ENG%20-%20Internal.pdf 

This article analyses the trend in Ethiopia's inflation rates vis-a-vis those of other countries in the Sub-Saharan region and was a valuable source of regional statistics, which formed the main basis for comparison.

Broussar, Nzinga, and Tekleselassie Tsegay. "Youth Unemployment: Ethiopia; Country Study." International Growth Center, 2012. Web. 18 March 2014  http://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/07022012Inflation%20East%20Africa%20-%20ENG%20-%20Internal.pdf 

This article analyzes the trend in Ethiopia's employment patterns. It reinforced my arguments that unemployment is more prevalent in urban Ethiopia, and that the country's informal sector contributes more to GDP than the formal sector.

2014) about China's inflation rate notes that the official consumer price index in the People's epublic of China is 2%, which is below the official government target of 3.5%. Furthermore, this CPI is at its lowest level in 13 months. The article then discusses some of the causes of this inflation rate, and the implications that it has both for China and other stakeholder economies.
Falling producer prices are leading to the deceleration of the inflation rate in China, and this is generally viewed as being favorable by Chinese leaders. There has been a need in China to push ahead with economic reforms, but this pushed had been constrained by the risk of rapid growth. The country also experienced its largest trade deficit in two years, after exports dropped 18% and imports increased 10.1%. The article noted that some of the data is skewed -- in particular export data --…...

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References

Butt, R. (2014).. China inflation slows to 13-month low. Reuters. Retrieved March 31, 2014 from  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-09/china-inflation-slows-to-13-month-low.html 

Holland, T. (2014). Fears over a tail risk hard landing in China are growing. South China Morning Post. Retrieved March 31, 2014 from  http://www.scmp.com/business/article/1431315/fears-over-tail-risk-hard-landing-china-are-growing