The War Powers Act of 1973 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The War Powers Act of 1973 - Essay Example President Harry Truman set the precedent of circumventing Congress, and the Constitution, when he deployed troops to Korea in 1950. Congress attempted to regain its sole authority to declare war when it passed the War Powers Act in 1973 as a response to the undeclared Vietnam War. The Act allows the Commander-in-Chief to respond to emergency situations and deploy troops for a limited amount of time without a formal declaration of war. However, presidents from Truman to George W. Bush have summarily ignored this Act as well as their constitutionally limited authority by waging protracted wars all over the world. All have selectively cited the part of the Constitution that gives them authority over the military while ignoring the part that stipulates they do not have the authority to wage war on their own. According to the United States Constitution Article One, Section Eight, only Congress has the exclusive authority to â€Å"to declare war [and] grant letters of marque and reprisal† (United States Constitution). Presidents do not have this authority. However, the War Powers Act of 1973 circumvented the Constitution. The Act allows for the President to deploy troops to a country for 60-90 days without the consent of Congress (War Powers Resolution, 1973). It is intended to first allow the president to deploy troops in an emergency situation but secondly to strictly enforce Congressional authority to declare war, to adhere to the framers of the Constitution’s intention for the people’s representatives in Congress to decide if military action was in the nation’s best interest. Given the ambiguity of this license the office of President now has to initiate war, but the President could, hypothetically of course, act without specific congressional approval to w age war against a sovereign nation that did not pose a military threat. This could theoretically lead to a seemingly

Virtue and Happiness Essay Example for Free

Virtue and Happiness Essay There are so many different circumstances under which someone will perform an action that it can be confusing when to determine if an action is virtuous. There can be factors of ignorance or factors of pressure to do certain actions. Pressure, ignorance, or reward can have a various affects on a person’s choices about virtuous acts but when it causes his or her moral actions to be compromised, then only certain situations can pressure or ignorance be an excuse. Courage is a virtue that can be determined by choices that a person can make. A person that only does an act because he sees some personal gain from the act such as saving a child from a fire may not have committed a virtuous act because of the motive behind it such as fame or honor. However, a person who has done a virtuous act can still be honored and glorified with the act still being virtuous. If that person were held at gunpoint and told to save the child, if he performed the act it would be hard to determine if it was truly virtuous. It does not mean that it was not a virtuous act, but it would be hard to tell what the motive was behind the action. Near the end of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle talks about the range of peoples characteristics. Aristotle states that the: â€Å"†¦of the moral states to be avoided there are three kinds-vice, incontinence, brutishness. † (Aristotle. Page 157.) Aristotle states that there are the opposites of these which are virtue, continence, and the super-virtue. Vice would mean the person knows what they are doing is wrong but does it regardless. Incontinence would mean that a person has an incorrect moral that they act on, causing them to act in a manner that was not virtuous. And brutishness would be a person acting purely on urge and having no emotional or rational or even irrational thought behind what they are doing. It would be primarily animalistic in nature. Looking at Aristotle’s view on â€Å"the best life† or a â€Å"happy life,† it can be seen that virtue is what he really believes will lead to a â€Å"good† life. The fact that there are many different ways in which someone may be virtuous or not shows that acting on desire can be right as well as wrong. And many different situations can determine this right or wrong act. Aristotle states that one must fulfill the desire for happiness by virtuous means and that our rational mind can lead us away from the correct way of fulfilling our ultimate desire.

Evaluation Of Reading Skills English Language Essay

Evaluation Of Reading Skills English Language Essay In Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary (2nd edition, 2005) definition of a language is stated as a system of communication consisting of sounds, words and grammar, or the system of communication used by the people of a particular country or profession. And that means, learning a language to communicate properly in that language requires mastering all parts of a language system such as the vocabulary, the grammar and the sound system. According to Dawani (2006) in order to communicate in a language one should study a balance of four basic language skills which are reading, listening, writing, and speaking. Thats why teaching and evaluation of these skills has a particular importance in language education. In this paper, the evaluation of one of four basic language skills, namely Reading Skill will be discussed in detail. However it is essential to lay some basic facts about reading before starting to discuss its evaluation. According to Alyousef (2005), as a definition, reading is can be perceived as an interactive process, leading to automaticity or fluency, between a text and a reader. Agreeing that, Rasinski (2004) states, accurate and automatic decoding of the words by giving its expressive interpretations to achieve maximum comprehension means reading fluency. Accordingly, Rasinski (2004) again states that reading does not merely mean accurate decoding of the words like teachers thought for years. And thats why the assessment of reading should involve the ability of fluency and comprehension, for sure. Reading in a different language has traditionally stemmed from the need of accessing the written literature of a high culture and as a material these literature pieces are used to work on as Byrnes (1998) suggests. As the aim of this kind of reading does not involve a real communication, the reading fluency is ignored. Later with the appearance of communicative approach, instead of high culture literature, reading texts started to be chosen according to the current reading aims, like using everyday materials such as newspaper articles, bus schedules, etc., for purposes to develop communicative competence. As a result, over time teaching of reading and reading drills at any levels became a fundamental part of language teaching. According to Stages of Reading Development of Challs (1983) reading is a continuous process which develops through some certain stages. Agreeing that, Beers (2006) adds that in case of a skip in a reading development stage, students will struggle in their reading ability and eventually this will also affect their writing skills. Thats why teachers should be exclusively attentive to students comprehension of each stage of reading process before continuing with the next level. According to Carnine Silbert (2004), Assessments provide the information that will enable educators to provide children with instruction that starts where they are and then build on that base to help children advance to the higher levels.(p. 13-15). As it is apparent from all these researchers statements, the evaluation of reading is a crucial part of teaching a language. Although most of the researches of that field unite in the importance of evaluation, they differ in the opinions for the evaluation mediums. N o matter how much a particular evaluation type is praised by educators, in reality all of them has some advantages and disadvantages and use of these evaluation types is only a matter of preference. Hughes (2007) states that all assessments are basically designed to develop the learning of students. Accordingly, evaluation is the process of gathering, utilizing a variety of sources and supplying students with descriptive feedback for future development. And these assessment processes are listed as following in various sources; Informal Reading Inventories (IRIs) In that evaluation type, the teacher decides a reading skill level by calculating the ratio of correctly read words in a passage as it is stated in NICHHD (2000). In IRIs, there are three main reading skill levels. According to Rasinski (2004) levels of performance for word decoding accuracy in reading can be listed as the following list; Independent Level: 97-100% Without Assistance Instructional Level: 90-96% With Assistance Frustration Level: The reason of these scale is explained in Mohler (2004) with a comparison of comprehension levels with these word accuracy levels; in independent level 90% or more comprehension, in instructional level 60% or more comprehension, and in Frustration level 50% or more comprehension occurs. According to McEwan (2002) this measure of oral reading fluency is the most sensitive to the small changes in reading ability, simplest and quickest classroom assessment type that is known. Adams (1990) states that letter recognition speed and accuracy are essential for reading proficiency and growth as letter recognition sub-skill improves word recognition skill. On the other hand, according to Rasinski (2004) in spite of the fact that IRIs value accuracy while determining the overall performance level of readers, they demand reader to read several word lists and passages orally and to be examined on their comprehension of each passage which eventually leads to one to two hours of endeavor for a complete IRI. In contrast to what Adams (1990) says, Rasinski (2004) finds it very time-consuming, particularly in case an application of the inventory to a struggling reader. Miscue Analysis Gunther (2007) defines miscue as any unpredictable calling of a word or section of text. The inventor of this analysis type, Ken Goodman specifically avoids using the term error instead of miscalling because of its negative implications. Goodman (1969) declares that a departure from the text does not necessarily exhibit a negative side of the reading process but it rather opens a window on the reading process which can assist both teachers and students. Using this method, a teacher can be more easily aware of the students comprehension by looking at the kind of mistakes he/she makes. According to Gunther (2007) miscue analysis particularly focuses on the readers cueing system similar to the ones used to describe the results of running records. These cueing systems are listed as the followings; the graphophonic system (visual cues in running records), the syntactic system (syntax or structure cues in running records), and the semantic system (meaning cues in running records). In these cueing systems, there are six types of miscues as stated here; 1st Correction: A child self-corrects his/her error and re-reads the section/word without prompting, 2nd Insertion: A child adds a few words which are not on the page, 3rd Omission: A child omits a word while reading a text, 4th Repetition: A child repeats a word or some part of the text, 5th Reversal: A child will reverse the order of the text or the word, 6th Substitution: A child places a different word, instead of reading a particular word. According to Wilde (2000) instead of focusing more on the number of miscues as in running records, miscue analysis is more concerned with type of miscues because being a good reader does not necessarily require a word-by-word comprehension of the text. Due to the fact that skipping, substituting, miscalling words does not necessarily make someone a bad reader, miscue analysis respects the reasons of miscues and develops the reading success of the given student according to the information gained by the analysis. However according to Kuroneko (2008) a technical knowledge of linguistic concepts and long succeeding analysis is required to conduct Goodmans miscue analysis thats why it is a complicated process to learn. Running Records Running Records is defined by Clay (1985) as a teacher adjustment to run a miscue analysis in the busy atmosphere of the classroom. According to Hughes (2007) diagnostic, formative and summative assessments can be conducted via running records. However using solely running records does not give enough evidence for evaluation purposes. According to Glover (2008) this type of assessment is useful for deciding the level of text used by the teacher and student and gaining the insights of the strategy types a child utilizes while reading. There are two separate parts of this assessment: the running record and a comprehension check. In running record part, the teacher basically uses some marking conventions and symbols to record the readers reading manner including accuracies, errors, assistance from the teacher and self-corrections while he/she continuous to read from the book and in comprehension check part the teacher utilizes retelling method by asking some comprehension questions as i t is stated in A Guide to Effective Instruction in Reading, Kindergarten to Grade 3 (2003, p.12, 27). While the teacher is evaluating the errors, he/she investigates them from three aspects as it is expressed by Gunther (2007); 1st Meaning: whether the meaning of the text has an influence on the childs reading, 2nd Syntax: whether the child reads in a grammatically and linguistically reasonable way, 3rd Visual: whether the child is mistaken for another word because of the words appearance/letters. According to what is mentioned by Gunther (2007), a teacher can decide a learning point utilizing students errors as an instantaneous chance for further learning because running records reveals the students cuing system and self correction patterns. Correspondingly, Johnston (1997) also states that comprehending the reasons behind errors, a teacher can put his/her knowledge of instruction to use to guide the student to learn. In A Guide to Effective Instruction in Reading, Kindergarten to Grade 3 (2003) the advantages of using running records are stated as followings; being an efficient and effective medium to record independent reading behaviors and providing a chance for teachers to observe students use of cues and strategies during an oral reading. Despite the time it takes to evaluate all students individually, running records when conducted on a regular basis creates a rich source of assessment information on the continuous development of an individual. De Leon (2009), on the other hand, lists some of the disadvantages this evaluation type posses as followings; requirement of fluent use of language, dependence on the ability to observe details and write quickly, making the student feel watched, become uncomfortable thus destruction of the nature of the recording, causing the teacher to be unavailable to control the classroom because of being focused on the recording, giving information about only one student at one time and can be tiring for the recorder because of its intensity. As it is apparent from the article, there are various evaluation types for the assessment of reading skill. While this is the case, the important question to ask can be the aim of the researcher/teacher when conducting one of the reading assessment methods. Although all of them stem from the need for improving the teaching quality of reading ability, they all differ from each other with the ways they try to achieve this. Some of them are depending on the number of the miscalled words while another one is paying attention to the type of miscalling. All of them have some week points compared to others as it can be seen by the objections of various researchers. Although, personally, I found, among all assessment types, running records very useful to learn the insights of the reading ability of a student, I also agree with the researchers who are opposed to this evaluation method because of its excessive needs. Just because of the time and attention demanded by this assessment, the appli cation of it to the real circumstances becomes nearly impossible. As a conclusion, it can be clearly said that all the evaluation methods have their advantages and disadvantages coming with them. As long as they are conducted with a special care, all methods can assist students to improve their reading skills.

Essay --

a) Economic: KFC Holdings (Malaysia) Bhd is currently the market leader in the fast-food industry of Malaysia. The company has developed a rigorous marketing strategy and marketing plan to retain its market share. Company has developed a marketing strategy and marketing plan to maintain the tight market. One of them is via development of products. Therefore, the effectiveness of this strategy is the long awaited for stakeholders. The latest world economic recession had also struck Malaysia inevitably. To sustain their performance, KFC has launched strategies to cope with the economic slowdown. They launch one new product every quarter with hope that KFC will achieve double-digit growth in the future. The current economic growth allowed for other form of food related business to bloom Newer blooming franchises such as Kopitiam, Oldtown and others offer heavy competition to KFC thus in order to stay in line they came up with strategy that includes reduced price of the food during certain hour of the day. The breakfast value meal sets, the lunch sets and dinner set. Thus by selling the products for a cheaper price during specific time where working adults usually go out to eat, they managed to gain customers and increase sales while the losses due to reduce price are mitigated with more purchase, resulting a net profit. Hence, by applying economic principle concerning demand and sales, they are able to offer the same quality of meal for a lesser price for the enjoyment of the community. b) Technology: Look in to the marketing strategy, KFC advertising itself Online and providing directories online of the nearest outlets and having a webpage dedicated to showing of its current promotions serves as an important aspects to ... ...s. KFC KLCC audited and certified by the competent certification body since 2005. All established Critical Control Point (CCPS) is now included in the Daily Operations Checklist which is used by all the KFC restaurants in the country. Quality control starts from supplies all raw materials. KFC conduct annual supplier audits, Audit STAR which is a proprietary program by YUM, similar in many ways to approach ISO. STAR Audit consists of two versions its the Food Safety and Quality System Audit. Either STAR Audit conducted by an international audit firm appointed third party YUM or from their own team of professional food technology from the Department of Quality Assurance KFC. KFC chicken supplier Ayamas is monitored closely by Department of Veterinary Service and has obtained the VHM (Veterinary Health Mark) Logo. It is also an ISO 9001 certified company.

Primary Education Essay

The Government of India in 2001 launched the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), a nationwide programme to provide universal primary education, thereby encouraging secondary education also. The Center passed The Right to Education Act in 1 April 2010, which guarantees free and compulsory education to every child in the 6-14 age groups. But, the lack of awareness on the requirement of pre-school education & operational challenges including the availability of quality teachers are some of the issues that still limit the widespread benefits from the government act. Though the number of institutes has gone up significantly since then, but most of them provide an average education. Many state-funded schools in India lack even the basic infrastructure. In fact the quality of education, especially in remote villages, is very dismal. The quality of teaching in elementary schools is not up to the mark. Teacher absenteeism is widespread, teachers are not adequately trained and the quality of pedagogy is poor. One of the major challenges is the diminishing inclination of youth towards the teaching profession. The low salary base, lack of incentives and a lethargic job with less of dynamism have made the profession a last resort for the youth. Also, the profession has lost the level of respect that it deserved. Nowadays, it is only been seen as a supplementary income, and they keep trying to enhance their qualification, till they get into a better job. While there is immense shortage of primary and upper primary schools, there are some schools in many parts of the district where a single teacher is taking all classes from 1-5. As per RTE Act norms, the ratio of teacher and students should be 1:30 in primary schools and 1: 35 in upper primary schools. But, past 2 years since the enactment of the RTE act, there is a shortage of 1. 2 million teachers in India. This gap has led to lack of interest in the students too, which led to decline in the enrolment and also shift towards tuitions. Key national highlights by ASER report 2009 * The percentage of all rural children in Std 5 reading text at Std 2 level shows a decline from 56. 2 percent in 2008 to 52. 8 percent in 2009. This means around 40% of all rural children in Std 5 in India are at least three grade levels behind based on their level of learning * In math, for children in Std 5, the ability to do division problems has hardly increased. From 2007-09, for children in government schools the ability has actually declined from 41 percent to 36% * In Government Schools, 17. 1 percent students take private tuitions, and it rises to 30. 8 percent by the time they reach standard 8th * In private schools more than 25 percent students take private tuitions from standard 1 itself. Some of these challenges can be overcome by adopting Innovative teaching/ learning methods to achieve the desired quality: For high quality education throughout, India needs to focus on strengthening nation wide network, which would provide equal quality education to all students, including the students from the rural areas and villages, irrespective of the type of school. New methods of delivery would enable to augment access, quality and improve delivery at various levels of education and also to bridge the gap between the faculty requirements and their availability. Information, Communication and technology (ICT) tools such as videos, television and multimedia computer software that combine text, sound, and colourful, moving images can be used to provide challenging and authentic content that would engage the students in the learning process. ICTs can also be used to improve access to and the quality of teacher training. Some international examples in this regard are: * Cyber Teacher Training Center (CTTC) in South Korea is leveraging on Internet to provide better teacher professional development opportunities to in service teachers. The government-funded CTTC, offers self-directed, self-paced web-based courses for primary and secondary school teachers * In China, large-scale radio and television-based teacher education has for many years been conducted by the China Central Radio and TV, University, the Shanghai Radio and TV University (RTVU) and many other RTVUs in the country. Some progressive approaches the Indian education sector has adopted * Eight hundred and fifty schools in India use Tata Sky Active. Besides over a million Tata Sky homes spend more than INR 30 every month to buy services such as Active English, Active Learning and Active Wizkids. * Activity based learning – * Katha: A Initiative involving Amar Chitra Katha characters to impart education to school children * Hey Math: Content providers are selling different school fundamentals as a learning package to children. Initiatives are now in place to sell science packages * Campus-Connect Programs – Governments are having partnerships with training schools for vocational training, like Government of Delhi and IndiaCan have partnered to impart English education to bus drivers * Voucher Schools – * A school voucher or education voucher is a certificate issued by the government which parents can apply toward tuition at a school * The government of Rajasthan has announced two schemes that use school vouchers- Gyanodaya for classes 6-12 and Shikshak ka Apna Vidyalaya for classes 1-5. Trends in Education Sector in Pre-school: Trends| Examples:| Entry of Big Corporate| * Many corporate houses have / are planning to set up their own chain of pre-schools – Pre schools are viewed as attractive investment opportunities due to the growth potential. * For e.g. Alphakids set up by Camlin group and Globe Tot’ers by Yash Birla Group, P&G’s flagship Corporate Social Responsibility Program Shiksha. | Joint Ventures with Builders| * Increasingly preschools are forming joint ventures with builders. Partnering with builders helps in imparting flexibility in the business against high lease rentals * AEZ group and Mothers Pride entered into a JV for a Preschool| Upgrade to K 12| * Preschool chains are moving up the value chain by upgrading to K-12 schools to ensure scalability  for preschool firms * Kidzee, Euro Kids and Kangaroo Kids are upgrading to K-12 school and a large majority of their preschool population is expected to be the potential customers for K-12| Expansion to Tier I & Tier II Cities| * Demand and affordability is increasing in small towns with the growing awareness among people about the need to send children to preschools. * Euro kids plans to add 1000 pre schools in medium term with Tier II and Tier III cities as growth drivers| Leveraging Infrastructure foreconomic viability| * In order to maximize space utilization, preschools are leveraging the existing infrastructure to generate additional revenues * Additional programmes are being offered in the same premise in order to allow higher utilization of the infrastructure|.

Alcohol Abstinence. A persuasive essay about becoming abstinent from alcohol.

Alcohol Abstinence. A persuasive essay about becoming abstinent from alcohol. Ever known someone that was a victim of an alcohol related death or had their lives ruined because of it? Well I have. More than 100,000 US deaths are caused by excessive alcohol drinking each year. Alcohol is a huge fetter to people and I believe that everyone should be abstinent from it. Alcohol is harmful to the body, teens abuse it and drink underage, and it has harmful effects on children.Every year, more money is spent promoting alcohol than any other product. Perhaps through its elaborate and creative marketing, the most basic, yet important fact about alcohol is often overlooked: It is a drug. One concept that many people find difficult to accept is that alcoholism and alcohol problems are a disease. Research has shown that alcohol interacts with the bodys systems in predictable ways to lead to physiological addiction. Alcohol significantly impairs judgment and coordination, it can increase the chance of aggressive acts, it can do permanent damage to vital organs, and it can cause cancer, gastrointestinal irritations such as nausea, diarrhea, and ulcers, malnutrition and nutritional deficiencies, sexual dysfunctions, high blood pressure, lowered resistance to disease, and others.7338 - Moscow - Bolotnaya Proshad - Children are t...Alcohol is the most commonly used drug among young people today. Underage drinking costs the United States more than 58 billion dollars a year. Thats enough to buy every public school student a state of the art computer. Concerning the past 30 days, 50% of high school seniors reported drinking, with 32% report being drunk at least once. About 30% of failures in school are caused by alcohol and 2-3% of teens die from it. Despite the tireless efforts of thousands of advocates, impaired drivers continue to kill someone every 30 minutes, nearly 50 people a day, and almost 18,000 citizens a year.Lots of people think the...