The role of the Federal Government in Education Essay - 1

The role of the Federal Government in Education - Essay Example ESEA 1965 became part of a long history of over forty federal acts related to education through to the present (Kimmelman, 2006). While all of these acts were designed to improve the delivery of education, to ensure equitable educational opportunities and standardization, the more recent of them (No Child Left Behind) have aroused controversy. In essence, NCLB, among others, has been interpreted as federal intervention in state affairs. As this brief reflection will argue, however, the said intervention has the potential to be highly constructive insofar as it centralises the accountability factor. One of the fundamental roles of government is to provide for its citizenry, so that its citizens can provide for themselves and their families without being subsidized and risk becoming socially undesirable adults. In schools, principals and guidance counsellors tend to refer to this missive as preparing students, to become productive members of society. This focus continues to spawn various enactments of laws (Sunderman et al., 2005; Kimmelman, 2006). The Improving Americas Schools Act of 1994 (IASA) which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) had a renewed focus which was supposed to change the delivery of education, encourage comprehensive school reform, upgrade instructional and professional development and promote accountability and coordinate resources to improve education to all children was not successful. Eight years after its reauthorization, on January 8, 2002, President George W. Bush, signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). This new law effectuates the Reauthorization of ESEA 1965 with a lifespan of six years. The federal government has now given states another six years to fix the damaged public school education system (Sunderman et al., 2005). As evidenced from the preceding, the primary focus of the described Acts is testing results. As Hess (2007) explains, NCLB emphasises the

Discussion 2 Week 7 Chapter 13 Corporate Valuations Assignment

Discussion 2 Week 7 Chapter 13 Corporate Valuations - Assignment Example Also, a member of the cross-asset team at â€Å"Societe Generale Bank† strongly believes that cash does not give returns to shareholders. From these disputes, it was seen that many directors in the IT sector prefer to keep cash. This helps them take advantage of new opportunities instead of giving to shareholders. To avoid such disputes, companies should ensure that such decisions have the support of shareholders. To ensure that this is the case, companies need to make sure that rules on decision making are in the shareholders’ agreement or the company’s article of association. These rules will then a guide when making decisions (Laro, 2005). For instance, in case of piling cash, with the help of the rules, companies will ensure that the decision is within the rules. This will help avoid disputes and will also help the company in case there is a legal bid. It is also necessary to inform shareholders on decisions made by the company. For example, decisions to keep cash should have valid evidence of the gains that the company and its shareholders should expect from this move. This is because holding on shareholders’ income in the form of cash will make shareholders doubt the company’s commitment to them. For example, in the case of Apple, with proper disclosure, there will not be a dispute over retaining cash. The dispute arose as a result of doubt over the cash pile of $137 billion. Another important point for companies to note is that shareholders are most interested in the return on their investment. To them, the value of the company is crucial as this will reflect what they should expect from their investment in terms of dividend. Therefore, to avoid disputes, companies should ensure that they balance between the money that the company keeps for expansion and the money payable to shareholders in terms of dividend. Shareholders