Come and explore the world under your feet with the Dirtmeister and friends! Part graphic novel, part fun guidebook, this very cool, rocky journey introduces both eager and reluctant readers to the basic geologic processes that shape our Earth. Clear and concise explanations of the various geologic processes reveal the comprehensive science behind each fascinating topic. Fun facts and simple DIY experiments reinforce the concepts while short biographies of important scientists inspire future geo-scientists.
As more families shift to both parents working outside the home, the demand for high-quality child care continues to rise, creating ample opportunity for entrepreneurs like you. Now that you've identified the market need, what's next? How do you set up something as complicated as a child-care center? The Basics of Starting a Child-Care Business, the first book in The Business of Child Care series, walks readers through each step of planning, developing, and launching their own child-care business. Regardless of the scale--joining an established franchise, creating an on-site center at your office, or hosting a program in your home--entrepreneurial expert Marnie Forestieri, CDA, will guide you from start to finish: Understand the economics of the child-care business Write a comprehensive business plan Prepare a thorough financial plan Develop efficient operations for smooth day-to-day functioning Master marketing to promote your business to potential customers Provide excellent quality control and customer service
Giving Kids the Business exposes the ways in which corporate America is turning schools into profit centers, the curriculum into an advertising vehicle, and children into a cash crop. Learn how market-oriented school reforms take money out of your pocket and lower the quality of public education. This book sounds the alarm over schools being used by marketers to pitch their products to our nations children. }The commercialization of public education is upon us. With much fanfare and plenty of controversy, plans to cash in on our public schools are popping up all over the country. Educator and social commentator Alex Molnar has written the first book to both document the commercial invasion of public education and explain its alarming consequences.Imagine that your son is given a Gushers fruit snack, told to burst it between his teeth, and asked by his teacher to compare the sensation to a geothermic eruption (compliments of General Mills). Imagine your daughter being taught a lesson about self-esteem by being asked to think about good hair days and bad hair days (compliments of Revlon.) Imagine that to cap off a day of world class learning, your childs teacher shows a videotape that explains that the Valdez oil spill wasnt so bad after all (compliments of Exxon). Giving Kids the Business explains why hot-button proposals like Channel One, an advertising-riddled television program for schools; for-profit public schools run by companies such as the Edison Project and Education Alternatives, Inc.; taxpayer-financed vouchers for private schools; and the relentless interference of corporations in the school curriculum spell trouble for Americas future. Anyone curious about how schools are being turned into marketing vehicles, how education is being recast as a commercial transaction, and how children are being cultivated as a cash crop will want to read Giving Kids the Business. } The commercialization of public education is upon us. With much fanfare and plenty of controversy, plans to cash in on our public schools are popping up all over the country. Educator and social commentator Alex Molnar has written the first book to both document the commercial invasion of public education and explain its alarming consequences.Imagine that your son is given a Gushers fruit snack, told to burst it between his teeth, and asked by his teacher to compare the sensation to a geothermic eruption (compliments of General Mills). Imagine your daughter being taught a lesson about self-esteem by being asked to think about good hair days and bad hair days (compliments of Revlon.) Imagine that to cap off a day of world class learning, your childs teacher shows a videotape that explains that the Valdez oil spill wasnt so bad after all (compliments of Exxon). Giving Kids the Business explains why hot-button proposals like Channel One, an advertising-riddled television program for schools; for-profit public schools run by companies such as the Edison Project and Education Alternatives, Inc. ; taxpayer-financed vouchers for private schools; and the relentless interference of corporations in the school curriculum spell trouble for Americas children.With political races, legislative issues, and judicial challenges regarding education reform from Massachusetts to California, this book will explain whats behind the headlines in every state.
Where exactly did high-stakes testing come from anyway? Neither parents, teachers, administrators, nor school boards demanded it, and now many communities feel powerless to reverse its appalling effect on our schools. Hot on the heels of the testing masterminds and peeling back layer upon layer of documentation, Kathy Emery and Susan Ohanian found a familiar scent at the end of the paper trail. Corporate money. CEOs and American big business have blanketed United States public education officials with their influence and, as Emery and Ohanian prove, their fifteen year drive to undemocratize public education has yielded a many-tentacled private-public monster. With stunning clarity and meticulous research, Emery and Ohanian take you on a tour of board rooms, rightist think tanks, nonprofit concerned citizens groups, and governmental agencies to expose the real story of how current education reform arose, how its deceptive rhetoric belies its goals, and the true nature of its polarizing and disenfranchising mission. Why is corporate America bashing our schools? Because it's in their interestsnot yours. What can you do to promote your best educational interests? Read this expose and get ready to dismantle the education-reform machine.
The past 45 years have seen the emergence of education for young children as a national issue, spurred by the initiation of the Head Start program in the 1960s, efforts to create a child care system in the 1970s, and the campaign to reform K-12 schooling in the 1980s. Today, the push to make preschool the beginning of public education for all children has gained support in many parts of the country and promises to put early education policy on the national agenda. Yet questions still remain about the best ways to shape policy that will fulfill the promise of preschool.In The Promise of Preschool, Elizabeth Rose traces the history of decisions on early education made by presidents from Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush, by other lawmakers, and by experts, advocates, activists, and others. Using this historical context as a lens, the book shows how the past shapes today's preschool debate and provides meaningful perspective on the policy questions that need to be addressed as we move forward: Should we provide preschool to all children, or just to the neediest? Should it be run by public schools, or incorporate private child care providers? How do we most effectively ensure educational quality and success?The Promise of Preschool is a balanced, in-depth investigation into these and other important questions and demonstrates how an understanding of the past can stimulate valuable debate about the care and education of young children today.
The best-selling book of easy-to-implement classroom lessons from the world’s premier educational system—now available in paperback. Finland shocked the world when its fifteen-year-olds scored highest on the first Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a set of tests evaluating critical-thinking skills in math, science, and reading. That was in 2001; even today, this tiny Nordic nation continues to amaze. How does Finnish education—with short school days, light homework loads, and little standardized testing—produce students who match the PISA scores of other nations with more traditional “work ethic” standards? When Timothy Walker started teaching fifth graders at a Helsinki public school, he began a search for the secrets behind the successes of Finland’s education system. Highlighting specific strategies that support joyful K–12 classrooms and can be integrated with U.S. educational standards, this book, available in paperback for the first time, gathers what he learned and shows how any teacher can implement many of Finland's best practices. A new foreword by the author addresses the urgent questions of teaching, and living, in these pandemic times.
Kindergarten Stepping Stones: A Journey to Excellence Through Discovery is an integrated kindergarten curriculum that utilizes literature-based themes with strong spiritual connections so children may get to know God better and love Him more. Kindergarten Stepping Stones is a complete curriculum for kindergarten that covers all subject areas.
The beginning of the twentieth century witnessed a remarkable growth of corporate welfare programs in American industry. By the mid-1920s, 80 percent of the nation's largest companies--firms including DuPont, International Harvester, and Metropolitan Life Insurance--engaged in some form of welfare work. Programs were implemented to achieve goals that ranged from improving basic workplace conditions, to providing educational, recreational, and social opportunities for workers and their families, to establishing savings and insurance plans. Employing the critical lens of gender analysis, Nikki Mandell offers an innovative perspective on the development of corporate welfare. She argues that its advocates sought to build a new relationship between labor and management by recasting the modern corporation as a Victorian family. Employers assumed the authoritative position of fathers, assigned their employees the subordinate role of children, and hired male and female welfare managers to act as "corporate mothers" charged with creating a harmonious household. But internal conflict and external pressures weakened the corporate welfare system, and it eventually gave way to a system of personnel management and employee representation. With the abandonment of the familial model, the form of corporate welfare changed; but, as Mandell demonstrates, its content left an enduring legacy for modern industrial relations.
The Debate Over Child Care: 1969-1990 offers a new perspective on the pervading problem of providing child care services in the United States. The author traces the contemporary debate over the sponsorship of child care services and compares this to the past debate over the sponsorship of kindergartens during the Progressive Era. Klein compares the function of child care across societal sectors, and points out that turf fighting and imbedded ideological differences have prohibited the development of a proactive social policy for providing needed child care services. She analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of five different sponsors: the public schools, the church, private enterprise, non-profit organizations, and corporations. Past and present federal legislation is discussed in relation to the divisive issue of sponsorship.
