Group items tagged

Though the economy may be on the road to recovery, public school funding is not. Across the nation, schools are being asked to make do with less money in an effort to control school district debt caused by funding cuts at both the state and national levels. School funding and its issues have been heard at the polls as voters must decide whether or not to approve tax increases or changes in distribution of tax revenues in order to help stem the tide of massive budget cuts. In Ohio this past spring nearly 44% of the tax issues on the ballots were for schools. School funding issues are a major concern for administrators and educators.

"TITLE II - PUTTING WORKERS BACK ON THE JOB WHILE REBUILDING AND MODERNIZING AMERICA Subtitle A - Veterans Hiring Preferences Sec. 201. Returning Heroes and Wounded Warriors Work Opportunity Tax Credits Subtitle B - Teacher Stabilization Sec. 202. Purpose Sec. 203. Grants for the Outlying Areas and the Secretary of the Interior; Availability of Funds. Sec. 204. State Allocation Sec. 205. State Application Sec. 206. State Reservation and Responsibilities Sec. 207. Local Educational Agencies Sec. 208. Early Learning Sec. 209. Maintenance of Effort Sec. 210. Reporting Sec. 211. Definitions Sec. 212. Authorization of Appropriations Subtitle C - First Responder Stabilization Sec. 213. Purpose Sec. 214. Grant Program Sec. 215. Appropriations Subtitle D - School Modernization Part I - Elementary and Secondary Schools Sec. 221. Purpose Sec. 222. Authorization of Appropriations Sec. 223. Allocation of Funds Sec. 224. State Use of Funds Sec. 225. State and Local Applications Sec. 226. Use of Funds Sec. 227. Private Schools Sec. 228. Additional Provisions Part II - Community College Modernization Sec. 229. Federal assistance for Community College Modernization"

Financial files hidden in jpeg files - great idea.

So, learn to hide your financial files backup after you did your taxes in that old picture of you and Grandma. OK, now this is very cool - you can hide files inside JPEG pictures. To me, it is not possible to have too many backups - of your tax records, your financial records, etc. Although this method isn't perfect, it would require maximum geekiness to sniff out and find.

account training becomes an added advantage if you do not wish to hire your personal accountant to manage your accounts. Accounting involves a lot of activities like book-keeping, preparing balance sheet, maintaining tax records and payroll and so on. There is no way you can avoid these tasks. Every functional organisation has to stick to these activities for the smooth functioning of the firm. Many organisations in the past have suffered from enormous losses only because their employees did not have the required accounting training and thus were unable to handle the accounting services and important financial documents and statements. For overall success, any firm should have a firm grip over the company's accounts and financial position. You can do a lot of things to ensure you are always informed about your company's financial position. First and foremost, you can ask experienced professionals from your company to undergo accounting training courses. By brushing up their knowledge through accounting training courses, these professionals will be in a better position to handle the accounting of the firm. Another option you have is to outsource the task to outside professionals who are competent enough to handle the accounting job. Apart from this, you can also hire accounting firms who can assure you transparency in all the dealings apart from impeccable services. By outsourcing your work to an outside firm, you can save a lot of time of your firm which can be utilised for other management tasks. However, you have to be ready to shell out a bomb to avail of these services and hence it is always a good thing to have your company's own professionals well versed in this task. Once your company professionals go through competent accounting training courses at a reputed accounting training centre, they can be ready to handle different tasks like preparing sales tax reports, creating monthly or mid-monthly reports, calculating reports with perfect sales figure,

Superintentendent of Quitman County Schools, Allen Fort, nails it with this article about being a superintendent of a rural school in Georgia. When budgets get cut by the state, rural schools hurt the most because their falling tax revenue means they get cut on both ends. Many rural schools are struggling and it is a shame what is happening in many of them. He talks about one of the biggest problems in rural schools which is a problem for all of us in an increasing way: "A rural school in way too many students' lives does play the role of in loco parentis. In these buildings, the teachers, janitors, secretaries, lunch room workers, paraprofessionals, and bus drivers help them gain knowledge and understanding of the value of an education, acquire social skills and aspire to succeed, and in many, many cases they do." You should take the time to read this past Sunday's AJC to get an understanding of the state of education in Georgia for indeed many other states have similar issues. I thought the whole piece done by the AJC had many different viewpoints - it was a great read.

The current plan from the White House on education. Read it and share your annotations.

Read the education plan from the new White House for the US. Some good things here and some things that may be hard to implement. What do you think? Join diigo and mark up the page - there are already quite a few annotations.

Obama's Education Plan annotated

New research published in the journal Science confirms what all of us teachers have known for a long time: girls are just as smart as boys. I hope none of our tax dollars went into that one. A quick quote from the article before I get into the more interesting findings from the researchers: Overall, the researchers found "no gender difference" in scores among children in grades two through 11. Among students with the highest test scores, the team did find that white boys outnumbered white girls by about two to one. Among Asians, however, that result was nearly reversed. Hyde says that suggests that cultural and social factors, not gender alone, influence how well students perform on tests.

a simple (and cheap) answer to your personal finance needs. For just $3 a month, it can track your monthly expenses and help you increase your savings.To get started the site takes you through a quick five-step planning process, beginning with an assessment of how and where you want to save.  Then it inquires about your expenses (both fixed monthly and irregular). Finally you fill in your income.  The site will then create a review of your spending habits, including a dynamic list of savings for future purchases. Each month you'll fill in the your expenses using the Receipts category (this comes in handy at tax time as well, since you don't need to store them in a shoe box anymore). There's even a tag feature that allows you to group expenses together. Unlike Mint, Pear Budget emphasizes speed and simplicity. If you decide to register, you can set up an account in less than five minutes (and you can sign up for a free 30-day trial).

See How!

Describes MI's problems w/ adding serious wind power to the existing electrical grid. Calls for an improvement of transmission lines to be able to handle new energy sources.