7 Reasons the U.S. Education System Is Failing!Recently, today actually, I saw a post of a video on Facebook that detailed simple questions posed to university students regarding BASIC social and historic facts, events and the people who govern our country. The results were astounding to say the least! Abject failure and an inability to name or identify ANY of the people, places and events. Let me repeat… NONE.The formal education system in the U.S. was designed to meet the demands of the industrial revolution by providing basic education to the masses. Pretty simple right? So why is it that we fail to recognize or refuse to acknowledge that the demands are different today? There has not been a calculable redefinition or evolution of the educational system since. This is scary as it will define the failure of our country step-by-step and bit-by-bit until we are reduced to a social collection of ignorance.Let’s examine the cause and solutions.1. Closed for Business!Schools find their existence tied to community standards and financial restraints based on the community support… or lack of. The result is that schools are closing at an alarming rate across the country. The decision to close a school rarely reflects the needs of a community or, more importantly, the needs of the students!There seems to be less concern for the needs of the communities children’s education than the economic demands of the location of the school or the resources available. Where is the federal government when this happens? Well, they are partially to blame. The government rhetoric details the need for affordable, quality education while they demand that school systems adhere to specific federal mandates that tie the school administration’s hands to comply with political wants. So much for federal support.2. Two-Gallons of milk in a one-gallon jug!So, how many kids can you cram into a classroom and still teach effectively? That depends on whether you are looking to teach the children or be a daycare service. I know, pretty harsh but look at the function of schools today. They take your children and house them and feed them for about 6-7 hours a day. Mostly providing them with basic discipline and food that they rarely get a t home! Oh yes, admin it. Teachers are required to discipline your children in a crowded atmosphere where safety is no longer guaranteed and education takes a back seat to providing basic needs that parents are unwilling to, uneducated to or unable to provide. Wait, what about education? Well, there is so little time for that that caring for them takes priority over teaching them.Secondarily, because of the constraints of federally-mandated guidelines, the children are taught in a cookie-cutter style standard of personality-limiting, creative-minimizing and individually-restrictive processes to get them to their adulthood. Basic education with basic performance that aligns children to basic standards that align with everyone else’s basic needs. Sad because it is done in crowded classrooms where teachers are forced to “teach” more children than one person could attend to. How effective is that?3. If You Do What You’ve Always Done… You’ll Get What You’ve Always Gotten!How can we expect our children to excel when their parents are minimally educated. One must understand that this cycle of poor education will produce more poorly educated children who will produce more poorly-educated children and so on and so on. Parents are so busy struggling to make a living today because of a poor economy or a lack of opportunity that there is little time to attend to their children’s education at home let alone at school. Involvement is also critical especially when the parents are minimally educated because they lack the foresight and experience to guide a young person to the right path. The result is a continually-repeated system that fails students and undermines this country’s future. It matters not whether you are poor and struggling to make a living that doesn’t allow for time to teach your kids at home OR whether your well off and struggle to maintain a career that doesn’t allow for time to attend to your kids at home. Either way, the education suffers.4. Once Stated Always Abated!I was once told that I was stupid. I was told that I could never learn because I lacked the basic ability to understand or comprehend anything that a normal person was expected to know. Can you imagine? Well, today I am in pursuit of a doctorate in education. Highly educated holding several degrees and formally recognized for my teaching abilities and performance as an educator. So there, take that!If a child is to be challenged then the child has to recognize their worth and value as an individual. EVERY child is talented and gifted in something and should be recognized for it immediately and consistently. Oh yes, failure happens but that is part of the lesson as well. Individualized learning platforms and initiatives are crucial to the support and future of educational success. The talented and gifted programs require that a child be recognized and advanced because of their special gift instead of the initiative being available to ALL students. I believe that EVERY child has the opportunity to reveal their gift if given the opportunity to allow it to reveal itself. Why limit other children’s opportunity to excel because someone didn’t recognize their talents? Beyond me.This lack of diversity in basic education is driven by personal prejudices and the nuances of social conformity and economic availability in a school district. Shameful that every student doesn’t have the same opportunity to be recognized for their inevitable contribution to society.5. There’s a Step to the Prep!According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Education Department, 80% of all high school students graduate and student graduation rates are at an all-time high. This sounds great doesn’t it? Well, no it doesn’t because about 80% of high school seniors cannot pass basic proficiency exams or read at a basic level. The fundamental and core foundation for a successful future lies in their ability to read and comprehend and it is failing miserably. Because of a politically-correct mindset and an unwillingness to admit that we are failing we are passing kids without prejudice. What is the dynamic here? Money, acknowledgment, standards, social constraint?With fewer than 40% of graduating students able to perform basic reading and math skills, what will their future look like? Poor at best because they are set up for failure and aren’t educated enough to know it. They are not prepared for any part of life let alone future education without the basic skills to learn. It seems a path to socialism.6. Teacher to Preacher!With the lack of people who are willing to sacrifice their future for low-paying academic careers there is little to choose from in the way of well-educated teachers. Enter teachers. As student education becomes more technology-supported so must teacher innovation education. A once-proud career, teachers are opting for more industrial careers using their basic educational achievements because it pays more and is less restricting. A lack of qualified teachers translates to a lack of quality education from under qualified teachers. The cultural shift in classrooms demands an academic shift in recognizing and utilizing qualified teachers who must meet higher-level standards before being allowed to teach.Alas, distance learning take the personalization from the process, individualism from the practice and allows for lesser-educated teachers to perform office-like academics instead of teaching-like practices. Poorly educated teachers who are not held to the highest standards will produce poorly-educated students who will perpetuate the same. Pay teachers better and demand more from them and we will produce quality educated people. There is something askew when ball players make millions and teachers make nothing! Time to rethink this one.7. Girls Will Be Girls and Boys Will Be Boys!Or will they? There is a huge nationwide divide in the gender makeup of the student population today in schools. The STEM program is experiencing a narrowing range of student diversity as of recent examinations of student diversity in education. Formerly male student dominated academics and careers are changing to a more female dominated academic showing. Women are now able to perform as well or better than their male counterparts in science, technology engineering and math… previously neglected and they have always had the ability but unrecognized or acknowledged.A globally competitive market demands equal and qualified individuals to perform and defend the right of opportunity regardless of gender, race, creed or social standing. As we develop our more-diverse communities, so should we develop our academically-driven future with better-educated people… no matter what!By Dr. Mark Zupo

March Health Awareness Campaigns

National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month

Brain Injury Awareness Month

National Kidney Cancer Awareness Month

Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month

National Myeloma Awareness Month

National Nutrition Month

National Endometriosis Month

Workplace Eye Wellness Month

National Save Your Vision Month

Hemophilia Month

National Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Month

American Red Cross Month

Learning Disabilities Awareness Month

National Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month

National Eye Donor Month

National Poison Prevention Month

National Professional Social Work Month

Save Your Vision Month

For those in community or public health, the topics in this article will be nothing new-but as busy professionals ourselves, we often find it helpful to be reminded of the basic premises of our chosen fields. It’s so easy in our hectic-and very important-drive to complete work tasks that we lose sight of those core values for which we strive.There are a growing number of evidence-based interventions for use by community and public health professionals to promote health and prevent disease. [Leeman, Calancie, et al: 2015] These practices have the potential to improve environments, behaviors, and health outcomes in our communities. In order to adopt these practices, however, public health agencies and community partners often need additional tools, strategies, and training to enhance their capacity to improve health outcomes.The most effective prevention strategies actively engage the communities they are intended to serve. Effective health promotion and health-enhancing social change require communities to identify, plan, channel resources, and take action. The concept that a community is the solution to its own problems is not new. There is considerable support for designing community-based interventions to improve the health behaviors and overall health status of community members. According to Sotomayor, Pawlik, and Dominguez in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease, “These community-based interventions are important because health disparities and the high rate of chronic diseases in minority populations, particularly among those who are poor and lack access to community resources, are not likely to be prevented without them.” [Sotomayor, Pawlik, and Dominguez: 2007]The U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion’s Healthy People 2020 strives to

Identify nationwide health improvement priorities.

Increase public awareness and understanding of the determinants of health, disease, and disability and the opportunities for progress.

Provide measurable objectives and goals that are applicable at the national, State, and local levels.

Engage multiple sectors to take actions to strengthen policies and improve practices that are driven by the best available evidence and knowledge.

Identify critical research, evaluation, and data collection needs.

Many health prevention and promotion consultants stress the importance that local leaders play in building community health. The Healthy People 2020 toolkit Identifying & Engaging Community Partners, answers the question “How Do You Define Meaningful Citizen Participation?” in this way:

Power to make decisions and affect outcomes

Citizen driven; from the community up, not top down

Proactive, not reactive

Encourages and facilitates broad community involvement

Inclusive, not exclusive; accessible to all

Balanced representation in the participation process; not just major “partners”

Consensus-oriented decision making Compromise; give and take

Opportunities for involvement in all levels of activity, which include creating a vision, planning, prioritizing, deciding, evaluating [ODPHP: 2010]

Building strong relationships with necessary community partners can be time consuming. Facilitating meetings to allow the meaningful participation outlined above requires a particular, practiced set of skills. Here’s where a community health consultant could be extremely valuable. Each community health consultant is different, of course, but in general he or she will have significant experience with the following tasks:

Developing health education and promotion programs, such as school or community presentations, workshops, trainings, etc.

Writing and formatting health education materials, such as reports, bulletins, and visual aids, to address public health concerns.

Developing working relationships with agencies and organizations interested in public health.

Designing and conducting evaluations to assess the quality and performance of health communication and education programs.

Collaborating with community groups and public health officials to identify community health needs and the availability of services needed.

Writing press releases and public service announcements, conducting media campaigns, or maintaining program-related Web sites.

Developing grant proposals to obtain funding for health education programs and related work.

In this accounting lecture, we will talk about T-accounts, accounting debits and credits, accounting balances and double entry accounting system.All accountants know several terms that create basis for any accounting system. Such terms are T-account, debit and credit, and double entry accounting system. Of course, these terms are studied by accounting students all over the world. However, any business person, whether an investment banker or a small business owner, will benefit from knowing them as well. They are easy to grasp and will be helpful in most business situations. Let us take a closer look at these accounting terms.T-AccountAccounting records about events and transactions are recorded in accounts. An account is an individual record of increases and decreases in a specific asset, liability, or owner’s equity item. Look at accounts as a place for recording numbers related to a certain item or class of transactions. Examples of accounts may be Cash, Accounts Receivable, Fixed Assets, Accounts Payable, Accrued Payroll, Sales, Rent Expenses and so on.An account consists of three parts:- title of the account- left side (known as debit)- right side (known as credit)Because the alignment of these parts of an account resembles the letter T, it is referred to as a T account. You could draw T accounts on a piece of paper and use it to maintain your accounting records. However, nowadays, instead of having to draw T accounts, accountants use accounting software (i.e., QuickBooks, Microsoft Accounting, Peachtree, JD Edwards, Oracle, and SAP, among others).Debit, Credit and Account BalanceIn account, the term debit means left side, and credit means right side. These are abbreviated as Dr for debit and Cr for credit. Debit and credit indicate on which side of a T account numbers will be recorded.An account balance is the difference between the debit and credit amounts. For some types of accounts debit means an increase in the account balance, while for others debit means a decrease in the account balance. See below for a list of accounts and what a debit to such account means:Asset – Increase
Contra Assets – Decrease
Liability – Decrease
Equity – Decrease
Contribution Capital – Decrease
Revenue – Decrease
Expenses – Increase
Distributions – IncreaseCredits to the above account types will mean an opposite result.Double Entry Accounting SystemA double entry accounting system requires that any amount entered into the accounting records is shown at least on two different accounts. For example, when a customer pays cash for your product, an account would show the cash received in the Cash account (as a debit) and in the Sales account (as a credit). All debit amounts equal all credit amounts provided the double-entry accounting was properly followed.Having a double entry accounting system has benefits over regular, one-sided systems. One of such benefits is that the double-entry system helps identify recording errors. As I mentioned, if one amount is entered only once in error, then debits and credits won’t balance and the accountant will know that one or more entries were not posted fully. Note, however, that this check will help spot errors, but will not identify all cases of errors. For example, equal debits and credits will not identify an error when an amount was posted twice, but was posted to wrong accounts. Keep this in mind when analyzing causes of errors in accounting records.