Education Research

Lincoln, NEโ€" The Organic Crop Improvement Association (OCIA) International is restructuring its organization in order to provide expanded services to its membership and the global organic industry.



โ€œWith the organic industry growing at such a rapid pace, there is a decided need for not only quality certification services, but also education, research and promotional support,โ€ said Debbie Miller, OCIA International President. โ€œBy restructuring our organization, OCIA will have the flexibility it needs to meet the needs of this thriving industry.โ€



Adopted by the OCIA membership at the recent Annual General Membership Meeting, the restructuring decision creates three distinct OCIA bodies: OCIA International, Inc., OCIA International Custom Certification Services, Inc. and the OCIA Research & Education, Inc.



OCIA International, Inc. will remain the existing member-owned/controlled body. While this branch remains responsible for the implementation of the OCIA International certification program, it does not have direct oversight of the OCIA National Organic Program (NOP) certification program. Instead, OCIA International Custom Certification Services, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary, will oversee the NOP certification program. In compliance with the NOP's conflict of interest requirement, this body's board of directors will not be certified to OCIA's NOP program.



The third body, the OCIA Research and Education, Inc. will be a charitable organization whose activities will focus on crop improvement, public relations, education and research. This organization may also participate in lobbying and other activities not allowed under the other two OCIA bodies.



โ€œOCIA International began as a small grassroots organization dedicated to providing organic crop improvement information,โ€ said Miller. โ€œIn keeping with our original purpose, we are branching out to ensure that we can serve all segments of the organic industry, no matter of size or location.โ€



OCIA International, a nonprofit, member-owned organic certification agency, is an accredited world leader in the certified organic movement. Headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska, it is the largest organic certification agency in Canada and the United States. OCIA International currently certifies thousands of farmers, processors and manufacturers from 20 countries in North, Central and South America and Asia.



For more information on organic certification and the organic industry, please contact OCIA International at 402-477-2323 or info@ocia.org. Information is also available at www.ocia.org

So how is research knowledge really acquired in education? Research knowledge is disseminated through three kinds of sources: primary sources (those used by investigators when they share research knowledge with colleagues in their fields); secondary sources (which provide reports of research knowledge for potential users); and tertiary sources (which interpret research knowledge for the general public). Research reports in primary sources are written by investigators, are subject to peer review, provide details about methodology and findings, and are often rife with jargon.

Those in secondary sources may be written by content specialists, feature clearer writing, and typically provide only a few details about study methods. Those in tertiary sources are often prepared by advocates, propagandists, columnists, or journalists. Writing in tertiary sources usually provides few or no details about studies and may project a distorted view of research knowledge tailored to make headlines or to support the authors' ideological viewpoints. In the United States, the most widely read journals were Educational Leadership, Phi Delta Kappan, Education Week, Education Digest, Catholic School Teacher, and Momentum. All six of these journals were secondary sources.

In addition, many of the professional books were works that packaged research knowledge for users. Such packaging was also common in the university courses the principals had taken and in the bulk of professional meetings and workshops they had attended.

Because the typical principal is exposed to many sources of research knowledge and because most of those sources provide only secondary accounts of knowledge, we might expect him or her to be a generalist when it comes to research knowledge which is to know about many examples of research knowledge but have only superficial understanding of most of these examples.

Prominent political leaders, civil servants, commentators hostile to public schools, journalists, scholars from within education, and even some researchers have lent their voices to a swelling chorus of complaints. These criticisms have appeared not only in the United States but also in the United Kingdom, Australia, and other English-speaking countries.

Such claims certainly make headlines, but are they valid? Surprisingly, this question has attracted little if any investigation. Almost no evidence has yet appeared concerning the actual impact of research on potential users in the education community. Without such evidence, we cannot know whether the complaining choristers have identified a real issue or are merely giving voice to mythic refrains they have heard from others. A solid body of scholarly research has established that principals play vital leadership roles in shaping school culture and practice. Principals' views about research are therefore important in determining whether schools actually use research knowledge.

Most principals hold positive opinions about education research. Roughly 90 percent of respondents in both Australia and the United States rated knowledge from education research positively and described themselves as users of that knowledge. Most principals are actively interested in education research that is relevant to their professional needs. The principals had no difficulty volunteering examples of research knowledge they considered useful. Most principals are at least minimally familiar a wide range of education research topics. Of all the topics, teacher expectations and student achievement received high recognition among principals in both countries. In addition, U.S. principals were highly familiar with time-on-task and achievement and at-risk students. Australian principals were highly familiar with self-regulated learning.

It is also important to find out whether this research knowledge has impact on education process and, if yes, how this impact is demonstrated. Viewed within the context of the last 30 years of criticism of education research, the results of our study raise serious questions about claims that research knowledge has minimal effects on policies and practices in schools. Most school leaders view research knowledge positively, are regularly exposed to information about research, retain a good deal of that information, and actively help their schools use that knowledge.

Even as educators work to dispel the myth that education research is of little worth, we must acknowledge that there is room for improvement. Principals vary in the way they evaluate and use research knowledge. In both the United States and Australia, principals who had completed higher levels of professional education, who said they would like to obtain a university position someday, and who reported reading more professional books had more positive attitudes about research knowledge, knew more about it, and were more likely to serve in schools that used it. On average, principals in the United States knew more about the details of research knowledge; principals in Australia, however, were more thoughtful about applying that knowledge in their schools. This is perhaps because their average work week was 10 hours shorter than that of U.S. principals, giving them more time for such reflection.

Because principals with more professional education (and the habit of reading professional books) were more likely to respect, know about, and use research knowledge, it follows that we should encourage principals to seek out more professional training and to spend more time reading and thinking seriously about the challenges they face in their complex jobs.

And the fact that principals with less demanding work weeks were more thoughtful about applying research knowledge argues for simplifying and reducing the professional demands that U.S. school principals typically face.

July 23, 2004 -- An original educational and motivationally enhanced Audiobook incorporating 15 โ€œKeynoteโ€ Professional Selling Techniques with original complementary musical interludes is creating excitement in the corporate and business sales world. Collins Educational, LLC of Hooksett, New Hampshire has introduced the โ€œSound Selling Audiobookโ„ขโ€, a first of its kind Audiobook that draws upon proven cognitive learning techniques.



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About Collins Educational, LLC - founded in May, 2002 and incorporated in June, 2003, Collins Educational is focused on serving the growth-oriented โ€œsales-drivenโ€ market place. Our purpose is to inspire driven people to learn in a comfortable, yet motivational environment. Learning is accomplished by positive affirmations, unique meditative musical interludes and a thought process that parallels the idea of constant mind calisthenics. And it works without all the over-sensationalized effort and stress that is commonly associated with other sales training. The company produces and sells the groundbreaking enhanced, โ€œSound Selling Audiobookโ„ขโ€. Dan Collins, founding member of the company and as regional account sales executive for Discover Financial Services has earned numerous sales awards, including the Sales Excellence Award, President Plate and the company's highest award, the Raymond A. Kennedy Award. Mr. Collins is currently working towards an M.B.A. in Marketing at Southern New Hampshire University. Pamela Collins is involved with educational research and the production of the programs. Ms. Collins has earned a Masters of Technology in Education and has been an educator for over twenty years. For more information call (603) 479-6060 or visit www.CollinsEducational.com.



Reviewer/Editor note: For a free (full version) โ€œSound Selling Audiobookโ„ขโ€, email News@CollinsEducational.com and include your complete contact information. Dan Collins, โ€œSound Selling Audiobookโ„ขโ€, author/publisher, is available for interviews by appointment. Please email or call.Contacts:



Collins Educational, LLC, Pam or Dan Collins



Email: News@CollinsEducational.com Phone: (603) 479-6060 Web site: www.CollinsEducational.com

According to a recent survey, many sixth-formers could experience money trouble by underestimating the cost of life at university. The survey which interviewed over 500 sixth-formers and 1700 university undergraduates was conducted by Nat West Bank. It found that sixth-formers had no idea about the real costs of college life. The question of whether we should subsidize postgraduate education is a matter of weighing up the costs and benefits. There would be many benefits, but do they outweigh the costs?
One of the first points to make is that this subsidy would lead to a general increase in income larger than the size of the subsidy. This rise would of course mean a rise in income tax revenues. During a recession, the subsidy would help to induce growth by automatically increasing government expenditure. Scotland's economy is blighted by high unemployment and low productivity and many of the policies set up to change this have not worked. An increase in postgraduate educated individuals could reverse this trend through creating new jobs, raising levels of skills and attracting companies from abroad to set-up here.
By increasing investment in Scotland's universities their quality can be raised so that the research that they do is up to world standard. Such a result could have knock on effects to other areas of the country as well as to those receiving the improved education. Those achieving the qualifications would see their potential income increase a lot. Currently, postgraduates can expect around 20% more than simple graduates.
An increase in Scottish postgraduate research should create and attract new cutting edge companies who will employ a higher skilled, better-educated workforce. Scotland has started losing out to less developed countries in terms of low skilled jobs so to reverse this it needs investment that will regenerate its workforce.
The question of how to fund this is clearly a tricky one as there are many other deserving places for government spending like health and primary/secondary education. Making the decision to use government spending would then involve looking at tax rates, which again would not be popular with the general public. Achieving this funding may be better attained from the private sector through incentives such as tax breaks subsidies to the firms themselves. This would ensure that only the most productive courses were invested in. However, the incentives may not be enough to vastly increase postgraduate participation, and employers may continue to simply hire individuals who have paid for their own education. However, the government does not want everyone to be a postgraduate, as the value of each extra postgraduate decreases as participation increases.
One of the main aims of the Scottish parliament is to attract investment from abroad. A well-educated workforce attracts multinational companies, and multinational companies help prevent students educated here from moving abroad.
An increase in home grown hi-tech companies is always an objective. With increased research and better universities this is possible. In fact our universities may lead the way taking advantage of intellectual property rights over more extensive research. The Scottish parliament can promote enterprise in other ways, for example by increasing funds available to start-up companies. However, it is doubtful that this would have the same impact.
Although there are many advantages of the proposed subsidy, with each benefit that a postgraduate education brings there seems to be other ways to achieve the same result. The task for policy makers is to decide the right path to choose. An initiative to subsidize postgraduate education in Scottish universities would involve quite substantial expenditure by the Scottish parliament. However, improving comparative advantage is an important goal. In this essay we present a cost benefit analysis of subsidizing postgraduate education, and look at the long-term implications for Scotland.
One of the initial considerations is that of fiscal stimuli. As with any increase in government spending, there would be a corresponding increase in output. The increase in output would be larger than the initial investment due to the multiplier effect. Output equals income, and thus there would be a general rise in the level of income. This idea is explained in more detail later on. Higher education research also indicates that postgraduates are more socially cohesive and integrate better into society.
A subsidy on postgraduate education would also act as an automatic stabilizer. The reason for this is that when graduates enter the workplace, say during a recession, and find that they can't get a job, they are more likely to consider a postgraduate degree. Firstly to improve their attractiveness to employers, and secondly to use their time more productively than claiming benefit. Furthermore, if postgraduate education were subsidized by the government, workers who were made redundant would use the opportunity for self-improvement.
Subsidizing postgraduate education may also improve the quality of universities in Scotland. Many universities in the U.S.A. use their postgraduates and researchers to innovate, and as a result benefit from the intellectual property rights on these products. High profile universities would attract foreign students who would bring diversity and money. In addition, students often benefit from having studied a variety of subjects at university.
"Senior executives and policy makers themselves often refer to non-technical aspects of their university education as seminal to their own success in the labor market and beyond"
Higher education does not necessarily increase the productivity of graduates, but rather serves as a screening mechanism for private enterprises. The higher productivity of graduates is really attributable to their greater ability. Therefore many argue that the private sector should share the burden in developing postgraduates. Students would get to study for a qualification that will improve their ability to do their job and advance their career prospects and their employer benefits from a better-qualified, more productive and better-motivated employee.
Employers could be encouraged to do this through tax or cash incentives. By producing tax incentives to firms to fund employees on post grad courses, we let the market decide what it finds most important, and at the same time help fund the students that it benefits from. Otherwise the government would be paying to train students that the private sector most gains from. However, there is the free rider problem. Why should a firm pay to educate an employee when they can hire one already educated by the government?
These figures imply that the subsidy would decrease unemployment. Furthermore, if students further themselves and get better jobs this leaves jobs open further down the income scale for those that don't continue their studies. This would have a knock on effect down the job ladder and reduce unemployment nationwide, further increasing income tax revenues.
What about Scotland specifically? Scotland's economic growth is consistently below that of the UK. In order to make Scotland more competitive we must focus on technology, innovation and productivity improvements and the need to transfer knowledge from the science and engineering base into the market place. This subsidy might shift the bias of postgraduates from foreigners to Scottish people. By creating a large and more productive labor force, Scotland can make it very attractive for technology and science based firms to locate here. Also if postgraduate students are attracted from abroad, and decide to stay, then this could help with our aging population problem.
But what are the costs, and would this initiative be worthwhile? First we must consider the number of different ways in which we could subsidize postgraduate education. The most obvious is for parliament to pay the fees for any one who wishes to study a postgraduate degree. Alternatively, the government can offer the private sector tax or cash incentives to fund postgraduate courses for employees. Either way, the parliament would have to find the money by either redistributing from other areas, or borrowing more, or an increase in taxes. It is important to note here that the Scottish executive does not have the power to borrow privately and so would have to either lobby Westminster for more funding or redistribute its budget. It can only raise income tax by 3 pence.
However, what if the supply of postgraduate places is inelastic. For example, it may take large increases in wages to entice more professors into the industry. Then the price of each place could soar and the Government would find it hard to meet its commitments.
Many economists see human and physical capital accumulation along with technological progress as the key to economic growth. However, if the subsidy were effective in attracting more postgraduates, Scotland would experience diminishing marginal productivity of the investment. In other words, for each additional postgraduate the marginal returns decrease. This is represented in the graph below. In terms of the individual the comparative advantage of an individual postgraduate over the rest of the workforce will not be as much as before. Postgraduates would not be as exclusive anymore. In the long run, a post grad could become as necessary as a degree is today.
The impact of educating the population has been studied by Barro and Lee. They found a positive relationship between education and per capita GDP and confirmed that there is diminishing marginal productivity throughout the education system.
One reason is that postgraduate education is more expensive per capita than secondary education. This is backed up by Psacharopoulos. Primary education results in the biggest returns with a world average of 18.4%, whereas secondary education give 13.1% and higher education only returns 10.9%. We therefore assume that postgraduate education is likely to give even smaller returns on investment, especially in Britain, where there is such a large difference between the cost of a degree and a post grad.
The production function explains that output is a function of capital and labor. We can apply this idea to this Scottish economy. By increasing the amount of educated labor (postgraduate subsidy) we can increase output, but only to a certain point. There is diminishing marginal productivity, unless, we increase the amount of capital as well. The way to do that is attract FDI and encourage enterprise in the domestic economy. By doing this we can maximize the gains from the subsidy in postgraduates.
Diminishing marginal productivity might affect whether the government goes ahead with this investment because it might not have the desired results for Scottish productivity. Of course the government will also have to take into account the social and private gains from the research that is done by postgraduates, such as intellectual property rights as we mentioned earlier. This is a key aspect of the cost benefit analysis because not only do postgraduate courses improve the labor force, but also their work is often directly related to improvements in the industry.
Thirlwall (add date) states "Education is one of the most important inputs into R&D and for attracting FDI". There are a lot of other factors that will influence whether subsidizing postgraduate education has the effect of increasing FDI. Scotland currently enjoys favorable conditions for FDI such as low corporate taxes and English as a first language.
Scotland's brain drain problem is not a new one. Educated Scots are lured south and abroad by higher wages and more opportunities. So subsidizing postgraduate education may not produce the desired increase in educated labor. A policy of tax incentives or subsidies to attract FDI in conjunction with the postgraduate scheme would help keep Scottish students home and attract others from abroad. However, the two at the same time may be a little too much for the Scottish parliament to fund long term.
If the price of postgraduate courses goes down then there will be an increase in demand. In the long run this should result in an increase in capacity, as long as the government maintains its level of per student funding. An equal increase in supply and demand would mean the costs of postgraduate education would remain relatively stable. However, an inelastic supply of professors or even facilities would see costs rise.
In the short-run the potential 20% increase in earnings for men and 34% increase in earnings for women should increase demand for post grad courses. In the long run, however, it is unclear whether this will benefit Scotland's productivity or not. A general rise in income could mean the loss of a comparative advantage in the price of labor. However it is likely that Scotland would find itself with a better-educated population and comparative advantages in new areas.
There may be better ways to improve education like spending more on schools, increasing the quality of secondary education so that when people reach university level they have covered more material. Following that, the degree programmes could be improved. This would also have a positive impact on productivity without forcing more students into costly postgraduate degrees. Perhaps the money would be better spent on improving vocational training in colleges.
In conclusion, the subsidy would induce a general rise in income. Extra funding for universities would improve Scotland's most valuable asset, and help them create a world class labor force. Unemployment has been the bain of Scottish society for 30 years and this policy would go a long way to addressing that problem.
However, there are some practical issues of funding. Without other departments suffering it could prove difficult to give the policy the full backing that it deserves. In addition, we can find more value for money in improving primary or secondary education. So while the idea of improving productivity makes sense, we conclude that this may be better achieved either through partnership with the private sector or improving other areas of the education system. It is for policy makers to decide which one to choose.
Mary Anne Winslow is a member of Essay Writing Servicecounselling department team and a dissertation writing consultant. Contact her to get free counselling on custom essay writing.

Real estate has always been one of the vibrant industries in the world. Real estate investing has helped many of the wealthiest people in the world to gain their wealth. Despite the news heard, it is still a good time at real estate to get involved with. The old adage of "it's the only thing that they're not making any more of" is still true. Part of the industry's process is to go through cycles and a down cycle. After that, the industry will definitely rebound. If you have any intention of becoming the part of the industry, it is not yet too late. The most important part of the process is getting a good real estate education. Once you've done that, you can work in whatever capacity you choose. There are seven important tips about learning the most from your real estate education. * Put time and money into real estate education. Put the time in to find out the necessary information for your education. Read through the top blogs in this area and then post your own responses. You should attend real estate forums and talk with some experienced real estate investors to obtain valuable information. • Specialize in an area. Knowing an overview of the real estate market is not nearly as marketable as knowing tons of information about a certain division of real estate. If you're going to get hired by a big company, they usually like specialists. Have a membership in real estate club. A real estate club can provide you the added knowhow that you need and also some excellent contacts within the industry. There are times when you do not have anytime to go to a physical real estate club. Hence, the best way is to join a virtual real estate club online. • Go the extra mile. To improve your real estate education research some good books on Amazon. Many excellent resources can enhance your education. Get out there and look for the best information. Accept a position as an intern. Being an intern at a well-respected company can have a significant positive impact on the opinions of potential future employers. The experience that you get can not be taught in a classroom, only through getting into the field. It's also a great way to gain more contacts in the real estate industry. A huge quantity of work can be anticipated. Getting a good real estate education will involve learning a lot of different things. You'll learn finance, business, management, contract law, and negotiation skills along the way. * The experience will be fun. Out of the most entertaining experiences of your life, acquiring the real estate education can be one of them Learning something that you love to do is one of the best things you'll ever do. For the remaining of your life, you would love your work if you are good at real estate.

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