Building An Educational Saving Account

When it comes to getting a college education, financing is one of the most important considerations that you will need to make. Unfortunately for far too many it is one the last considerations that is made when it comes to the educations of our children. If you are a parent you owe it your child and yourself to plan ahead and plan carefully in order to cover the cost of your child's education. There are fortunately, a few great ways in which you can do this.

The most common is to begin by opening up an educational savings account for your child (under the age of 18). When you open up an educational savings account for your child, you can contribute up to $2,000 per year per child. This is a combined total contribution however and includes the contributions of grandparents, friends, and family in addition to your own personal contributions. The money from these funds can be withdrawn tax-free as long as they are used for educational purposes.

Educational expenses in this case include books, tuition, fees, supplies, and college room and board provided that your child is at least a part-time student. If you do not use all the funds for your child there are options as far as what to do with the remaining funds in the account. The first option would be to leave the funds in the account and allow the account beneficiary to withdraw them up until the age of 30. There is a penalty involved and the beneficiary will be required to pay income tax on those funds. You could also elect to roll those funds over to the next child under the age of 18 who will have educational expenses in the future.

The money you set aside in these accounts to cover the cost of the education of your child or children is not tax-deductible however, it is a great way to begin saving money and investing in the future of your child. If you begin investing the maximum amount $2,000 per year upon birth your child should have a nice nest egg to help cover educational expenses. If your child is fortunate enough to qualify for scholarships and other sources of financial aid you can turn the funds over as a graduation gift or save it for the next college student in your family that comes along. Either way you've saved yourself a good part of the worry that goes along with providing for your family by having this fund set up for your children.

You can sign up for programs like Upromise in order to subsidize your contributions with donations from corporate sponsors as their way of thanking you for buying their products or using their services on any credit cards that you, your friends, and your family members have registered to go into your child's account. Every edge you give yourself when it comes to investing in the education of your children is an edge worth having. College tuition rates are rising at an alarming rate while corporate expectations of college degrees are rising at the same near lightening speed. This means that a college degree is more critical for our children than in any past generations.

Take the time now to check into securing the future of your children by establishing an educational savings account. Let friends and family know that any gifts they are planning to give your children that involve money would be appreciated if they instead invested in the future of your children rather than the now. You can also ask your friends and family to sign up their credit cards with Upromise in order to provide a little bump in donations to your child's college savings account. These little steps add up to significant savings over the course of 18 years. You just might find that the investment you are making is adequate to cover the costs of your child's tuition in full.

The Climate Registry, The EPA, and Your Carbon Emission Reporting Requirements

Because different U.S. states, countries, and Canadian provinces have their own mandatory regulations for reducing greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions, The Climate Registry provides a standard measure for how carbon emissions are calculated and a streamlined approach for those who are required to report their carbon emissions output.

The Climate Registry was published in draft form as early as May, 2007. It documents and outlines the requirements for carbon (CO2) emissions reporting. Businesses of all sizes, across the entire economy are pondering and trying to understand the carbon emissions requirements. Many still wonder why CO2 reporting is so important. Its impact to your organization is the question continuing to be asked even today. It is an important part of carbon emission protocols established in the United States and internationally to combat air pollution and Global Warming.

The Climate Registry is an agreement regarding emissions reporting protocols or a collaboration between 39 U.S. states (and growing), all Canadian provinces and territories, 6 states in Mexico and three native sovereign nations aimed at recording and tracking greenhouse gas emissions from businesses, municipalities, organizations, and other facilities.

There are key components to The Climate Registry that all companies need to be aware of or they could face substantial disadvantages as it relates to the future carbon credit and trading schemes.

What are objectives The Climate Registry wished to fulfill? Because different U.S. some regulatory bodies across North America are documenting their own carbon emissions reporting protocols and goals to eliminate greenhouse gases. The Climate Registry documents a common framework and set of reporting requirements to help organizations manage, calculate, and report carbon emissions. This makes the approach common for all who must document their CO2 output.

The C02 data submitted by businesses, municipalities, and other organizations can be added to web-based, carbon management information system to support various initiatives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions across an organization's single facility or down to an individual asset level. As the World continues to collect more and more accurate carbon data, organizations will start to take part (either by choice or by regulations) in cap and trade programs that target the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHGs).

What are the registry's goals?
The Climate Registry is using the single reporting protocol to streamline efforts to reduce emissions that harm the environment and ensure consistent reporting of emissions across different organizations and industries. Through the registry's requirements protocol, the risks of greenhouse gases can be easily identified and opportunities for programs and initiatives to address greenhouse gas emissions can be developed.

This set of carbon emissions reporting requirements makes it politically and geographically easier for countries to come together to achieve positive effects on climate change. By using a common framework or set of reporting protocols, current and future carbon emissions management programs, perhaps adopted at a national level through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), can work together and be supported at a reduced cost across the economy.

What is the registry expecting from businesses?
The Climate Registry expects businesses to calculate, record, verify, and submit report the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) or their carbon equivalent on a yearly basis. Generally, a baseline carbon emissions report is generated from data collected across an organization for a representative year, such as emissions levels in your organization as of 1990.
What is being required of businesses?

Often refrigeration and air-conditioning (RAC) systems or heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC-R) systems, are include in carbon emissions requirements due to their high global warming potential. Organizations operating these systems must adhere to The Climate Registry requirements. Direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions need to be reported, which include hydrofluorocarbons, carbon dioxide, perfluorocarbons, methane, sulfur hexafluoride and nitrous oxide.

This emissions protocol allows for consistency, streamlines program requirements and ensures integrity in accounting and reporting of carbon emissions across any reporting entity.
What might the registry look for from my business?

Simply, this protocol or set of requirements defines how to track and report greenhouse gas emissions. While it may take additional effort on your part to do this, there are management programs to ease the process and the burden of paperwork and to ensure accurate tracking and reporting of refrigerant use. Carbon information management systems help organization remain in compliance as it related to greenhouse gas reporting rules and regulations. These systems take the form of web-based applications that help collect, track, and report CO2 gases emitted from corporate assets.

The Climate Registry is already having an impact on your organization or business, whether you know it or not. At it's core these regulations are addressing climate change and are being adopted by more and more regulatory bodies everyday.

Positive impacts and improvements to our climate change issues will only start improving when carbon emissions across the Globe are reduced. And that is something that The Climate Registry is aiming to help us all do.

Using Sign Language in Your Classroom - Getting Started

You've heard of the benefits of using American Sign Language in your classroom with your hearing students and you're interested in giving it a try, but you don't know where to begin.
Here are 7 tips to get you started:

1. Most importantly, enjoy the fun that comes with incorporating American Sign Language into your classroom routine. Simply begin with only one or two words that relate to your curriculum or that would benefit the entire class. Every day/week/month try to add one or two more signs; whatever will work best for you. This does not mean you have to learn the entire language, just add more signs as you are familiar enough with the ones you have already learned.
2. Always remember to say and sign a word together when you introduce a new sign. Once your students know a sign, you can start using it more regularly by giving them directions only using that sign, without speaking. This is a sure way to maintain a quiet classroom. The less talking you do, the less talking your students will do. {Plus they'll have to pay better attention to you or they might miss a direction.)
3. You do not need to teach ASL as a separate course. Simply incorporate signs into your current daily routine. Do not make more work for yourself by making it something extra. You only need to teach the signs for words you already say and use in the classroom.
4. Try to stay ahead of your students with your sign knowledge. Your students will enjoy learning new signs and will often request the sign for words you have not taught yet. I would advise you to have an American Sign Language Dictionary available for this reason. For those who work with elementary age children and younger, I suggest you read another article I wrote called "American Sign Language Dictionaries for Kids Online,"
5. There are also games online to help learn new signs. This is a great way for children to practice signs during their free time, either at school or in the home. They are both educational and fun! I have reviewed these as well in an article called "Educational Sign Language Games to Play on the Web"
6. If you are interested, a course in American Sign Language may be helpful, but it is not necessary to get started. Again, this can be done at a slower pace. Once you do know a lot of signs and would like to become more advanced, I do recommend taking a course. You can take good ASL courses online from your own home at your preferred pace for a reasonable price at www.signingonline.com.
7. Lastly, begin with the most important keywords. While I do suggest learning the manual alphabet, there is no need to be overwhelmed at the start by trying to learn these 26 letters. Simply begin with a few words that will be most useful in your classroom and continue from there.

Should you need help during your sign language journey, please visit my website at www.kimssigningsolutions.com. You may find some other helpful information on the site and can find my contact information there as well (in case my site doesn't answer your question.) Good luck and I commend you on your efforts to help your students to succeed!

How will the No Child Left Behind Act really help our students and teachers?

When the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law in 2002, a lot issues within the education sector were supposed to be resolved. The NCLB was meant to improve the primary and secondary schools in the U.S. by raising the educational standards and requirements while, at the same time, making schools and their respective states more accountable for what was being taught in the classroom and how well the students were learning it.

The NCLB Act is supposed to improve local standards, raise teacher and student accountability, improve the school systems for minority learners, and raise the overall quality of education.
However, in just the past seven years since the NCLB was enacted into law, the funds allocated for this Act have suddenly began to waver and the stipulations for such things as standardized tests have also began falter.

The intentions behind NCLB Act were great. However, since its creation, the wayward economy has cut not only consumer spending, but the local state budgets for education as well. Without appropriate funding, it is difficult to set the standards for a better education.

The NCLB gives parents the ability to choose what school they want their child to attend if their child's school doesn't meet certain AYP requirements for two years or more. The NCLB also requires that schools increase their performance while teaching high need subjects in better ways that will benefit all students in the classrooms. The NCLB encourages schools to stimulate more parental involvement. The NCLB Act does have its drawbacks. Some states have been blamed for 'fixing' the standardized tests that were designed to track the student's educational progress in each state. Some will argue that the NCLB provides incentives that rule out low performing students of a certain race or culture. Still others point out that the NCLB provides incentives against the gifted student by not allowing grade advancement and more challenging courses. The NCLB has been blamed for the loss of some courses in the areas of art and physical education due to the increase in English, math, and science classes.

It seems that the NCLB is a two way street. Depending on which way you're traveling, your viewpoint of the benefits for each student will vary. Some hope that because the U.S. is now under the leadership of Barack Obama and a new cabinet of administration, the NCLB will be approved for further funding. The NCLB has been around long enough now to show its inadequacies as well as its positive traits that can benefit children in the public school system.

The NCLB will be greatly dependent on the outcome of our present economic situation. The NCLB has the opportunity to greatly impact the institution of public education, and in turn, greatly benefit Americans and their children.

How to Organize Courses on Social Bioethics

How to Organize Courses on Social Bioethics - an Artur Victoria Proposal

by Artur Victoria

By way of introduction, for an organization to come to grips with the task of strategically implementing reform in integrity and ethics, its people need to be knowledgeable about a whole range of issues to enable them to clearly understand the motivations, requirements, their various roles in implementation and how to work together for the larger purpose.
So the topics identified as important to date, in roughly the right order I think, are as follows:
1. How to Organize Courses on Social Bioethics

2. Introduction to Organizational Ethics and Integrity

3. Organizational Analysis

4. Awareness Raising, Education & Training

5. Codes of Ethics (Conduct, Practice, Behaviour)

6. Ethical Decision Making

7. Mechanisms for Ethics Advice and Support.

8. Risk Assessment Strategies

9. Information, Data Collection & Records

10. Professional Ethics:
II. Leading with Integrity
12. Corporate Social Responsibility:

13. Future Perspectives

Assumptions:
An organization has had little or no prior exposure to institutionalizing ethics and integrity into its culture or operations. Obviously, in most cases that many would have some limited exposure, while possibly not having any actual systems in place, and might therefore at least be aware of some of the issues.

If so, it might be reasonable to expect that these issues are possibly already being dealt with in some ways by a set of entrenched values ("good" or "bad", written or unwritten) within their organizations.
Approach:
This particular segment of any course(s) that is developed would be of assistance in any organization. This would be by way of enabling and empowering its people to appreciate the complexities and the wide range of possible sub-strategies involved in implementing an integrity regime (ethics strategy. It includes the main things that I can think ofthat would be part ofthe process and assumes that nothing at all has been done previously. In practice one hopes that there may be a somewhat better basis than that, in some places anyway.

Topics and Content

A proposed logical order of progression, which could be dealt with at different levels of complexity and details, depending upon the need and the audience. For example, if one had only a few hours available on this in a course, a broad-brush look at important issues in strategic implementation would be feasible, although probably not terribly useful to my mind, by covering all of the topics in an overview presentation/workshop. More likely the approach would be to break these topics down, to the extent possible given time constraints with any training course etc. also allows the various "modules" to be flexible, such that users could choose to select all of the topics or could cherry-pick only those which they specifically needed at any point in time.
Users may then come back for more later.

The content under each topic has the better web-based information sources.
That includes: Organizational Ethics, Corporate Governance and Business Ethics, Leadership and Team/Self Development and to a lesser extent Public Sector Management and various courses in Human Resource Management.

Readings & References
At this point I have only given a broad general reference list. This is because many, if not most, of the good books now available cover a number of the topics. Neither list supports to be complete, but they do cover many good general sources. At the later stage of final design and delivery, specific chapters and or journal articles and/or professional articles would be recommended on sub-topics, depending upon the specific needs and/or interests of the course participants.

This might perhaps be in the form of a prepared book of readings appropriate for the specific audience. In places I have shown sources of some ideas, but most are not from single sources but an amalgam of content from wide ranging sources.

Introduction to Organizational Bioethics and Integrity

This would present a broad introduction to the challenges and the need to build a proper implementation strategy. It would present the meaning and focus of Organisational Ethics and Integrity in respect of the organisations themselves, the individuals who work in them and the societies in which they operate.

Some mention of theories would be included, such as the philosophical and moral foundations of ethics and integrity, values, organisational corporate responsibility, personal morality etc., to provide a foundation of knowledge. However, this would be kept to the minimum possible, consistent with providing an effective enough grounding upon which to build. The emphasis on Strategic Implementation would always be based upon a "best practice approach" - what actually works in practice.

Likely content would include:
Broad terminology and concepts:
How people focus on morally challenging dilemmas and make ethical decisions about their Actions Ethical theories: Consequentialist (teleology, egoism, utilitarianism etc.), ethical relativism, virtue ethics, moral development (Kohlberg et al).
Values and ethics

Ethical decision-making: EDM models, normative judgements, distributive justice, excusing conditions, mitigating circumstances etc.
Essential Issues in Organizational Bioethics
• Establishing the fundamental values of the organisation

• Defining broad principles which emanate from these values

• Developing standards which will guide employees in upholding these values and principles

• Establishing specific guidelines for employee behaviour

• Ensuring compliance: through rewards and sanctions Reasons for the increasing global interest

in Organisational Ethics

• Increased concern over corporate violations and scepticism about corporate rhetoric

• Growing public demand for corporate accountability

• Strengthened roles of various watchdog organisations

• Numerous Public Enquiries, Royal Commissions, Senate Enquiries etc......

• Leadership under fire in most sectors

• Global competition "win at all costs" mentality

• Diminishing organizational loyalty

• Increasingly complex decisions

• Competing demands from multiple stakeholders

• More sophisticated workforce

• Movement to "empower" employees

• Emphasis on: excellence, quality, continuous improvement

• Less teaching of values: in schools, families, churches etc......

• Growing diversity in the workplace, differing value systems

• Emphasis in society or "rights"

• Legislation: equity, environmental protection, OH&S etc.

• Demand for information on how control is being managed
What "best practice" organizations can do and are doing
• Going back to basics, revisiting mission statements, vision, values, principles (the "Why are we

here ?!" questions)

• Developing or enhancing Codes of Ethics I Practice I Conduct

• Public and private sectors are addressing awareness raising, education and training strategies

for employees (eg: orientation, management programs, special purpose training)

• Revisiting control mechanisms such as auditing, checks and balances

• Reinforcing fraud and corruption prevention controls

• Governments are passing laws and more closely addressing public sector management

• Educationalists and academics are exploring and revisiting theories, concepts, actions,

outcomes etc., in ethics

• Universities and Business Schools are including Business Ethics in their study programs
Some current and emerging issues in Organizational Bioethics & Integrity
(Some of these are arguably outside our loop. but they are contextual to understanding the

complexities and inter-relatedness of global issues)
• International Corruption: strategies for dealing with this, in particular at the organizational

level.

• Conflicts of Interest in all its form as a major challenge in almost every quarter

• Integrity in international business and dealing with cross-cultural issues.

• National and international litigation; individual and class actions.

• Care Ethics: Caring for employees in difficult times - responsibilities towards employees,

customers, society at large and between employees.

• Global markets and globalization and the need for greater international and inter-cultural

awareness and sensitivity.

• Ethics and the Media: Reactions to the major transgressions: invasions of privacy, libel,

excessive investigatory actions, political influence.

• Bioethics: Issues such as euthanasia, birth control, fertility drugs, steroids in sport, genetic

engineering, and the demise of public health systems.

• Integrity in International Business: reactions to damaging corporate and political scandals, to

world political changes generally and combating global corruption.

• Environmental Ethics: Greater realization of the enormous damage being done in the nameof

"progress".

• Ecommerce, EGoverment: The dramatic changes, currently underway and accelerating,

brought about by the "Information Highway". These changes are rendering our familiar

notions of national and international commerce, trade, the marketplace etc. completely

outmoded and many traditional governance arrangements totally ineffective.

• Whistle blowing: how to facilitate it where necessary and how to protect the whistleblowers

• The protection of the environmental and the many organizational challenges emanating from

this requirement.
Sources of the future broad societal challenges likely to affect organizations
• Changing economic conditions

• People or Profit

• Rapid technological change

• The end of privacy

• Changing social values

• Multicultural Societies

• Endemic unemployment I underemployment

• Development of an underclass

• The end of organizational loyalty

• Increasing ecological I environmental pressures

• Bioethics (genetics, pandemics, survival etc.)

• Population growth and massive shifts

• Workforce diversity

• Dominant corporate power and wealth

• Demise of the public sector

• Politics: national and international - demands for better leaders, with integrity

• "Global Ethics" (a better world) The message her is how the individual organisation can take

action to stay ahead of the game as these impacts emerge.

What organizations and their leaders need to do
• Regularly revisit your "Credo"

• Instill Credo and values in every employee - reject employees who cannot comply

• Provide strong ethical leadership, especially CEO

• Stay ahead of community standards

• Strive for diversity in the makeup of your organization

• Clearly state your "Vision" and gain employee ownership of it

• Develop a Code of Ethics based on your Credo, Vision and Shared Values

• Establish an Ethics Committee which pre- considers new ventures, examines cases and

activities, to guide future actions

• Establish an Ethics "Hotline" to take suggestions and enquiries from stakeholders

• Balance concern for people and profit - based on wider social issues

• Educate before the need arises, not as a response to dilemmas