The Beak Of The Finch :: essays research papers fc

The Bogus Logic of The Beak People who have served in the Armed Forces may be familiar with the expression, "If you can't dazzle then with your brilliance, baffle them with your baloney." The Beak of the Finch uses such laughable logic, it is remarkable that anyone would believe it. The book does such a terrible job of presenting a case for evolution and history, that the only logical conclusion is that the book's true intent is to disprove it.   Jonathan Weiner, The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994. ISBN 0679400036.   "It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof." --Thoreau, Walden This book claims to be about evolution, centered in the location made famous by Charles Darwin, the Galapagos Islands. I read this book on the recommendation of a good friend who knows I am interested in birds and thought I might get something out of it. Indeed, the few parts of the book actually about the Gouldian Finches of the Galapagos Islands are fascinating. The book records in detail some of the trials the Dr. Peter Grant family endured in studying these birds on a hot volcanic rock. However, the writers and editors of the book avoid simple logic and put a spin on history that is misleading. The facts and logic presented in The Beak of the Finch really make the book's author out to be a closet creationist.   It just so happened that at the same time I read this book, I was reading The Storm Petrel and the Owl of Athena by Louis Halle. Half of The Storm Petrel is on the bird life of the Shetland Islands, another isolated natural system. Halle, though an evolutionist, devotes a whole chapter on how the Shetlands and other islands conserve species. (Halle. 1970, 155ff.) Where species have changed their habits, it is most often due to adaptation to humanity. He compares the wild starlings, house sparrows, and rock doves found on the Shetlands with the more domesticated versions of these birds found on the continents--and to some degree even in the main village of the Shetlands. The island birds are more like their original wild forebears. I mention this now because it will come back to haunt us later.   Logical Fallacies By the first thirty or so pages I had found two logical fallacies and at least one historical inaccuracy in The Beak of the Finch.

Femininity In Greek Myth Essay -- essays research papers

Is femininity in mythology? Yes because there is a division between men and women in mythology. Biology tells us that we are two different people. Men and women see the world in different ways. Women are passive, intuitive, submissive, and subjective. Women value love, communication, beauty, and relationships. Men are aggressive, rational, dominant, and objective and they value power, competency, efficiency, and achievement. The ways we see the world are different because we are either man or women. We are also similar as well as different. This paper will discuss the how women/goddess are viewed in the works of â€Å"Works and Days†, â€Å"Theogony† and â€Å"Hymn to Demeter.† And see that these women/goddess similar to real life women. In the Works and Days, women are seen as beautiful things and men strong and fighting creatures. Zeus, the king of gods, had Hephaestus fashion a woman endowed with everything, which he called Pandora. Pandora is described as a sweetly seductive female and her name refers to the gifts that all the gods give to mankind. She is made as a tempting snare for Epimetheus. She was sent with an urn full of plagues as a gift to Epimetheus. Pandora opened the jar and out came all the plagues and finally hope. This woman reminds men that not all-beautiful things are good and can be a pain in a man’s side. This lesson can be true for the world today. Women are not all sweetly seductive but they can be a real pain in the ass, especially for their boyfriends. In the Th...

Do You Have What It Takes? A Breakdown Of The Educated Person Essay

Do You Have What it Takes? A Breakdown of the Educated Person An educated person is a well rounded person. To be educated is to knowledgeable in many areas. Diversity is essential in the sense that many different things inspire thought, which then derive permanent conclusions from these experiences. Anyone who has the audacity to call themselves educated needs to have a firm grasp of many different areas. These categories span through Science, Technology, Language, Art, Feelings and Values. All of these are building blocks that help make up an educated person, but just as important, these are the same qualities that form an individual. One of the most important concepts that a person learns from Science is a fundamental thinking process. This process starts with curiosity, asking the question," Why does that work?" It then moves on to theorizing or guessing. Next, this person takes his or her theory and puts it to the test by conducting various experiments. Finally this individual will draw a final conclusion from those findings. Science also helps a person look at things objectively, which means there is no feelings influencing experiments that can lead to fraudulent conclusions. This can be a double edged sword however, because in many instances when a scientist is emotionally removed from the experiments performed, the question, "Should I?", is never asked. For instance under the reign of Hitler many cruel medical experiments were preformed. In The Medical Experiments by William Shirer the author states,"Prisoners were placed in high pressure chambers and subjected to high-altitude tests until they ceased breathing. They were injected with lethal doses of typhus and jaundice. They were subjected to 'freezing' experiments in icy water or exposed naked in the snow outdoors until they froze to death." This also deals with the subject of values and will be discussed detail later. Probably the most positive way to utilize Science would be to take it to the next level, Technology. This is were an educated person takes what laws and theories he learns in science and integrates them into everyday life, finding ways to make life easier and arguably better. I say arguably because many educated people are against technological advancement. These... ...m any language. Susanne K. Langer in her article The Cultural Importance of Art states,"There is, however, an important part of reality that is quite inaccessible to the formative influence of language: that is the realm of so-called "inner experience," the life of feeling and emotion. All of these attributes lose power without an individual set of values to focus this energy. Adolf Hitler influenced millions by being a masterful orator. Hitler also was very innovative in science and many other areas. However do to his grossly warped sense of personal values he was labelled by leaders and peers as a madman. It is very difficult for any person to be a master of all of these categories, but to be truly educated, there needs to be at least a small concentration of everything in that individual's background. For the one reason that it is so difficult to posses all of these traits, it is also that same reason that makes all of the truly educated people of our past stand out in history as heros and leaders. This is also the biggest reason that so many people admire them and strive to be like them.

Julius Caesar Play Essay

In play, Julius Caesar, it has strength that makes the play a famous play. In the play, we could understand characters emotion and behaviors clearly since it is in their own words instead of a narration. From the text from Cassius’s dialogue,† For my part, I have walked about the streets, submitting me unto the perilous night.† we could emphasizes how Cassius is showing off to Casca the braveness he has. Another point would be the speeches that are introduce in the play. Another example would be in Act 1, scene 2 where Antony comments, â€Å"When Caesar says, do this, it is performed. Sometimes not only the characters dialogue could be recognize as his or her personality and characteristics. In this text by Antony, we could feel the powerful leadership from Caesar. Speeches help a better understanding of each character thought towards different people. Such as the speech that Antony gave where it begins with â€Å"Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your earsâ⠂¬ ¦..† In this speech Antony keep repeating â€Å"Brutus is an honorable man†, this shows sarcasms that Antony is speaking out. While reading this speech, you will find confusions where Antony is criticizing Brutus action but on the other hand he keeps stating that Brutus is an honorable man that opposites other facts. This kind of passage grabs the reader attention to think profoundly. The weakness would be the organization of the plot. I believe the play is moving in a speed what I believe is fast. Fast play makes it difficult to recognize clearly with each scenes and acts. For example from the meeting of conspirators to the death of Julius Caesar flows quite rapid. Between those two scenes, I feel a bit empty cause no way that these conspirators did not planned in a way that they could successfully without any obstacles kill Julius Caesar. The play might improve if the process of planning would be added between those two periods. We might absorb characters; personality and perspective towards this event during their planning. Another example would be the death of Calupurnia. The death news was interrupted abruptly during before the war. Calpurnia played such an important role when comforting Brutus and place a spy on him. This shows the role of women played in Roman however she had passed away in a second where no one has expected. Overall the organization is pretty flow and vivid enough. I like how each scene was isolated by the characters in the play where one side is mainly characters that dislike Caesar and the other side would be characters that supports Caesar. The only error would be the speed of the play that gives no time for readers to vividly understand the story. The descriptions of different characters are the best element in the play. Characters were vividly described as I stated earlier. One more example would be when Cassius stated, â€Å"The torrent roared, and we did buffet it with lusty sinews, throwing it aside and stemming it with hearts of controversy†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..or I sink!†Ã¢â‚¬  In this dialogue we could understand two characters’ thoughts and history background. Cassius put up this fact show that he believes Caesar is not as capable as he should be. Another would be the background of Caesar where he was such a weaker. The diaglouge is very interesting because we could see through what each character wanted to express. One of the interesting dialogues was between Antony and Octavious. Octavious argued to refuse the instruction from Antony. Antony begins to realize the similar power between Octavious and Caesar when Octavious insist to follow left instead of right, so Antony called Octavious as Caesar after the argument of the formation.

Expressionism

I drove to SST Louis with a couple of friends on a warm day ND when we got to the ml_Assure, all I could say was ‘WOW'. â€Å"Is this a white house replica kind of a building' asked one of my friends. It was so beautiful, never seen or have never been in a building so huge like that. It was quite an honor and would have something to share with people back in Africa. I might not have been a big fan of art but since that day all has changed. We went in and were given a museum map to locate specific areas we wanted to visit. Modern art section was our main priority.We took the elevator to the upper level of the museum where modern art painting was displayed. We walked around sections 327, 335, 334 and 333. The painting that mostly caught my attention was that of Marc Chloral, a French man born in 1887 and died in 1985. The Temptation painting was painted by Marc the cubist in 1912. He painted Adam and Eve flanking the tree of knowledge. He painted Eve as a green figure holding th e forbidden fruit that she was about to offer Adam, who poses in blissful ignorance of the consequences to come.The cubism concept of split face allows Eve to look at both the apple and its destination. Marc paints this picture in relations to what we have always been reading bout in the bible. He also painted animals around staring at them, he did this to really show and tell how the fruit changed the world today. Another painting just on the other wall on my left as I turned to my left, there hanged an amazing piece of art called the blue Mandolin, 1 930 by George Baroque. He was a French man born in 1882 but died in 1963.He used oil painting with sand on canvas. This painting looked so real unlike the ones I saw in class on slideshows. He used a paint comb that created imitation wood grain to which he added a heavy application of sand in order to set off the eel effects of texture against artificial ones. The use of sand here really gives this painting a very strong texture. I ev en felt like I could touch it but could not do so. He conveys his love for music here by painting the blue mandolin very closer to the eye.As moved around exploring the beauty Of art, then came across the Picasso painting of his wife. Pablo was a Spanish cubist born in 1881 and he died in 1973. His painting of a seated woman dated July 1 953 portraits his lover Francoise Gilt. He shows of his skills and extreme exploration of pubis by using facets of creamy grays, whites, pinks, and browns form mosaic of color and tone across the body of Francoise. In this painting the young woman's face contains a strong right profile as well as a left eye that gazes forward.He also uses a dark background to show the viewers exactly what his painting is all about. The painting looks more like 3 dimensional because of the use of mosaic concept. It's really one of the greatest pieces of art by Pablo Picasso. As was walking around I then saw this other two paintings that looked like I child was playin g With a paint brush, but as I paid more attention to them hen I realized how some people were talented. These were paintings by Emil Molded, a German born in 1867 but died in 1956.

Marijuana: a Gateway to Self Destruction

There has been substantial research which provides information on how Marijuana is not addicting itself, but the way it sakes you feel can be the breaking point to trying other addictive drugs. Research shows, adults who are addicts admit their first time of use and first drug of choice was when they were an adolescent and smoked Marijuana. Until today, many argue for or against legalizing marijuana throughout the united States, and it is still a struggle for some to overcome. As of 2011, Marijuana became legal in 16 States in the united States (Anabas & Cohen, 2011).According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy (OWNED, Bibb there has been Increasing efforts to legalize marijuana which can cause marijuana to rope In price and Increase the use of the drug (OWNED, 2013); keeping It Illegal keeps the price of marijuana up keeping the use rates low. According to Carbon. Org, (Bibb marijuana can be purchased In almost any neighborhood In any city or state In the U. S. , thus con tributing to the pervasive nature of the drug. It is also considered a drug of convenience because it is easily concealed, both for transport and use.This is why it has become widely popular with adolescents or young adults who have a lot of authority figures involved in their lives. Most marijuana users or those with Arizona in their possession do not go to prison. According the OWNED, a survey by the Bureau objectifies Statistics showed that . 7 percent of all state inmates were imprisoned for marijuana possession only because they had pleaded down from a more serious crime (OWNED, 2013). By States legalizing medical marijuana, it makes marijuana more easily obtainable for teens and normalizes It making It seem okay to use.Between the ages of preteen and teens, any disruptions In normal brain development, including chemical disruptions and/or changes can make physiological and psychological changes that can last a lifetime. According to Anabas & Cohen (201 1), early-onset drug use is the single best predictor of future drug problems in an individual (P. 8. 13). Children, whom experiment with any drugs or alcohol, including marijuana, before the age of 12, are four to five times more likely to have major addiction problems than those who wait until after 18 years of age (P. . 13). Adolescents contain less body fat and water content than adults and have immature enzyme metabolism systems. They also â€Å"manifest the condition shortly after beginning use if genetically vulnerable to addiction,† (8. 13). Adolescents are more vulnerable to environmental stress and drug availability and had less time to develop life skills and healthy coping mechanisms (8. 13). Marijuana can have negative effects on the body and makes a person more susceptible to colds, flu, and other viral infections.ETC can lead to â€Å"enhanced growth of tumors, including those response. Marijuana smoking also damages the lungs and other respiratory tissue (Anabas & Cohen, 2011). The legalization of marijuana is making the drug easier to acquire and because of this more and more adolescence are using this drug. With he vulnerability of the young human brain the impact of marijuana can be extremely sever. Legalization is making the use of marijuana a social norm which is slowly leading users to try other drugs, causing marijuana to be a gateway drug.

Education Policy in Two Different Countries Essay

Education Policy in Two Different Countries Introduction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   These refers to the principles and policies made by the government in the field of education, collection of rules and laws that govern the operations carried out in the education system. Education is a form of learning where knowledge, habits and skills of a particular group of people are transmitted from generation to generation through training, teaching or carrying out a research. It occurs in different forms such as formal, informal and non-formal with different purposes from institutions of learning like colleges/universities, professional education and graduate, job training and adult education. When implementing education in a given country, education policies are evidently known that they can affect education that people engage in directly at all ages. They have to be critically analyzed for effective learning under different areas in the field of schools such as; the size of school to be constructed, school choice, certification a nd teacher education, school privatization under education policy(Ball, 2009, 89), tracking, teaching methods, graduation requirements, curricular content, investment in the school infrastructure, and the values institutions are required to uphold and model.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Analysis of education policy is a scholarly study that seeks to give answers of different questions such as; the purpose of education, personal and societal objectives that education is designed to attain, methods to be used in attaining such objectives and tools applied in measuring their failure or success. Intended research of informing educational policy is done in a wide variety of learning institutions and several academic disciplines. Beneficial researchers are affiliated with different departments such as; economics, psychology, human development and sociology, departments and schools of education/public policy. Different countries have different educational policies according to the objectives and goals that education is expected to achieve. This essay critically evaluates issues concerning education policy in England and USA. Education policy in England   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Research shows that inequalities in education (Bunar, 2010: p.10) had erupted before schools were started for the children. The data provided by OECD displayed a higher percentage of individuals finishing tertiary education in many countries if their parents reached tertiary level of education. In many countries, educational inequalities continue to increase where people who have acquired education at higher levels have high possibilities of doing jobs which are non-formal. The question that prevails is whether the existing educational policies are minimizing these gaps. Are they relevant at their level of implementation? The essay reviews the truth about policies at the school level in England; this is due to the number of years one spends in school which is compulsory and plays an important role towards government intervention and it is conducted in a way that affects potentially all students. Recently, England started a good body of eva luating research of policies at school-level. The evaluation of these policies is based on school resources efficacy, market incentives, pedagogical approaches and school autonomy for raising attainment of education in schools.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Since 1988, education system had one key character under The Education Act, which has led to the implementation and designing a number of policies in education with an aim of improving standards of education and achievement. A good number of policies have been introduced at each stage of education, and a number of these policies have been evaluated. This gives an opportunity for a critical appraisal on such evaluations and the scope of different policies that have influenced achievement of education. These evaluations aim at the different ways of enhancing performance and reducing inequalities in education. Educational inequalities in England   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   These inequalities in the achievement of education can be differently identified at some points in individuals’ lives. However, these educational inequalities emerge at an early stage in the lifecycle and widen the gap as progress in education sequence is experienced. This description of the inequalities is aimed at motivating the evaluation of policies in education, which are used to alleviate inequalities in education and minimize achievement gaps, which is an important research in the field of education. Under this description, individual follows an ordered educational sequence which comprises of years in pre-school, compulsory schooling years, post-compulsory level of education and lastly to adult. Gaps in pre-school education   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Initially we focused on the educational achievement gaps being present even before students started going to school. These gaps are created by the environments they grow in, family backgrounds and different non-cognitive and cognitive levels of skills children have when entering school. Studies conducted under vocabulary skills (Lervag, 2010: p. 615) shows there is high dispersion of a number of sizeable gaps existing in gender and ethnic groups at the time of entering school. Compulsory school   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   At the stage of compulsory schooling, the gaps that were there at the school entry evolve. Where some widens while others narrow as abilities of children at school makes them move either up or down the outcomes of the educational distribution. This can be affected by policies of education with the scope of affecting achievement in education. Education at post-compulsory level   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   This level of education is strongly impinged by the disadvantages of education acquired during compulsory schooling and the pre-school years. It determines whether an individual continues with education in post-compulsory level or not. This level is strongly determined by the education level of their parents. Adult learning   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Inequalities of education continue to increase even when a student completes full-time education. They extend to adults in their live of working as their training and education occurs and mostly to those who have acquired higher levels of education.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Under those stages of education, it is evident that inequalities in education emerge and exists at all levels in the sequence. Some gaps widen as individuals progresses more through the sequence of education especially those associated with disadvantages of schooling in urban areas are less compared to those in rural areas. This calls for a significant and a careful evaluation of the policies of education designed to affect educational inequalities. The educational policies raft introduced to the England system of education fifteen years ago provides a good setting for evaluation methods and their success and thus provides a better understanding of educational work. Policy evaluation regarding to England school   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Although these policies at all levels of lifecycle are important for improving attainment in education and inequality reduction, the policies of school-level ought to be focused on in the England system of education. This is because compulsory years of schooling give an important time for the intervention of the government. It also acts as a good body of evaluation of the research policies in England. This calls for selective areas of policy with a critical appraisal which is rigorous. The following are headings of policy discussion and their methods of evaluation.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   School resources refer to perennial debates concerning educational literature of economics of whether if the expenditure of the school is increased will have an effect on improving pupil attainment (Peters, 2009: p.1). Research on whether the implantation of such policies can reduce the types of attainment gaps experienced earlier. The relevance of such implementation is to determine whether additional expenditure can lead to cost effective in developed countries at the typical levels.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   International research indicated that there is no good relationship between student outcomes and resources. However, some puts more efforts on studies particularly with methodological design with positive impacts. The challenge faced in the implementation of this policy is that school resources are always allocated disproportionately to disadvantaged students. If this issue is not dealt with fully in methodological design, the way resources and attainment are related with one another will be easily obscured.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Critical evaluation shows that favorable association between educational disadvantages and school resources is counter-balanced to the unfavorable association between educational attainment and educational disadvantage. This clearly indicates that association between educational attainment and school resources is very low, and there is no true reflection of casual relationship. There is the fact that the implementation of controlled randomized experiments has been impossible, researchers have found it difficult to prove that such a problem has been solved. Being the biggest category of expenditure of the UK government, it calls for a more significant sense of getting whether if the expenditure is either increased or reduced there is the likelihood of having an impact on students’ outcomes. This aspect is very important for the future economy in the country and the future prosperity of individuals.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Recent studies have been done concerning this issue in England using national citizen database and all schools expenditure. The national curriculum of the English government is divided into four key levels/stages, then at the end of these stages teachers evaluates the students or they are given national tests that externally and marked at the school when students are the age of 11 and 16. A study done have critically evaluated the relationship between attainment and expenditure in the secondary school level at the age of 14 and 16 respectively, displayed a small positive impact of resources used and on pupil attainment. The challenge behind it is that political control is used as an instrument for expenditure in the school.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Government has initiated better flame work for examining casual effects derived from this context. In early 2000s, a flagship evaluation policy was done on the government labor and the (EiC) program for the secondary schools in England. Under this program, disadvantaged schools mainly located in urban areas were provided extra resources with an effort of improving standards.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Incentives for a period of more than thirty years a concerted effort has been done with an aim of increasing the choice of parents, competition between schools and their accountability for the children performance (Eom, 2011:p.418). If the economy develops well, children go to better schools with incentives of increasing performance. This is because their effort should be strongly linked to pupil information and numbers which is disclosed to parents under the accountability framework.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   School autonomy most government schools function within a given framework based on their jurisdiction concerning terms of teacher conditions and pay, admissions, composition of the body that is governing and the curriculum (Clark,2009: p.760). Since 2000, the England government started academies which led to the emergence of new schools given more autonomy compared to typical government schools in terms of their freedom of operations. The rationale behind this greater emphasis on autonomy is to encourage schools to have more innovative policies and facilitate improvement of standards. In England, the so called academies are managed by any appointed governor or their sponsors who are responsible in recruiting all staffs, freedom over curriculum implementation, agreeing on the terms and conditions of payment and organizational aspects of the school.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Pedagogy although since the year 2000, school autonomy in England seems to have gained popularity, it has not been true to various school organizational aspects (Terenzin, 2010: p.772). The government has put into place prescriptive measures in order to improve standards in numeracy and literacy through pedagogical methods. The national numeracy and literacy strategy rolled out in 1998 and 1999 was aimed at improving teaching quality through introducing more focused effective management of the class and instructions. Both literacy and numeracy did not present an overall time increase that was allotted in teaching some subjects. Both dramatically represented a change on the teaching methods of such subjects.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The above evaluation on education policy in England clearly shows that gaps in educational attainment are evident from earlier times and have been measured along the lifecycle. Various policies have been reviewed at the school level and implemented in England which brought high standards economic evaluation, aiming to see how scope of educational inequalities can be impinged. This has been done under the evaluation of the following educational policies implemented in England such as; incentives, school resources, pedagogical approaches and school autonomy. This issue of reducing educational inequalities and gaps that exist in the sphere of education has been shaped for effective implementation. It enhances positive impacts through the use of the following contextual factors applied in secondary school classroom setting.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Structure and organization of the educational system: this helps in shaping the development of curriculum by considering the society served by the education system. It reflects the aspirations and the needs of the students, function and the nature of learning and statement formulation on the importance of learning. This enables students to know how policies of education are implemented and established, influences the operation of schools and helps them to achieve their educational goals and curricular.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Climate of learning in schools this involves many factors and values such as safety practices, cultures, and organizational structures shaping the school to react and function in a given way (Cohen,2009: p.189). Favorable and positive climate created in school by all stakeholders’ results to higher achievement by students.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Teaching staff: their professional development plays a great important role by attempting to reform or change an education system. The general purpose behind teachers’ evaluation is to ensure that the quality of instructions students receive from teachers are safeguarded and improved. Teachers are evaluated through classrooms observation by the principals, peer review of teachers and checking on students’ performance.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Parental involvement: for a school to be successful there must have a high cooperation among teachers, school administration and parents. A research done indicated that if parents participate in the education of their children, it results to an increase in the academic achievement of the students and an overall attitude improvement towards school.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Classroom environment: instructional activities carried out in school are always influenced by environment in the classroom. This includes classroom size, class composition and instructional time. Research indicates that favorable classroom environment benefits academic development thus helping students to achieve educational goals.Education policy in USA   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In USA, education is provided by both private and public schools. Education in public schools is universally available, funded and controlled by the state, federal and local government. Private schools are set free to come up with their own curriculum and policies of staffing. Educational evaluation plays a significant role in USA as it assesses and distinguishes particular characteristics of the education process. It is a professional process by which incessant review is commenced by independent educators with an aim of improving the learning process. This attempt is done to ensure smooth progress on the whole learning experience. The evaluation process in USA is conducted under the following three routes;   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Personal evaluation: this comprises of a legal and an ethical process, the standards behind it are educational, significant and judicious. Personnel evaluation standards are easily implemented, apt in funds and proficient in utility.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Program evaluation: it involves ground standards that provide a guarantee of the demanded information by users. This process of evaluation is based on factors that are prudent, practical, and thrifty and save. It results to an accurate and complete evaluation to the point.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Student evaluation: it is a program carried out ethically and legally which is kept in the students mind while others are affected by it. Its standards are diligently judicious, educational and significant therefore; it is an extremely useful evaluation to students. The process is very sensible, efficient, affordable, feasible, politically and socially.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Education policy in USA has been effectively evaluated with an aim of ensuring educational effectiveness among students at different levels of education. Policy-amenable of the school characteristics are among the factors controlled under school management or national policy of education. It refers to substantive policy measures of education in areas such as governance, curriculum, accountability and development of a professional teacher and other characteristics at the school-level known to improve teaching. This discussion focuses on three main areas of policy-amenable characteristics of a school which shapes educational policy implementation. They include school climate, school resources and school policies. It is also interested in measuring the school context by mean socio-economic students’ backgrounds within the school. Relative impacts determined by school characteristics of policy-amenable and school context on the quality of education has helped policy makers to have a control.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The question under the educational policy evaluation is why some schools are performing better than others. If the policy evaluation can identify the factors causing such deviation in terms of different school performance, better strategies can be implemented to change such performance deviation; that is identifying general characteristics of schools with high performance and use such information to improve performance of a given school. The following are the three main areas according to PISA which shapes education policy implementation and has an effect towards students’ performance.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   School resources comprises of physical resources and materials such as the school size and the quality of physical infrastructure in the school, human resources including number of teaching staff (Peters, 2009: p.1). They have a tertiary qualification and the number of students in the school compared to the available teachers. If the school infrastructure is well constructed and the school has enough teachers the performance of students is likely to increase. This evaluation conducted in schools ensures effective implementation of the curriculum which facilitates achievement of educational goals.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   School climate entails different aspects culture of the school including how well teachers and students get along, disciplinary climate (Crul, 2009: p. 1478). In addition, it includes how committed and motivated school’s teachers are and how strongly does the students identify themselves with their school. This factor is implemented well by school principals through ensuring that students are well disciplined and that teachers-students cooperation is improved. It is also well maintained through students’ motivation that results to high performance of students.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   School policies it comprises the level of autonomy enjoyed by the school when making decisions, issues concerning accountability of whether self-evaluation is conducted in the school and students’ progress monitored (Creemers, 2010: p.815). Such policies also determine whether the school gives the parents information concerning the students’ performance or not. Lastly these policies establish the degree of selectivity in the school concerning admission policies and the way low achievers are transferred to different schools. These factors shape the issue of educational inequality and the gaps created in the secondary level, and if well implemented high attainment is achieved.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Conclusively, evaluation of education policy is an important factor in different countries for educational effectiveness. The above evaluation clearly shows some of the challenges experienced in school such educational inequalities, poor performance and non-effective governance among others results to poor performance. England and USA among other nations have developed educational policy evaluation at different levels of education. From the above discussion, it is clear that these policies have improved standards of education shaped under different contextual factors. Comparably, both countries have had almost the same factors such as school resources, school policies among other discussed factors above. The recommendation is that such policies should be improved and well implemented and for who are yet to implement should do it for educational effectiveness. References Anderson, P., Chisholm, D., & Fuhr, D. C. (2009). Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of policies and programmes to reduce the harm caused by alcohol. The Lancet, 373(9682), 2234-2246. Ball, S. J. (2009). 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