Something is terribly wrong with America's public school system.

For decades, we have seen test scores slide or stagnate (today fewer than twenty percent of our nation's twelfth graders are proficient in math, and our students rank near the bottom in science and math among the industrialized nations of the world) and achievement gaps persist or widen.

So who's responsible for the ongoing failure of our education system? In "The War Against Hope," former Secretary of Education Rod Paige pulls no punches in his critical analysis of America's crisis in the classroom. Without question, the greatest impediment to meaningful school reform is the enormous, self-aggrandizing power wielded by the teachers' unions.

In this vital, well-documented book, Paige takes an unflinching look at the power-hungry union leaders who have consistently placed their ambitions ahead of the needs of the teachers and the students whom they claim to serve. He also traces the history of the National Education Association (NEA) from its humble beginnings as an advocate of education excellence to its early radicalization by left-wing ideology.

"The War Against Hope" is a disturbing account of the corruption, greed, and skewed values that have assaulted our schools, betrayed our teachers, and forsaken our children for far too long.

Senator Dorgan is sounding the alarm: With our country up to our neck in trade debt--$2 billion a day--as we import energy and export jobs, it is long past the time to tackle the trade crisis head-on.
By outsourcing hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs, American companies are essentially hollowing out our economic base, and with the current White House beholden to Big Oil and cronies straight out of the Gilded Age, no one is guarding the rights of the American worker. "Take This Job and Ship It" is not just a dire warning--it also offers many sobering cures before our current policies put American national security even further at risk.

How Internet Radio Can Change the World: An Activist's Handbook is essential reading for trade unionists, environmental campaigners, human rights activists -- anyone who is working to change the world. Author Eric Lee has pioneered the use of the Internet by unions around the globe, and the website he established in 1998, LabourStart, now appears in 19 languages and is used by thousands of activists every day. In early 2004, the author launched the first online labor radio station and this book reveals exactly what was involved in setting it up. It also delves into the short history of Internet radio, revealing how what began as a radical project to reinvigorate the liberal wing of the Democratic Party was turned into a commercial success -- and yet remains a vital tool for activists. The book clearly explains both how to listen to Internet radio -- and how to set up your own station.

CONTENTS: Preface Introduction -- Muriel Mitchell-Smith Regulations and Standards General and Biological Risks Radioluminous Materials Mining, Agricultural, and Construction Materials Containing Radioactivity Products Containing Radioactive Sources Miscellaneous Products Panel Discussion

"The ideal of a harmonious and diverse workplace has been given much lip service, but the daily realities of working with people who are not like you have proven to be difficult.

Featuring ""voices"" (actual comments from members of diverse groups), this book reveals how individuals feel about their treatment and their relationships on the job. By listening to the ""voices,"" readers will learn to understand what it means to be ""the other"" and so improve communication, morale, and productivity.

The range covered is extraordinary: African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos, recent immigrants, disabled workers, gays and lesbians, young and old workers, women, white males. For each group, the book provides:

(1) background on the culture and values of that group

(2) honest comments from members of the group and a synthesis of the group's most common problems

(3) typical scenarios where supervisors and co-workers from diverse groups often hit communication barriers

(4) explanations of what went wrong in each situation and how to correct it

Many people want to communicate with others, but don't know how. Voices will help them understand diversity not as an academic concept, but as a human reality."

With computer, fax machines, and other technologies becoming commonplace, more and more people are running businesses from their homes and making a good living in the process. "Money" has been tracking the trend, and, in this new guide, two of the magazine's writers explain how to turn a hobby into a business, find money to start, create a winning business plan, manage cash flow, write great press releases, find low-cost health insurance and safeguard retirement, and much more.

Women, Work and Development Series The majority of women around the world work long hours and contribute significantly to production and to family income, although this fact is not generally recognised in attitudes and policies or reflected in official statistics. Women's ability in helping to bring about improvements in their own and their family's welfare depends on social and economic factors as well as on specific policy measures... This monograph examines the various economic approaches used to evaluate unpaid work in the household. Herein lies its originality.

Despotism on Demand draws attention to the impact of flexible scheduling on managerial power and workplace control. When we understand paid work as a power relationship, argues Alex J. Wood, we see how the spread of precarious scheduling constitutes flexible despotism; a novel regime of control within the workplace. Wood believes that flexible despotism represents a new domain of inequality, in which the postindustrial working class increasingly suffers a scheduling nightmare. By investigating two of the largest retailers in the world he uncovers how control in the contemporary "flexible firm" is achieved through the insidious combination of "flexible discipline" and "schedule gifts." Flexible discipline provides managers with an arbitrary means by which to punish workers, but flexible scheduling also requires workers to actively win favor with managers in order to receive "schedule gifts": more or better hours. Wood concludes that the centrality of precarious scheduling to control means that for those at the bottom of the postindustrial labor market the future of work will increasingly be one of flexible despotism.

The members of the Domestic Workers United (DWU) organization-immigrant women of color employed as nannies, caregivers, and housekeepers in New York City-formed to fight for dignity and respect and to "bring meaningful change" to their work. Alana Lee Glaser examines the process of how these domestic workers organized against precarity, isolation, and exploitation to help pass the 2010 New York State Domestic Worker Bill of Rights, the first labor law in the United States protecting in-home workers. Solidarity & Care examines the political mobilization of diverse care workers who joined together and supported one another through education, protests, lobbying, and storytelling. Domestic work activists used narrative and emotional appeals to build a coalition of religious communities, employers of domestic workers, labor union members, and politicians to first pass and then to enforce the new law. Through oral history interviews, as well as ethnographic observation during DWU meetings and protest actions, Glaser chronicles how these women fought (and continue to fight) to improve working conditions. She also illustrates how they endure racism, punitive immigration laws, on-the-job indignities, and unemployment that can result in eviction and food insecurity. The lessons from Solidarity & Care along with the DWU's precedent-setting legislative success have applications to workers across industries. All royalties will go directly to the Domestic Workers United

Arbeit 4.0 ist wohl derzeit eines der meist verwendeten Schlagworte, wenn es um die Zukunft der Arbeitswelt geht. Das vorliegende Buch geht der Frage nach, wie wir in Zukunft leben und arbeiten werden. Es zeigt dabei ein zentrales Spannungsfeld auf: Einerseits gilt es, in Bewegung zu bleiben, um mit den vielfaltigen Trends und rasanten Veranderungen Schritt zu halten, doch gleichzeitig besteht die Notwendigkeit, dabei die Balance nicht zu verlieren. Dies stellt eine der groessten Aufgaben unserer Zeit fur Arbeitgeber ebenso wie fur Beschaftigte dar. Anhand aktueller empirischer Studien, ganzheitlicher Konzepte und erfolgreicher Unternehmensbeispiele zeigen die Autorinnen und Autoren aus Wissenschaft und Praxis auf, dass der Weg zur Arbeit 4.0 herausfordernd, aber durchaus gestaltbar ist.

Doron Taussig invites us to question the American Dream. Did you earn what you have? Did everyone else? The American Dream is built on the idea that Americans end up roughly where we deserve to be in our working lives based on our efforts and abilities; in other words, the United States is supposed to be a meritocracy. When Americans think and talk about our lives, we grapple with this idea, asking how a person got to where he or she is and whether he or she earned it. In What We Mean by the American Dream, Taussig tries to find out how we answer those questions. Weaving together interviews with Americans from many walks of life-as well as stories told in the US media about prominent figures from politics, sports, and business-What We Mean by the American Dream investigates how we think about whether an individual deserves an opportunity, job, termination, paycheck, or fortune. Taussig looks into the fabric of American life to explore how various people, including dairy farmers, police officers, dancers, teachers, computer technicians, students, store clerks, the unemployed, homemakers, and even drug dealers got to where they are today and whether they earned it or not. Taussig's frank assessment of the state of the US workforce and its dreams allows him to truly and meaningfully ask the question that underpins so many of our political debates and personal frustrations: Did you earn it? By doing so, he sheds new light on what we mean by-and how we can deliver on-the American Dream of today.

Horst Philipp Bauer und Inga Enderle prufen in ihrer Langzeitstudie, ob Fachschulen fur Betriebswirtschaft ihrem intendierten Anspruch gerecht werden, Fuhrungskrafte fur das mittlere Management auszubilden und analysieren in den Befragungen von Absolventen deren Karrierechancen. In der Diskussion zum Fachkraftemangel wird im Kontext des Weiterbildungsmarktes die Frage gestellt, wo Nachwuchskrafte weitergebildet werden koennen. Eine Antwort geben seit 1970 die Fachschulen fur Wirtschaft, die mit der Fachrichtung "Betriebswirtschaft" den Abschluss zum Staatlich gepruften Betriebswirt (SGB) bieten. In der OEffentlichkeit noch zu wenig wahrgenommen, schliessen sie eine Lucke zwischen dem System der dualen Berufsausbildung und einem akademischen betriebswirtschaftlichen Studium.

14 Fachbeitrage aus zehn verschiedenen Themenfeldern zeigen auf, wie sich der Blick auf das Thema "Beschaftigung" in den vergangenen zehn Jahren verandert hat. Die Autoren wollen dabei eine Brucke bauen zwischen den Moeglichkeiten und Herausforderungen im Umfeld der Unternehmen und dem konkreten personalpolitischen Handeln im Unternehmen selbst. Dieses Buch dokumentiert die zehnjahrige Arbeit des Goinger Kreises.

Die Branche der Gesundheitsdienstleistungen ist in einem fuhlbaren und stetigen Wandel. Die Grunde sind vielfaltig: Der soziodemografische Wandel, ein verandertes Gesundheitsbewusstsein und -verhalten und wirtschaftspolitische Einflusse wie die Privatisierungen der letzten Jahren in diesem Bereich werden immer wieder benannt. Besonders betroffen sind die sogenannten pflegenden Dienstleistungen

Die Beitrage des vorliegenden Bandes beschaftigen sich mit Humandienstleistungen in Krankenhausern und Pflegeeinrichtungen, daneben mit Sach- und Industriedienstleistungen. Durch diese Erganzung werden Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede zwischen beiden Bereichen verdeutlicht. Die Beitrage sind vornehmlich empirisch gepragt. Sie prasentieren die Ergebnisse diverser Untersuchungen in Krankenhausern, Pflegeeinrichtungen und Unternehmen, wobei der praktische Ansatz von der Fallstudie uber strukturierte Befragungen von Pflegepersonal bis hin zur Prozessbeobachtung reicht. Sie werden erganzt um Erfahrungsberichte hinsichtlich der Einfuhrung und Nutzung einzelner Managementinstrumente in der beruflichen Praxis."

Eine effiziente und gerechte Bildungspolitik zahlt zu den bedeutendsten Themen unserer Gesellschaft. Anhand dreier empirischer Studien analysiert Anna Makles, wie mit entsprechendem Ressourceneinsatz und bildungspolitischen Steuerungsmassnahmen ungunstigen Ausgangslagen von Kindern und Jugendlichen im Bildungsprozess entgegengewirkt werden kann. In einer ersten Studie untersucht sie, welchen Effekt die Kindergartenbesuchsdauer auf die Schulfahigkeit von Kindern verschiedener ethnischer und soziooekonomischer Herkunftsgruppen hat. Die zweite Studie befasst sich mit dem Effekt der Aufloesung von Grundschulbezirken auf die ethnische Zusammensetzung in Grundschulen und der moeglichen Verstarkung ungunstiger Ausgangslagen an den Schulen. In der dritten Studie werden Moeglichkeiten der bedarfsgerechten Schulfinanzierung zur Berucksichtigung ungunstiger Ausgangslagen an Grundschulen diskutiert. Die Ergebnisse weisen auf vielfaltige Steuerungsmoeglichkeiten fur eine gerechte und effiziente Bildungspolitik hin.

Angesichts einer anhaltend hohen Arbeitslosigkeit setzt Deutschland betrachtliche finanzielle Mittel fur aktive Arbeitsmarktpolitik ein. Dies kontrastiert mit einem geringen Stand an uberprufbaren Wissen uber die Wirksamkeit und die Kosteneffizienz der einzelnen Massnahmen. Die Defizite lassen sich durch den begrenzten Datenzugang der akademischen Forschung wie durch unzureichende methodische Konzeptionen bei der Programmevaluation erklaren. Starkere Anstrengungen fur eine fundierte wissenschaftliche Evaluierung sind deshalb zwingend erforderlich. Deshalb analysiert dieses Buch die vorliegenden internationalen Erfahrungen mit aktiver Arbeitsmarktpolitik, die auf einem erheblich besseren Forschungsstand beruhen. Daraus werden Handlungsempfehlungen fur die deutsche Arbeitsmarktpolitik abgeleitet und ein Aktionsplan fur eine effektivere und effizientere neue Arbeitsmarktpolitik entwickelt."

In April 2005 a factory making sweaters for the European market collapsed like a pack of cards during the nightshift in Savar near Dhaka, Bangladesh. The circumstances of this disaster, which caused the deaths of 64 clothing workers and injured a further 84, proved to be a final straw for trade unionists and NGO activists who had long been concerned about the state of factory safety and the inadequacies of social protection in the Ready Made Garment industry in the South East Asian country. Last Nightshift in Savar presents a detailed account of the national and international campaign efforts to bring the owner and his multinational buyers to book. It is also an account of the emergence of two quite different but replicable buyer approaches to the provision of relief for workers in such calamitous circumstances, which hopefully sheds light on some of the contradictions of corporate social responsibility in the globalised economy in which we live today. Finally, it is the story of the efforts of the international trade union, and NGO movement and of two men, in particular, to drive home change in compensation for industrial injury and fatality in the less developed world.