QUESTION.

1. Define Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (include the definitions of curriculum versus standards).

2. State the concern that you chose (written below) and then decide if the concern is valid or not. Give your rationales and references for your stance.

The Common Core can't speed up child development

Recent evaluations of the state's preschoolers have determined that only 47 percent are ready for kindergarten, compared to 83 percent judged ready last year. This drastic drop isn't the result of an abrupt, catastrophic decline in the cognitive abilities of our children. Instead, it results from a re-definition of kindergarten readiness, which now means being able to succeed academically at a level far beyond anything expected in the past. For example, a child entering kindergarten is now expected to know the difference between informative/explanatory writing and opinion writing. The concern is that preschoolers without that knowledge will not succeed at meeting the new higher-level Common-Core standards. However, I think a more pressing concern is: Why do we have educational standards that are not aligned with even the most basic facts of human development? Clearly these test results show that the problem is with the standards, not the children.

Educational attainment is part of human development, and fundamentally this is a biological process that cannot be sped up. We cannot wish away our biological limitations because we find them inconvenient. Children will learn crawling, walking, listening, talking and toilet training, all in succession at developmentally appropriate ages. Once in school, for skills that require performing a physical task, that are in what Bloom's Taxonomy classifies as the "psychomotor domain," it is understood that children will only learn when they are physically and developmentally ready. No one expects four-year olds to type fluently on a computer keyboard, play difficult Chopin Etudes on the piano, prepare elaborate meals in the kitchen or drive a car.

However, for skills in what Bloom calls the "cognitive domain," the school curriculum has become blind not only to the progression of normal child development but also to natural variations in the rate that children develop. It is now expected that pre-school children should be able to grasp sophisticated concepts in mathematics and written language. In addition, it is expected that all children should be at the same cognitive level when they enter kindergarten, and proceed through the entire grade-school curriculum in lock step with one another. People, who think that all children can learn in unison, have obviously never worked with special needs children or the gifted and talented.

Demanding that children be taught to developmentally inappropriate standards for language and math comprehension is not a harmless experiment. This exercise in futility wastes the time of teachers and students and unethically sets all of them up to fail. It exacerbates the very problems that the new curriculum is supposed to fix. It leaves boys, whose verbal development for biological reasons already lags behind girls, even further behind and will accelerate the trend of fewer boys going on to college. Even today boys only make up about 40 percent of college students nationwide and their numbers will continue to dwindle.

The new curriculum standards and testing regimens are motivated by a well-intentioned desire to close achievements gaps that exist between the various socio-economic and ethnic and racial groups. There is a belief that by demanding that all children meet a set of rigid and arbitrarily high academic standards, achievement gaps can be closed and economic opportunities increased for all. The apparent reasoning is that if all children receive the same education and are held to the same academic standards, then all children will have equal opportunity to succeed as adults.

However, addressing pervasive economic inequality by pretending that in an ideal world all children should be alike isn't a solution. The inequalities that plague our society are inherent in the structure of our political and economic systems. A new curriculum will not change the underlying pathologies corrupting these structures. It is a mistake to conflate unjust economic inequalities that arise from our broken political and economic systems with normal differences in abilities and dispositions among people that arise from being human. If all barriers to inequality were broken down, people would still be different from one another and normal human development would still unfold.

Education should be about helping each child, regardless of background or academic readiness, achieve his or her full, unique potential as a human being. It should instill not just academics but also physical, emotional and social skills, which are also essential for making meaningful contributions to the well being of our families, communities and the economy. Differences between people that arise across all skill sets and educational domains are an inherent and valued part of the human experience that should be celebrated in school, not erased.

The firm Monster is planning to acquire Angel, another firm in the same industry. Relevant financial information for the two firms is shown below.

Monster: Price per share 4.50 . Number of shares 28,000,000 Dividend payout ratio 0.65

Angel: Price per share 1.90. Number of shares 10,500,000. Dividend payout ratio 0.20

Both firms are financed entirely by equity. The acquisition will result in expected cost savings for the merged (post-acquisition) firm with a total present value of $38 million.

(a) Assume for this part of the question that Monster’s shares are valued at $4.50 each. How many new shares would Monster issue to Angel's shareholders in exchange for the whole 10.5 million of Angel's shares? What is the total value and price per share of the merged firm? Should Monster pay for the acquisition on this basis? Explain briefly.

Assume now that Monster's shareholders will agree to the acquisition for a premium of $4.05 million

(b) What is the minimum number of shares Monster should offer, such that Angel's shareholders will participate in the acquisition?

(c) Assume Monster decides to acquire Angel by issuing the minimum number of shares as in part (b). In the first year the total earnings of the merged firm will be $15.87 million. Monster's dividend payout ratio will be maintained in the merged firm. What change in dividend payment will a former Angel shareholder get in the first year of the merged firm, if they had 1000 shares in Angel before the acquisition?

Intro to Python

I'm getting trouble obtaining the solution for the following questions:

"How many babies were born with names starting with that least-common letter?" For the file used it is "U"

"How many babies were born with names starting with that-common letter"? For the file used it is "A"

"How many people have that name?" (This follows the question "By default, the Social Security Administration's data separates out names by gender. For example, Jamie is listed separately for girls and for boys. If you were to remove this separation, what would be the most common name in the 2010s regardless of gender?" And the file I used it is "Isabella")

"What name that is used for both genders has the smallest difference in which gender holds the name most frequently? In case of a tie, enter any one of the correct answers."

This is the problem:

#-----------------------------------------------------------
#The United States Social Security Administration publishes
#a list of all documented baby names each year, along with
#how often each name was used for boys and for girls. The
#list is used to see what names are most common in a given
#year.
#
#We've grabbed that data for any name used more than 25
#times, and provided it to you in a file called
#babynames.csv. The line below will open the file:

names_file = open('../resource/lib/public/babynames.csv', 'r')

#We've also provided a sample subset of the data in
#sample.csv.
#
#Each line of the file has three values, separated by
#commas. The first value is the name; the second value is
#the number of times the name was given in the 2010s (so
#far); and the third value is whether that count
#corresponds to girls or boys. Note that if a name is
#given to both girls and boys, it is listed twice: for
#example, so far in the 2010s, the name Jamie has been
#given to 611 boys and 1545 girls.
#
#Use this dataset to answer the questions below.

#Here, add any code you want to allow you to answer the
#questions asked below over on edX. This is just a sandbox
#for you to explore the dataset: nothing is required for
#submission here.

//

This is the format of the file but this is not file the problem is based on:

Isabella,42567,Girl
Sophia,42261,Girl
Jacob,42164,Boy
Emma,35951,Girl
Ethan,34523,Boy
Mason,34195,Boy
William,34130,Boy
Olivia,34128,Girl
Jayden,33962,Boy
Ava,30765,Girl

I found the solution and it's this:

baby_list=[]

for line in names_file:
line=line.strip().split(",")
name=line[0]
count=int(line[1])
gender=line[2]
baby_list.append([name,count,gender])

#How many total names are listed in the database?
print('Total names:',len(baby_list))

#How many total births are covered by the names in the database?
births=0
for data in baby_list:
births=births+data[1]

print('total births:',births)

#How many different boys' names are there that begin with the letter Z?
#(Count the names, not the people.)
names_with_z=0
for data in baby_list:
if data[0][0]=='Z' and data[2]=='Boy':
names_with_z=names_with_z+1

print('Different boys names are there that begin with the letter Z:',names_with_z)

#What is the most common girl's name that begins with the letter Q?
names_with_Q=0
for data in baby_list:
if data[0][0]=='Q' and data[2]=='Girl' and data[1]> names_with_Q:
girl_name=data[0]
names_with_Q=data[1]

print('The most common girl\'s name that begins with the letter Q:',names_with_Q)

#How many total babies were given names that both start and end with vowels (A, E, I, O, or U)?
vowels='AEIOUaeiou'
total_names=0
for data in baby_list:
if data[0][0] in vowels and data[0][-1] in vowels:
total_names=total_names+ data[1]

print('The total babies were given names that both start and end with vowels(A,E,I,O,or U):'\
,total_names)

#Here, add any code you want to allow you to answer the
#questions asked below over on edX. This is just a sandbox
#for you to explore the dataset: nothing is required for
#submission here.

#What letter is the least common first letter of a baby's name
name_list = {}
for i in range(len(baby_list)):
fl = list(baby_list[i][0])[0]
if fl not in name_list.keys():
name_list[fl] = 1
else:
name_list[fl] = int(name_list[fl]) + 1
#What letter is the least common first letter of a baby's name
leastKey = 9999
mostKey = 0
least=''
most=''
print(name_list.keys())
for key in name_list.keys():
if name_list[key] < leastKey:
least = key
leastKey = name_list[key]
if name_list[key] > mostKey:
most = key
mostKey = name_list[key]
print('\nThe letter is the least common first letter of a baby\'s name is: ',least)
#How many babies were born with names starting with that least-common letter?
print('\nNumber of babie names starting with that least-common letter',name_list[least])
#What letter is the most common first letter of a baby's name
print("\nThe letter is the most common first letter of a baby's name is: ",most)
#How many babies were born with names starting with that most-common letter?
print('\nNumber of babie names starting with that most-common letter: ',name_list[most])

'''
#By default, the Social Security Administration's data separates out names by gender.
#For example, Jamie is listed separately for girls and for boys.
#If you were to remove this separation, what would be the most common name
in the 2010s regardless of gender?
'''
name_list = {}
for i in range(len(baby_list)):
name = baby_list[i][0]
ctr = baby_list[i][1]
gndr = baby_list[i][2]
if name in name_list.keys():
name_list[name] = int(name_list[name]) + 1
else:
name_list[name] = 1
mostKey = 0
most=''
for key in name_list.keys():
if name_list[key] > mostKey:
most = key
mostKey = name_list[key]
print('\nThe most common name in the 2010s regardless of gender: ',most)

#How many people would have that name?
print('\nThe number of people have most common name regardless of gender: ',mostKey)

'''
What name that is used for both genders has the smallest difference in
which gender holds the name most frequently? In case of a tie,
enter any one of the correct answers.
'''
mini = name_list[most]
name_list = {}
for i in range(len(baby_list)):
name = baby_list[i][0]
ctr = baby_list[i][1]
gndr = baby_list[i][2]
if name in name_list.keys() and gndr != name_list[name][1]:
name_list[name] = [int(name_list[name][0]) -1, gndr, 1]
else:
name_list[name] = [1, gndr, 0]

for x in name_list.keys():
if name_list[x][2] == 1 and name_list[x][0] < mini:
mini = name_list[x][0]
nme = x
print('Name that is used for both genders has the smallest difference: ',x)

Sam works at the Regional Conservatorium. She wonders how many people in the town are aware that there is a Conservatorium in the town since it is hidden down a driveway off a side street of the CBD. Sam is quite busy, so she employed one of her high-school aged students to undertake a survey of the town’s population of 20,000 people. The student surveyed 110 people over a 3-hour period. Of those surveyed, 78 people indicated that they did indeed know there was a Conservatorium in the town. b. Based upon this sample, determine a 95% confidence interval estimate for the proportion of the population who know about the Conservatorium.

0. We Merged...Now What?

   Earlier this month, your company, a running equipment designer and manufacturer called Runners Paradise, merged with a smaller clothing design company called ActiveLeak. Your company initiated the buyout because of the excellent design team at ActiveLeak and their brand recognition, specifically for their MP3-integrated running shorts. Runners Paradise has thirty-five employees and ActiveLeak has ten employees. At ActiveLeak, the owner, who often was too busy doing other tasks, handled the HRM roles. As a result, ActiveLeak has no strategic plan, and you are wondering if you should develop a strategic plan, given this change. Here are the things you have accomplished so far:

   • Reviewed compensation and adjusted salaries for the sake of fairness. Communicated this to all affected employees.

   • Developed job requirements for current and new jobs.

   • Had each old and new employee fill out a skills inventory Excel document, which has been merged into a database.

Questions:

1. Determine human resource needs.

2. Determine the recruiting strategy.

3. Select employees.

52

A diet high in potassium appears to protect teenagers from high blood pressure in adulthood, while a low-salt diet has no effect, according to new research. A new study tracked the eating habits and blood pressure of 2,185 nine and ten year-old girls for almost 10 years. The study found that sodium intake had no long-term effect on the girls’ blood pressure. However, they did find that girls who ate diets high in potassium throughout adolescence had lower blood pressure than girls who ate fewer potassium-rich foods.

If the researchers wanted to compare blood pressure for the sample of girls across two different time periods, which statistical test would they use?

a.

Dependent t-test

b.

Independent t-test

c.

One-sample t-test

d.

One-sample z-test

e.

One-way ANOVA test

f.

Pearson correlation test

Create a new public static method called ‘isLatinSquare’ that passes in a two-dimensional array.  This new method will return ‘true’ if the passed array is a Latin Square. ** SHOULD only be 1 or 2 lines of code

A new roller coaster at an amusement park requires individuals to be at least​ 4' 8"

​(56 inches) tall to ride. It is estimated that the heights of​ 10-year-old boys are normally distributed with

mu equals μ=55.0 inches and sigma equals σ=4 inches.

a. What proportion of​ 10-year-old boys is tall enough to ride the​ coaster?

b. A smaller coaster has a height requirement of

50 inches to ride. What proportion of​ 10-year-old boys is tall enough to ride this​ coaster?

c. What proportion of​ 10-year-old boys is tall enough to ride the coaster in part b but not tall enough to ride the coaster in part​ a?

3. A parenting magazine reports that the mean number of phone calls that teenage girls make per
night is at least four (4). For a science fair project, a student sets out to prove the magazine
wrong. The student claims that the average number of phone calls that teenage girls in their
area make is less than four. The student collects information from a simple random sample
of 25 teenage girls from their high school, and calculates a mean of 3.4 calls per night with a
sample standard deviation of 0.9 calls per night. Test the student’s claim at the 0.01 level of
significance.
(a) (3 points) State the null and alternative hypotheses H0 and Ha.
(b) (2 points) Identify which distribution to use for the test statistic. If applicable, calculate
the number df of degrees of freedom; if not applicable, then say so.
(c) (2 points) Compute the value of the test statistic z, t, or χ
2
.
(d) (2 points) Compute the p-value associated to the test statistic.
(e) (1 point) Choose whether or not to reject the null hypothesis H0.

4. (3 points) A new whitening toothpaste advertises that it whitens teeth up to three shades
whiter. The product has been so successful that the company wants to change its slogan to say
“more than three shades whiter”. Before changing the slogan, the company’s executives want
to test this new claim with an hypothesis test. According to the sample that they obtained,
the decision is to reject the null hypothesis. If, in reality, the mean number of shades that the
toothpaste whitens teeth is three shades whiter, was an error made in the hypothesis testing
process? If so, of which type?

Your company has decided to award a prize to a high school learner in your
town for the best essay on peace. Write a press release of about 150 words to
announce this competition and to give information about the rules. 25 marks