This book was fantastic! The first part of the book was just pure reassurance that you'll do well and that you know a lot more than you think you do... How empowering and encouraging! The author gives many hints, tips and ways of remembering things and to top it off... The book comes with a disk to test yourself on the computer!

Fiscal Equalization for State and Local Government Finance. Edited by John E. Anderson. Westport, CN: Praeger Press, 1994. 207 pp.

In California, and most of the United States, the most salient public policy issue is concern over the quality of K-12 public education. Even so, there exists an ideological schism over what is the preferred course of reform. Politically conservative, and now popular, reforms involve injecting a dose of competitive choice into public schools. The reforms that are still favored by the politically liberal, but less by the public, are greater resources applied to public schools and the greater equalization of per-student spending across school districts. Professor Anderson's edited volume is devoted to a description and analysis of this second set of public school reforms; in particular, the equalization of local resources available to U.S. school districts. Since the changes necessary to improve the quality of U.S. public schools likely involve some mixture of the two types of reforms (competitive and fiscal), this 1994 book remains contemporary.

Fiscal equalization is the process through which state government reduces disparities in revenue sources used by local governments. Disparities in local revenue sources impact the quality of public school production in the U.S. because poor school districts must exert a greater tax effort (which they usually do not) to maintain the same level of per-student spending as a wealth district. For public schooling, the desired outcomes of fiscal equalization are a reduction in per-pupil spending differences across districts and a possible increase in average per-pupil spending.

In early 1993, with the support of the National Tax Association and the National Council of State Legislators, a group of academic authors and public policy practitioners gathered in Denver to discuss the seven papers that are included in this book. To bridge the usual gap between scholars and policymakers, the practitioners offered comments that have been incorporated into all the papers through a vigorous review process that was supervised by Anderson. The success of this editing process is evident throughout the book. Unlike many volumes of this type, the papers strike a nice balance between the requisite economic theory and statistical methodology, and the lucidity required for accessibility by the policymaker. Anderson should also be complimented on his choice of authors. The ten scholars included in this work are among the most well respected experts in state and local finance in the U.S.

All in all, this monograph of seven different papers is useful to all those interested in an accessible review of current academic thought on fiscal equalization. The papers offer valuable insights on how best to go about improving the quality of K-12 public education in the United States through a more equal distribution of resources across school districts. We can hope that books like this help the public and policymaker to see that such reforms are just as important as the now populist choices of charter schools and vouchers.

Hey, parents if you want to teach your child to read introduce them to all the Rocket Readers books. Their reading skills will really take off. These are Bible-based supplemental readers that will help children learn all the essential skills of beginning reading. These are very simple and they come with tips for the parents to teach their child to read. Each set comes with 5 books. There are 5 reading levels: Pre-level 1, for new readers teaches rhyming and alphabet; Level 1 teaches alphabet sounds and beginning sight words; Level 2 teaches letter combinations, phonic skills, consonant blends, common vowel combinations and more sight words; Level 3 teaches fluency, common endings, more sight words recognition, responding to a story by creating and begin writing skills; Level 4 teaches comprehension, prediction and summary of facts, with more writing skills create a short written response to the reading piece. This set teaches children digraphs of the consonants ch, sh, th, wh (stories of Jesus feeding the people with 5 loaves and 2 fishes, Jesus' miracle of the Fish, Jesus loves the children, Jacob & Esau) and silent e (story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace). Garanteed that you child will love Rocket Readers they will want to read them all. I also recommend 'Jesus' Friends' (New Testament) and the 'Learn-To-Read Bible.'

Ok, so it's been almost 20 years since I read the book.... twice. I found it quite amusing and entertaining even though it didn't fit my standard genre of Alfred Hitchcock & the 3 investigators or Astronomy books. It was one of my absolute favorite fiction books, and the reason I looked it up now on Amazon is because my wife, a teacher, had never heard of it. I guess some great works are just obscure. Too bad.

As well as being a good overall book covering many traditional wireless topics, this book also offers detailed information on several subjects like propagation databases (terrain, buildings, etc), traffic loading models for cell sectors and spectrum utlization that are not found in any other books I've seen on wireless engineering. Other books I have on propagation modeling (like Rappaport's or Bertoni's) don't treat the subject of database construction and potential errors. This book also brings together traditional microwave link design (rain fades,etc.) with design of multipoint systems using new CDMA and OFDM technologies - again, not found together in other books. Even the stuff of WiFi is useful, but I would have liked more included on this subject. Highly recommended if you're involved in fixed wireless design.

This book contains two novellas from Poul Andersons classic series of stories detailing the 'future history' of Technic Civilization and the Terran Empire. Set in a period of this culture's decay, Dominic Flandry, Intellegence Agent of the Imperial Navy, battles to hold off the Long Night (collapse of civilization) by defeating both external and internal enemies of the Empire. Poul Anderson is a master of blending historical allegory, political intrigue, and action/adventure in a beautifully crafted science fiction universe. The Flandry series displays a strange wistfulness, as the protagonist is certain that even his resounding victories can only prolong the inevitable destruction of his civilization and culture.

A Circus of Hells (1970) takes Flandry on adventures with a frontier world's criminal underworld, a lost planet overrun by machines controlled by a self-aware supercomputer, to a planet whose severe climatic changes have produced two interdependent, but aloof sentient races. Flandry even tangles with the Mersians, an bipedal mammalian race resembling humanoid dinosaurs, that vie with humans for mastery of the galaxy.

The Rebel Worlds (1969) pits Flandry against a corrupt sector governor and rebellious fleet admiral attempting to dismember the Terran Empire. The story carries all the poignancy of a civil war, in which neither side is wholly in the right.

I must say, I was pretty taken by this book. It's a great book, there's a lot of great humor and the small amounts of suspense are great. Congratulations on a job well done, Dean!

I have read this book several times and I always find it encouraging, empowering, and uplifting. The authors interview many women who have given up on, lost, or never sought the traditional route of husband-and-2.3 children. In spite of societal pressures and expectations, these women lead happy, fulfilling, satisfied lives. Some have found ways to have children and/or a significant other in their lives without the framework of a traditional marriage, and some have not -- but none of them have become the bitter, twisted "spinsters" our society would seem to expect them to be. I found this book to be an inspiration, and I think ALL women should read it; even if you're not "flying solo" now, you might find yourself doing so at some point in the future. This book can show you how to do it -- and even how to enjoy it!

First presented in the 1950s, yet just as relevant today, Forgotten Fires: Native Americans And The Transient Wilderness by Omer C. Stewart dispels the longstanding cultural myth that Native American communities had no impact on the natural environment surrounding them. Taking a close look at the effects Native American civilization had upon nature's ability to incorporate them into the ecosystem, with an especial eye toward how some regularly used fires to manage plant and animal communities through localized habitat burning, Forgotten Fires is a thoughtful study about mankind's true interaction with the environment, presenting straightforward facts instead of romanticized legend. This highly recommended edition for Native American Studies and Environmental History reference shelves and reading lists has been collaboratively edited by Henry T. Lewis and M. Kat Anderson for the contemporary reader.

A detailed but highly readable study of the largest and strongest interior fortification guarding the Confederacy's last major seaport of Wilmington, North Carolina. An imposing earthen bastion, Fort Anderson was the scene of a massive two-day Union naval bombardment and ground assault in late February 1865. The fort's fall sealed Wilmington's doom. More than a military campaign study, Fort Anderson: Battle for Wilmington examines the history of the fort's location from its halcyon days as North Carolina's leading colonial port of Brunswick to its beginnings as a Confederate fortification in 1862 and its fall to Union forces three years later. The fort also had several eerie connections to President Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Today the fort is part of the tranquil Brunswick Town State Historic Site. Fort Anderson: Battle for Wilmington is liberally illustrated with maps and illustrations, including many previously unpublished soldiers' images. It also contains an order of battle, endnotes, bibliography and index.