How the Death Penalty Effects Family Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

How the Death Penalty Effects Family - Essay Example It is at this point that family members become devastated, hopeless, and left with the feeling of not being in a position of control to eradicate the sentence. Generally speaking when there is a death involved, the people that stay behind are the ones that suffer and morn. They are the ones that maintain the sense of, if I could have done more and what if? They are the ones that need professional help during the justice process, in this case, during the time of sentencing, and after the criminal’s departure. It is an even more a complex situation when inmates are innocent and placed on death row. In some cases they have been placed on death row and because their lawyers could not find the way to defend them or because of a lack of economy, they were put to death. It is even more detrimental when the family members of the convicted have to turn him/her in, to the authorities and when the family members are misled by the authorities in giving information on how the trial will be handled. This is the case of the Unabomber family members. They were told that Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, would be treated from a humanistic point of view since he suffered schizophrenia, a mental illness. It was handled in this way only until his arrest. When he was arrested all officials looking into the case and wanted a person identified of these actions arrested, changed their modus operandi. They were no longer the humanistic types of persons who proceeded with the case. The focus of the Justice Department was refocused, â€Å"†¦on the goal of taking a human life† (Kaczynski, 2007). Ted ´s family questioned the prosecutors ´ in change of continuing the case, given another set of rules. They were overwhelmed about this turn around. Kaczynski (2007) thought of the ramifications of this change of thought from the Prosecutors ´ office and how this would discourage other families in following Ted’s family example

Race to the Top Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Race to the Top - Research Paper Example The assessment was supposed to be common for everyone throughout the state for purposes of uniformity. Disabled students were considered so they could also participate in the program. Those with the language barrier especially in English were given special accommodations. The program was meant to measure certain standards that previous programs could not. The main aim was to make scoring uniform so that colleges could use the same results for placement purposes. The discussions of the pros and cons of that program are meant to help us decide on whether the program was effective or not. Cons The first issue is that the program applies the use of multiple-choice questions in their assessment. In as much as such kind of questions reduce subjectivity when marking and scoring, they have been shown to narrow the curriculum. In addition to this, scanty reading and guesswork is highly used when answering such questions leading to untrue scores. It is impossible to tell what a student knows a nd what concepts were never understood. There was the introduction of performance tests in the 1990’s to help improve on the programs. These kinds of assessment included doing practical work, science experiments and extended essays, which enabled the student to apply theory into practice. This was to be seen as a success, but a problem arose in reliability of the scores; score results in some places could not be used to make any important inference. The tests were made of fewer questions and this meant that the area covered was not as extensive as any test should. The seriousness of the validity of performance tests was so vast that by 2002, only a few such kind of tests were given. Seeing all these disadvantages, the federal funding decided increase the number of tests and instead use a range different types of assessments. Nevertheless, this would increase the total cost of developing the tests and even scoring. It was also seen that teachers are forced to pull out of schoo l to score the tests and the inability of such teachers to engage in other activities that foster professional development. Teachers are bound to learn more during their first scoring exercise but this would change over time because of the teacher’s knowledge that scores are compared. In as much as there is professional improvement in instructions given to class, it is very hard for a teacher to change instructions that will cater for the unique needs of each student. In cases where a student was required to express what they know like in performance tests, language and inability to write essays was a hindrance to the accomplishment of many students. Apparently, only valid test scores can be used to make inferences, valid tests are those that give the same result if issued to the same group for a second time. However, such scores cannot be used to test teacher and principal quality because they do not directly do so. This may seem like very small areas but in terms of test re liability and validity, a problem in a small area is bound to make the whole test insignificant. Pros In order to know if an assessment system works, it is important to subject it to rigorous effectiveness exercises. Also for validity, it is important to make tests uniform and to standardize the conditions under which every test is given (Dietel 4). This kind of system enabled educators to perform the two exercises