Thursday, June 17, 2010

Online Degrees: 10 Brilliant Business Lessons We Can All Learn from Lady Gaga

10 Brilliant Business Lessons We Can All Learn from Lady Gaga

In the past two years, Lady Gaga and her other worldly image has transformed the entertainment business, inspired the fashion industry, topped music charts in the United States and in Europe, and won over — and influenced — the ears of everyone from Hollywood to middle American teenagers to young YouTube stars. How did she do it in such a short amount of time (and with so many initial critics?) Lady Gaga's a genius at marketing and branding, and if you're a business owner or just getting an online degree in a business field, you should really take a look at her business plan. Here are 10 brilliant business lessons we can all learn from Lady Gaga.

Go against the grain: During a time when club music basically meant party beats from Caribbean-bred hip-hop stars and pop music regularly crossed with country as well as it did with rock, Lady Gaga broke out onto the scene with European-style, electronica-mixed dance music that brought new energy to middle America, as well as East Coast and Hollywood venues. Once we got a look at her costumes and her over-the-top style, we knew she was bringing something different to the world of entertainment. Lady Gaga took a risk and was the subject of nasty criticism about her avant-garde image, but she kept people talking. And after everyone got used to seeing her performances, TV appearances and paparazzi shots, we all settled down a bit and appreciated that she had the guts to stand out and give us something new.
Create a distinguishable, recognizable brand: When video footage of Lady Gaga's NYU days surfaced, we couldn't believe that the brunette in a simple tube dress was the pantless, bleached blonde megastar who now greets the world in opaque sunglasses and wieldy head attachments and hair accessories. Whether she's photographed in the airport, leaving a club, or on stage at one of her own concerts, Lady Gaga is always done up in her unique style. She's a master at personal branding, and her crazy looks are just a part of the whole Gaga package. Her fashion choices have actually trickled into the mainstream and onto the red carpet, from her frosty lipstick to her bondage-style corsets to her glove fetish. If you're able to create an instantly recognizable image, your brand and your message will speak for itself and will travel much more quickly and effectively than if you have to use weighty explanations to reach customers.
Commit to your image 100%: Do you know how much time and effort it must take to get all dressed up like Lady Gaga every morning? It doesn't matter: the girl is 100% committed to her image, probably because she recognizes that it's her appearance that connects her to her fans. Never give up on your most basic mission and the values of your products or services; otherwise, your customers will become confused about what it is you're really trying to sell them.
Remain open to inspiration: Lady Gaga's got a sound that's totally hers, but she admits to being inspired by everyone from David Bowie and Queen to Michael Jackson and Madonna. In her music videos and costume choices, Gaga also references Marilyn Monroe, Courtney Love, and

Blogs | Alliance for Excellent Education

Alliance for Excellent Education Kicks Off Digital Media Strategy

Featuring New Blog, Facebook Page, and Twitter Account

Washington, DC – The Alliance for Excellent Education has launched a new blog as part of a comprehensive digital media effort. The blog, High School Soup, will cover news and policy information related to the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, theCommon Core State Standards Initiative, Race to the Top, teacher preparation, literacy, the nation’s lowest performing high schools, and a number of other issues tied to the Alliance’s mission.

“The Alliance is proud to have become one of the go-to-resources for high school policy information and we aim to share our wealth of knowledge with others so that we can all work together to help every child be a successful high school graduate,” said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance and former governor of West Virginia. “With this new blog we hope to provide up-to-date information on the challenges and opportunities facing today’s secondary schools in a way that is easy to understand and to-the-point.”

High School Soup is a collaborative effort among members of the Alliance staff and will feature analyses of policy issues, relevant news updates at the national and state levels, guest bloggers, interviews with policy and education experts, and videos and photographs from recent events and initiatives.

In addition to the launch of the new blog, the Alliance has also created a Facebook® page and a Twitter® account to better connect with its audiences.

· To read the Alliance’s blog, High School Soup, go to www.all4ed.org/blog.

· To become a fan of the Alliance’s Facebook® page, go to http://bit.ly/b2nUuH.

· To follow the Alliance on Twitter®, go to http://twitter.com/All4Ed.

“Through these efforts, the Alliance hopes to connect and interact with a much larger and more diverse audience in order to build support for federal high school reform and to work together for the betterment of all students,” said Wise. “We hope to generate a persistent two-way conversation and look forward to hearing our audiences’ questions, views, and feedback.”

Parents, city leaders face off on bullying - Baltimore Sun

Parents, city leaders face off on bullying

Hearing draws crowd of 200

June 16, 2010|By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun

More than 200 parents and community leaders showed up at a hearing on bullying, many of them pointing fingers at everyone from school administrators to City Council members for not effectively responding.

But before city school officials and the City Council's education committee heard testimony from the crowd, they made sure that parents didn't neglect to point a finger at themselves when it came to student behavior.

"This was not intended as a beat-up on the Baltimore City school system," City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young told parents at the meeting he called Wednesday night. "This was to figure out how to help the school system."

Young called on schools CEO Andrés Alonso and other school officials to address bullying and hear parent testimony after an April incident at Gilmor Elementary school in which a parent of a third-grader said her daughter threatened to kill herself and attempted to jump out of a window to escape bullies at Gilmor Elementary School. City school officials said the girl's teacher reported that the student only said she wanted to commit suicide.

Alonso held steadfast Wednesday to his initial response to the incident, that suspension — often the most desired response to bullying — was not the answer to combating bullying. He provided data that showed the schools system's suspension rate has dropped by more than half since 2004, which he correlated to an equally declining dropout rate.

"If you push them out of school, you push them to consequences in the future," Alonso said. "We are convinced that the outcomes are showing that the bottom line is that if we are keeping kids in school, we are successful," he

Mediocre National Standards No Answer To 'Curriculum Massacre' Down In Texas - IBD - Investors.com

Mediocre National Standards No Answer To 'Curriculum Massacre' Down In Texas

By BEN BOYCHUK Posted 06/16/2010 06:50 PM ET

A bipartisan group of governors and state school superintendents gathered in Georgia earlier this month to unveil the final draft of proposed national math and English curriculum frameworks.

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is the latest attempt to impose order on the supposed chaos wrought by 50 states and the District of Columbia having the freedom to choose their own curricula and tests.

On the surface a common standards approach sounds appealing — especially after last month's raucous vote by the Texas Board of Education to overhaul the state's history and social studies textbooks.

The end of that months-long political drama led many pundits and politicians to conclude that the best way to avoid such fiascoes is to embrace a national curriculum crafted by "experts" as opposed to elected "yahoos."

Nothing could be further from the truth. If we want all the politicking and controversial content of the Texas process but little of the transparency and none of the accountability to voters, a national curriculum is definitely the way to go.

The Common Core State Standards are the culmination of some 18 months of work, mostly

EducationNews.org Dispelling the Pew study Foster kids winners as grads

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June 17, 2010

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A test-score milestone for Phila. schools as NCLB has working!
6.17.10 - NCLB worked! Philadelphia public schools reached a new milestone this year - the majority of city students met state standards in reading and math for the first time since 2002, when Pennsylvania began administering tests under the No Child Left Behind law.

New York State to set new degree of difficulty after determining graduation requirements need overhaul
6.17.10 - "Right now, we are graduating kids with Regents diplomas who need to take remedial courses," Tisch said. "This is a joke. It's a game, and the game needs to come to an end."...

Dispelling the Pew study Foster kids winners as grads
6.17.10 - Not too long ago Sandra Jones wanted to be anywhere but in the home of foster mother Mary Stewart. Now, they have just celebrated Sandra's graduation from high school and full academic scholarship to Ohio State University. ...

Pupils aged five should be taught all about sex: Watchdog's instruction to schools
6.17.10 - Children as young as five should be taught about sex, the Government's controversial health watchdog said last night. ...

'iCollege' at $199 a class? Idea may appeal, but Pawlenty knows e-learning is neither cheap nor easy
"There's another way to deliver the service other than a one-size-fits-all monopoly provider that says show up at 9 o'clock on Wednesday morning for Econ 101," Pawlenty told Stewart.

Study: Majority of Institutions Receive Applications from Undocumented Students
In a survey released today, the National Association of College Admission Counseling reports that 60 percent of surveyed schools indicated that they had received college applications from undocumented students. ...

Colleges urged to use socioeconomic affirmative action
6.17.10 - Colleges and universities should adopt affirmative-action policies based on socioeconomic status

D.C. Schools Insider - Bill Turque chronicles Chancellor Michelle Rhee's effort to transform District public schools.

Mayoral politics slowing early childhood center?

Back in March, it looked like the pieces were in place for construction of a $12 million early-childhood education center in the Parkside neighborhood of Ward 7, financed by a philanthropy run by the daughter of billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

The Buffett Early Childhood Fund announced on March 23 that it hoped to break ground this summer on land adjacent to Neval Thomas Elementary School. All that remained was agreement on a land lease from the District, which Mayor Adrian M. Fenty was expected to send to the D.C. Council for approval within two weeks.

But in the nearly three months since, that lease has yet to make its way from the mayor's office to Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray. The Gray camp privately attributes the slow walk to primary politics, with Fenty loathe to facilitate anything that will make his opponent look good. Pre-K and early childhood issues are a political sweetspot for Gray, who has championed several initiatives on that front. And Ward 7 is his home turf.

Buffett Fund president Daniel J. Pedersen said politics are not in the picture, and that the project has been slowed up because the parcels of land next to Neval Thomas are owned by multiple government entities. "There are a lot of moving parts but not much remaining disagreement,"

Community-college transfer students in Va., Md., easing into university level Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.

Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.

Community-college transfer students in Va., Md., easing into university level Public universities in Virginia and Maryland are drawing unprecedented numbers of students from community colleges, building a transfer pipeline that is changing the traditional path to a four-year degree. Community college - Education - United ...

Banding together to realize their dreams Andrew Hawk had an interest in music that wouldn't go away. As a journalism teacher at Loudoun County High School, he gave in to his passion and found some unlikely partners to help launch his recording career: his students. dream - Social Sciences ...

How important are school gadgets?

Some educators wonder how much high-tech tools raise achievement.

The pain of graduation: 5-inch heels

After attending several graduation ceremonies and hearing wonderful uplifting messages about success, friendship, love and life, I carried away one overwhelming image: Girls tripping over their high-heeled shoes on their way to pick up their diplomas.

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How does your high school rank? Check the new Newsweek list

Any public high school that gave at least as many AP, IB or Cambridge tests in 2009 as it had seniors graduating that year qualifies for the 2010 Newsweek list. If your high school meets that criteria and you do not find it listed, email me at mathewsj@washpost.com.

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Senior Bertrand Ngampa gives a presentation on an interactive whiteboard at W.T. Woodson High in Fairfax County. (Dayna Smith/Post)

Weblogg-ed � The “G-Portfolio”

The “G-Portfolio”

by Will Richardson

As part of an piece I’ve been asked to write for Ed Leadership’s upcoming “Screenagers” issue, I’m looking for some input. Basically, the thesis of the piece is that we need to help our students use the Web as a way of showing not just what they know but what they can do with what they know. That we need to help them, in essence, create a “g-portfolio” so they are “Googled well” when future employers or potential collaborators et. al. go searching for their footprints online.
I’ve felt for a long time that my own kids will need to be consciously thinking about the online portfolio that they are building, but as they are getting older (11 and 13 next month) I’ve lately been trying to make that process and product more concrete in my own mind. I’m hoping this piece will help clarify a lot of my own thinking about the idea (something writing and blogging always has a tendency to do.)
Anyway, I thought I would reach out to see what others might think about a) the need for this, b) our role in

The Educated Guess � Steinberg bill remedies suit over layoffs

Steinberg bill remedies suit over layoffs

Posted in Equity issues, Tenure

Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg has introduced a bill directly responding to issues raised in a February lawsuit challenging the large-scale layoffs of teachers at three Los Angeles Unified middle schools and in low-performing schools elsewhere in California. Passage of SB 1285 could go a long way toward settling a serious suit with uncommon speed.
The bill would explicitly give superintendents and schools boards the authority to override teacher seniority rules in order to prevent disproportionate layoffs at any school. A federal judge ruled last month that districts already have this power under state law; they just don’t use it.

Because layoffs tend to cluster at low-performing schools serving minority children, where teachers tend to be less experienced, Steinberg’s bill specifically addresses those situations: Superintendents would have to ensure that the proportion of layoffs in their worst performing schools – those in the lowest three deciles statewide – did not exceed the average for their districts.
The lead attorneys who filed the lawsuit, Catherine Lhamon of Public Counsel Law Center and Mark Rosenbaum of the ACLU of Southern California, were by

A.C. school cafeteria workers serve only cheese sandwiches, again, after food fight | NJ.com

A.C. school cafeteria workers serve only cheese sandwiches, again, after food fight

By The Star-Ledger Continuous News Desk

June 17, 2010, 6:18AM

ATLANTIC CITY — Atlantic City High School cafeteria workers served only cheese sandwiches during one lunch period Wednesday as punishment for a food fight, at least the second time this has happened this year, a report in the Press of Atlantic City said. Workers warned students that Wednesday, today and Friday would see cheese sandwiches for the lunch period where... Full story »

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Seton Hall prepares another presidential search, names provost as interim president

By Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger

June 17, 2010, 5:15AM

SOUTH ORANGE — Seton Hall University will spend the next few weeks analyzing what went wrong with its failed presidential search and preparing for a second shot at finding another leader, school officials said Wednesday. The appointment of an interim president — Seton Hall University provost A. Gabriel Esteban — for a one-year term means the Catholic university will... Full story »

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Low-performing N.J. schools with reform plans get $45M in federal grants

By Star-Ledger Staff

June 16, 2010, 9:45PM

Seven out of 12 schools selected have plan that replaces principal, extends school day, boosts teacher training Full story »

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Blog U. - Inside Higher Ed Long Distance Mom: Tweets

Blog U. - Inside Higher Ed

Long Distance Mom: Tweets
By Elizabeth Coffman June 17, 2010 8:02 am

For the next few weeks my two teenagers are with their dad and my contact with them is primarily digital. Unfortunately, I can't get Nick or Katie interested in ‘Skype-ing’ with me except when we 'chat’ virtually with their cousins who live in England. We take turns walking laptops around our houses, pointing them at children lounging in bed, or aiming it at the new pet — delighted with our free international communication. I love seeing that my sister’s house is messier than mine…
My teens favor different forms of twenty-first century communication. Nick is a Facebook addict, even though he scoffs at it on occasion. (I occasionally catch him online at 1 AM since he let me be his Facebook ‘friend'...) Katie is a cell phone texter. She once had to reimburse me $80 for going over our cell phone texting limit.
The digital world lessens the impact of my commuting life style, helping me feel a little more 'in touch' with my teenagers. But I have my digital limits, since using technology to communicate reminds me of how much I miss being physically near my children. Despite my technical weariness, though, today I got trained by digital journalist J. A. Ginsburg on how to use Twitter. I am finishing a seven-year documentary project on southern Louisiana and

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