Introduction
Nowadays, people have a wonderful opportunity to find any kind of information online. People can go shopping online, meet friends, and even get an education with the help of the Internet. Education, business, marketing, food technology – any of these spheres are highlighted on the pages of web sites. Online users can also easily find information about any university or college and read about certain changes and innovations.
The Michigan Department of Education website (www.michigan.gov/mde/ ) is a good source of information for those, who want to know everything about education, teaching, graduation requirements, new educative programs, and curriculums in Michigan. When the reader enters the web site of the Michigan Department of Education (MDE), he/she faces a list of current topics, which are renewed almost every day. The reader gets an opportunity to learn more about the innovations and changes within the educational system, enlarge his/her level of knowledge, and inform the other friends of his/hers. Nowadays, education is one of the most complex worlds for any person.
Education has lots of influential factors, variables, and problems. Education is one of the most important missions of any university in America. The university plays a crucial role because it helps and teaches each generation to understand themselves and the values of life better. (Duderstadt, 2000) The Michigan Department of Education website is one of those websites, which provide visitors with different types of school data, which help to solve the educational problems of different levels, for example, the ability to get benefits at any level of education, its difficulties, and consequences.
Michigan State Department of Education
Even if a person has no concrete questions to ask but get some general information only, this site of the Michigan Department of Education will be rather interesting and helpful. During the first meeting of the visitor with the website of the Michigan Department of Education, he/she gets a wonderful chance to read urgent topics to be aware of the changes in the educational system and possible benefits for students and their families.
Such awareness helps to become informed about the educational policies even if a person was not involved in education for several ages. At the beginning of April, one of the current news was the signing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) by President Obama on February 17, 2009. That act provided people (children and grown-ups) with the opportunity to save jobs and get post-secondary education for the students of Michigan and the whole nation.
From the left side of the Michigan Department of Education home page, readers can find reliable information about State Board of Education, Offices, Programs, News & Publications, Curriculum & Instruction, Parents & Families, Grants, and Assessment and Accountability. (The state of Michigan, 2009) For example, readers go to the page Programs. This page consists of several chapters: Early Childhood, Education Recognition, Grants, School Health & Nutrition, and so on.
After the reader clicks on any of these programs, he/she can find reliable facts and contact information. Stepping into Early Childhood Program, The Michigan After-School Partnership, the reader faces a picture of the directors of this program holding their honors. Below, the history and missions of this program are presented. It is pointed out that the objectives of The Michigan After-School Partnership were identified in 2003, and are valid till now.
Almost at the bottom of the home page of the Michigan Department of Education web site, there is a list of several services online. They are School Report Cards, Teacher Certification Verification, Supplemental Educational Services, and some others. After the reader clicks on any of the above-mentioned references, he/she may learn more about these services and find out their benefits. The Michigan Department of Education determines Adequate Yearly Progress (also known as AYP) for different types of schools every year.
Supplement Educational Services are defined as small groups and tutoring after/before school to improve students’ knowledge about one or several subjects. Such an opportunity is possible because of the No Child Left Behind requirements. Visitors can find more about this very program after they click the link called Supplement Educational Services.
Available information about School Administration will be certainly interesting to lots of visitors. Here, the visitor can read the facts, which are In The Spotlight, find out the necessary Reports and Statistics, read more about Technology for Education, and use others Resources & Related Info.
This and lots of other school data is available at the Michigan Department of Education web site. Any time, a person, both a student and a parent, can visit this website and find the necessary information that is always up to date. The authors of this web site try to present reliable information, and the section called FAQ, presented on the top of the home page helps to be aware of the most current problems of modern students and their families. In this link, people may ask questions of different types and get the necessary answers personally.
One of the most burning questions, any student and their parents may have, is the possibility to get benefits before, during, and after their education. The Michigan Department of Education web site helps to solve the problem of benefits and provides interesting information on various issues. There are certain difficulties with quantifying benefits: impossibility to measure the benefits, presence of external benefits, and the connection between outputs and inputs of educational benefits. There is no concrete definition of what good education means, this is why it is not very easy to measure educational outputs. Test scores do not take into account the technical skills and personal abilities, so, they can hardly be called perfect.
The information, presented on the Michigan Department of Education website, helps to get a clear understanding of what measures may be taken to increase students’ involvement in education and what benefits they may get. For example, the Michigan School Report Card helps students analyze the educational system of their school using comparison with the other school policies. The section of Assessment and Accountability presents several programs, which help to learn outcomes of all students (Michigan’s Grade Level Content Expectation) and provide students with the necessary scholarship (Michigan’s Promise Scholarship).
To solve the problem of educational benefits, it is also necessary to analyze the achievements of students from different states and clear up what promotes students to be drawn into education. An excellent education should have certain benefits not only for students themselves and their families but also for taxpayers and society in general. If education is not perfect, it brings to possible costs in healthcare and even the criminal sphere. This is why it is crucially important to analyze the problem from different perspectives and find out its causes and consequences. Only such a way of analysis will help to present a clear solution to the problem.
Conclusion
People have to think about their education to live and earn for living. This is significant for themselves as well as for the society they live in. The problem of education touches upon lots of people both children and grown-ups. When the time to choose an appropriate school/college/university comes, people usually try to take into consideration various aspects: the possibility to get a scholarship and other educational benefits, the opportunity to use reliable sources of information, and be sure of a future job. To provide entrants and their families with such kind of information, numerous state department of education web sites are created.
One such online source is the web site of the Michigan Department of Education. It is not very difficult to use this site and find all the necessary school data for either children or their parents. The creators of this online source took into consideration lots of necessary issues. On the home page of the site, the reader can easily find current topics and learn the innovations, which are characterized by this educational institution. Most requested topics are isolated into a violet frame, so that a newcomer may pay attention to the issues, which are interesting to the vast majority of people. With the help of such websites, people facilitate their searching and make the right choice for their children further education.
Reference List
Duderstadt, J. J. (2000). A University for the 21st Century. Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
Michigan After-School Partnership. (2009). The Copyright State of Michigan. Web.
Michigan School Report Card. (2009). The Copyright State of Michigan. Web.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. (2009). The Copyright State of Michigan. Web.