United States Department of Labor , Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Education - Alex Siber

Alex Siber
Political Science
1/14/12

The Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services  

The United States Department of Labor

The United States Department of Labor protects and lobbies for the security and wellbeing of job seekers, wage earners, and those who have retired in this country. The Department of Labor aims to improve working conditions for many different jobs across a variation of different industries, thus meaning regulation, inspection, and reinforcement of numerous laws. Furthermore, the Department of Labor assists employers in hiring workers, and tracks changes in national employment, national prices, as well as other economic measures such as the calculation of GDP. The Secretary of Labor is responsible for overseeing the efficient and successful completion of the aforementioned objectives for the Department. The Secretary of Labor and his or her office is also responsible for protecting retirement and healthcare benefits, and protects the ability of labor unions to collectively operate without extreme backlash from corporations. The Department of Labor is responsible for implementing labor laws to enforce these objectives, including minimum hourly wages and overtime pay, freedom from employment discrimination, and income support. The Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, recently resigned, and President Obama has yet to name her replacement.

The United States Department of Health and Human Services

The Department of Health and Human Services is in charge of protecting the general health of all American citizens, and provides basic human health services for those who are disabled, impoverished, etc. The Department of Health and Human Services is the source of more grant money than all other federal agencies combined, and is responsible for Medicare, the largest health insurer in the United States. Such programs are further run on a local and state level, either through local agencies or private sector grantees. These programs are overseen by eleven divisions, eight of which making up the Public Health Service, with the other three serving as human services agencies. These agencies are responsible for overseeing a total of 300 individual programs. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is currently Kathleen Sebelius.

Presidential Cabinets: Ricky Mariscal

Ricky Mariscal

Agriculture: 

The US Department of Agriculture is primarily responsible for maintaining and regulating the agricultural markets. It works to protect agricultural lands in order to enhance the amount of crops farmers produce, and helps to develop and protect farmland in the US. The department provides financial assistance to farmers through credit programs, and helps farmers by regulating and assisting the agricultural market. In addition to these duties, the Secretary of Agriculture is also tasked with regulating the food and drug industries, in order to verify that said products are safe for American consumers. The Secretary of Agriculture is overall responsible for the welfare of farmers and consumers of food and drug products.

Health and Human Services:
The Department of Health and Human Services is designed to assist people in providing essential human services, especially to those who are least capable of providing the for themselves. The Department is responsible for more money than all other departments combined, and overseas major federal assistance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. As such a huge department, it encapsulates 11 different operating divisions and 300 local programs, all of which are overseen by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. With so many local divisions, the Secretary acts as the top of a hierarchical system, and a major figure for some of the biggest federal programs in the US.

Cabinet Positions--Elsa Pikulik

Secretary of Transportation
The current Secretary of Transportation is Ray LaHood, who has been in office since January 23, 2009. He leads an agency with over 55,000 employees and a $70 billion budget used to oversee air, maritime, and ground transportation. The responsibilities of the Secretary of Transportation include overseeing the creation of national transportation policy and legislation, promoting intermodal transportation, debating and implementing international transportation agreements, maintaining U.S. airlines, carrying out airline consumer protection regulations, as well as preventing illegal drug and alcohol misuse in transportation systems. LaHood's primary goal includes ensuring all modes of transportation are safe and focused on the people who use them. He also would like to help to restore economic health, create new jobs, and stay sustainable, while still creating new transportation infrastructure.

Secretary of Homeland Security
Janet Napolitano was sworn in as the third Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security on January 21, 2009. She leads a Department of over 240,000 employees with a wide variety of jobs, but all committed to keeping America safe. The main goals of the Department are preventing terrorism and improving security, managing the country's borders, enforce immigration laws, protect cyberspace, as well as establish resilience after disasters. The jobs of the Department, which are overseen by the Secretary, are wide-ranging and include aviation and border security, emergency response, cyber security analysts, chemical facility inspectors, and more.

Secretary of Education and Ambassador of the US Trade Representative

William Baumann

Secretary of Education

Arne Duncan is the ninth U.S. secretary of education. He has served in this post since his confirmation by the U.S. Senate on Jan. 20, 2009. The role of the secretary of education is to deal with education policy. Duncan’s role is advised by the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity. Duncan advises the president on the current situation involving education in America. One of the president’s main focuses is education so when the president has an idea to improve education, whether it is student loan forgiveness or areas of education to invest in for our future, he consults Duncan on what is possible and what is impossible. ED's mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. The department of education has 4,400 employees and a $68 billion budget. The secretary of education is dedicated to establishing policies on federal financial aid for education, collecting data on America's schools and disseminating research, focusing national attention on key educational issues, and prohibiting discrimination and ensuring equal access to education.

Ambassador of the US Trade Representative

     Ronald Kirk is the 16^th United States trade representative who is serving in the Obama administration. He served as the mayor of Dallas from 1995 to 2002. The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is an agency of more than 200 professionals that specialize in trade issues and regions of the world. They negotiate directly with foreign governments to create trade agreements, to resolve disputes, and to participate in global trade policy organizations. They also meet with governments, with business groups, with legislators and with public interest groups to gather input on trade issues and to discuss the President's trade policy positions. The President conducts trade negotiations at bilateral and multilateral levels. The office also coordinates trade policy within the government through the interagency Trade Policy Staff Committee (TPSC) and Trade Policy Review Group (TPRG).

Diana Katsikaris 

Blue Block 

1/13

Term 2: Extra Credit

          A writing assignment from this term in which we used formative assessment was the Nationalism Essay. I completed four drafts, the first draft, the draft with feedback from my peers during the writing workshop, the draft on paragraph one from Ms. Shapero, and then the final draft. The sources of my feedback were from a peer in writing workshop, Ms. Shapero, a teacher from the history lab and my mom, who read over the final product. The most common types of feedback I received were being too vague, and needing to clarify, and to eliminate unnecessary words in my writing. In my later drafts, this feedback was addressed by re-reading my paper multiple times, searching for dead words, and crossing out the unnecessary words as well. Also, trying to spread out my ideas instead of bunching them up in one vague sentence. To prevent similar mistakes in my future writing, I will constantly re-read my paper checking for dead words, and work sentence by sentence in order to spread out my ideas and avoid being vague. 

One specific example involving all of my drafts in which I improved in my writing because of formative assessment was the process of crafting a decent thesis statement that had a factual and judgmental statement. In my first draft my thesis was: “By broadcasting the ideas of change to becoming a free and independent nation, the recognition of the individual is emphasized through individuality and liberty, which is what divided and conquered the necessary changes in each nation.” After visiting the lab my thesis statement was now: “By broadcasting the ideas of change as a process to becoming a free and independent nation, the recognition of the individual is emphasized through individuality and liberty which is what allowed the necessary changes in each nation to be made.” My thesis was still vague and was too long, so after day to in the writing workshop it was edited to be: “Although nationalism moved away from the focus of military power, it did however recognize the individual, who was emphasized through individuality and liberty which allowed governmental changes to be made throughout the nation.” Then, after being edited by Ms. Shapero, my final thesis statement after the feedback revision portion of the assignment read: “Although Nationalism brought a decline in military power, it placed an emphasis on the individual, who aimed for liberty, mutually beneficial relationships, republics, and united fatherlands in their new nations.” Through the process of formative assessment, my thesis statement became more detailed and contained a factual statement: “who aimed for liberty, mutually beneficial relationships, republics and united fatherlands in their new nations,” and a judgmental statement: “Although Nationalism brought a decline in military power, it placed emphasis on the individual.” The process of formative assessment helped me to improve my thesis statement by narrowing it down to specifics, and moving away from being vague.   

Dean Caruso Extra Credit

One of the main reasons I decided to enroll in political science last spring was because I felt that I didn't have enough knowledge about politics. Through the campaign blog post project and the current issue powerpoint project, I was able to develop a growth mindset and learn more about how campaigns are run and what the main issues were in the present. In the campaign project, I was assigned Lyndon Johnson's campaign, and everyone else was assigned a different campaign. Once everyone had posted their report, I was able to read about many different campaign's and see the striking similarities between them. I learned a lot about how important it is for candidates to connect with the people, an how extremism is almost always unpopular with voters. By having a growth mindset and wanting to learn more about the subject, I was able to gain a lot of knowledge about campaigning form this project.

Another project that helped me gain more knowledge about politics was the current issue project. Everyone was assigned a current campaign issue to research and prepare a lesson for the class on that issue. I was assigned to research gun control, which before doing the project I never really expressed an  opinion about. I noticed that I didn't  have strong opinions on many of the current issues facing our country today. I adopted a growth mindset to learn more about these issues so that I can have my own opinion and not just repeat what other people say. This project helped me learn a lot about current issues, and my growth mindset has helped me become a more well-informed citizen.

Extra Credit Grant Kaplan Political Science Term 1

Grant Kaplan
Ms.Shapero
Political Science
Extra Credit

 When I first signed up for political science I had basic knowledge about the structure of the federal government, the two main political parties, and the ideas of the two presidential candidates. I craved more knowledge, however. I had heard of the major issues that were absorbing each candidate’s time and energy, but I had trouble understanding their points because I was so uninformed on the issues they would discuss. Through current events assignments and the current issue study project I have become better equipped to understand and participate in more political debates and provide support for my arguments. I have used current events assignments to challenge myself with a variety of news pieces ranging from “Syrian rebels gain weaponry from extremist groups” to “Facebook reaches 1 Billion Users,” in an attempt to determine how seemingly unrelated events such as Facebook reaching 1 billion users can impact the presidential election. Another major issue that I had trouble understanding was the deficit and its impact. Thankfully, I was stuck with it as my topic for the current issue study project and was forced to become an expert in order to teach the class. First, I found a diverse group of reliable resources to gather my information from, and then I went to work studying the history of the deficit as well as the opinions of economists and the candidates. I had learned both from last year’s junior thesis, as well as this year’s current events, how to find great, reliable sources for a research project, and used this knowledge to secure my understanding of the deficit with websites, scholarly journals, primary sources, and books. I have not received any feedback on my deficit lesson because I haven’t taught it yet, and I have not received too much feedback on my current events besides the first assignment when I forgot to answer one of the guiding questions on the instruction page. I am very glad that I chose to take Political Science because I believe I have learned a great amount of information about current issues, political campaign finance and strategies, and researching techniques as well as added information in the structure of the federal government among other topics previously discussed briefly in other history courses.

Extra Credit- Will Hartnett

Will Hartnett

Extra Credit

During the first term of Political Science we had two debates. The first debate was about the Electoral College and whether it should remain in effect or whether a new system should be implemented. I was on Pro-electoral college team. I chose to rebuttal against someone in the other group. I thought my rebuttal went very well. I felt as though I made multiple good points. The debate finished and my team lost by a slight margin. I was proud of myself and felt that I had done the best I could. However, when I received feedback I was confused. I was told that my argument had lacked structure and was more rambling than anything. I was told that I had to slow down and structure my argument better. At first I was surprised and frustrated that I had not done as well as I had once thought. However, when I went back to check over what I had prepared, I realized that the feedback was correct.  The points I had brought up were simply stated facts. I failed to analyze what I discovered. This led to my rebuttal feeling like a rambling rant as opposed to an organized comeback.

The next debate we had was on whether Super PACS were legal or whether the constitution should be amended to make them illegal.  For this debate I was on the pro side, arguing that super PACS should remain legal. For this debate I demonstrated a growth mindset and carefully organized my argument. I stated a piece of relevant evidence, immediately followed by thoughtful analysis. During the actual debate I made sure to slow down, and focus on what I was saying. I demonstrated a growth mindset by changing my debate preparations, and rhetoric in order to appear more composed as opposed to rambling. I was able to use feedback I received from the first debate to improve my performance in the second debate. 

Term 1 Extra Credit---Elsa

The assignment I used a growth mindset in was the research blog post on our presidents. Coming out of U.S. History and writing the junior thesis, I kept in mind the problems I had when researching and writing my thesis as well as the feedback I received about it. Ultimately, my growth mindset was to use the knowledge I gained from writing that paper and apply it to this blog post. One thing I learned when writing my junior thesis was that it is easier to write a thesis after gathering evidence. The way the junior thesis was set up, we had to turn in our thesis before we had completed our research. When I wrote the blog post, I solidified my idea after my research had been completed. I think this made for a stronger, more provable paper. I think junior thesis also taught me to be a better researcher by allowing me to figure out what types of sources are best. For my blog post, I mostly used concrete primary source evidence such as speeches and an election ad. Overall, by doing my blog post, I used the feedback I had gotten from my junior thesis to grow to be a better historical writer and researcher.

            I did not receive feedback while working on the project, however the comment from a peer that I got after I had posted my project really showed her understanding of my post. I thought the fact that she understood my point and the evidence presented showed the success of my post. The growth mindset I used while completing this project really helped the final product to be as successful as it was in clarity, quality of research and argument. I have learned from this experience how to apply past feedback to make future research papers even more successful.

Political Science Extra Credit Term 1

     When I switched into this class in mid-September, I came in with a firm mindset on my political views. For the first month I held strongly to my convictions and defended my views on certain issues such as the economy. In October, I was assigned to spend a period educating the class about a 2012 campaign issue. I was assigned to teach Job Loss / Economic Growth. At first, I thought the project would be a breeze. I thought I knew everything about the economy and was looking forward to enlightening the class. Boy was I wrong. After spending hours upon hours researching, I realized how under informed I was about the economy and how it works. After carefully organizing my presentation to be easy to follow yet rich in information, I noticed a massive boost in my knowledge about the economy and job creation. I have not received any feedback yet because I turned the assignment in today, but I am looking forward to hearing the classes’ feedback.

     This project was a great learning experience for me because I was able to gain new perspective and insight on an issue I once thought I knew so much about. I demonstrated a growth mindset by listening to the rigorous constructive feedback my father gave me and used it to modify my presentation to be the best it could be. In addition to my father’s feedback, I also learned the value of having an open mind. Before working on the presentation, I held a strict view on the economy and how to improve it in a variety of ways. Now, after stopping to listen and have an open mind, I have modified my view to be less narrow-minded in finding the endless possibilities to enable the economy to prosper.