Incorporating financial literacy into the secondary school accounting curriculum: a New Zealand perspective

This paper examines whether selected stakeholder groups believe accounting should continue to be taught as an elective subject in its current form at New Zealand secondary schools or whether incorporating a financial literacy component would increase the subject’s relevance to students. A mixed method approach combining qualitative and quantitative research methods was used. An electronically administered survey was used to obtain the responses of secondary school accounting teachers, while additional insight in the form of semi-structured interviews was obtained from other stakeholders. Although respondents generally agreed that students benefited from accounting as an elective subject at secondary school, all agreed that the development of financial literacy skills was important. Difficulties in introducing a new core subject into an already overcrowded curriculum were acknowledged. However, this difficulty could be overcome by making modifications to the subject “Accounting”. As the most widespread, existing “finance” related subject, Accounting would be the most appropriate vehicle through which to teach financial literacy

Individual ministerial responsibility: absolute or obsolete?

resignations by Ministers (including Whips). ( 1) But only rarely is the Ministerial Responsibility formula relevant. One factor complicating the study of resignations is that in a reshuffle dropped Ministers may be allowed to resign. The requested resignation of Sir Ian Gilmour is such a case, though Sir Ian made the nature of his resignation plain both by emphasing in his resignation letter that it had been requested and referring to his "sacking " in the statement he made on the same day. Sometimes the camouflage is dropped- for example, in May 1981, Keith Speed was dismissed after dissenting from navy cuts in public. It is difficult to unscramble resignations and sackings when the latter are, in effect, the same as the former. At this purely prac-tical level of counting resignations are we properly interested in resignations carried through or these cases where Ministers have felt under an obligation under the convention resign, but had their offer turned down by the P.M.

Entanglement Wedge Reconstruction via Universal Recovery Channels

We apply and extend the theory of universal recovery channels from quantum information theory to address the problem of entanglement wedge reconstruction in AdS/CFT. It has recently been proposed that any low-energy local bulk operators in a CFT boundary region's entanglement wedge can be reconstructed on that boundary region itself. Existing work arguing for this proposal relies on algebraic consequences of the exact equivalence between bulk and boundary relative entropies, namely the theory of operator algebra quantum error correction. However, bulk and boundary relative entropies are only approximately equal in bulk effective field theory, and in similar situations it is known that predictions from exact entropic equalities can be qualitatively incorrect. The framework of universal recovery channels provides a robust demonstration of the entanglement wedge reconstruction conjecture in addition to new physical insights. Most notably, we find that a bulk operator acting in a given boundary region's entanglement wedge can be expressed as the response of the boundary region's modular Hamiltonian to a perturbation of the bulk state in the direction of the bulk operator. This formula can be interpreted as a noncommutative version of Bayes' rule that attempts to undo the noise induced by restricting to only a portion of the boundary, and has an integral representation in terms of modular flows. To reach these conclusions, we extend the theory of universal recovery channels to finite-dimensional operator algebras and demonstrate that recovery channels approximately preserve the multiplicative structure of the operator algebra.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures. v4: Generalized approximate recovery of 2-point functions to arbitrary correlation functions. Clarified relation to previous work. Added Geoffrey Penington as co-autho

Digit ratio (2D:4D) and muscular strength in adolescent boys

Using a cross-sectional design, this study quantified the relationship between the digit ratio (2D:4D) and muscular strength in 57 adolescent boys. 2D:4D was very likely a moderate negative correlate of handgrip strength, even after adjustment for age and body size. This result may reflect the organizational benefits of prenatal testosterone

Flux-balance laws in scalar self-force theory

The motion of a radiating point particle can be represented by a series of geodesics whose "constants" of motion evolve slowly with time. The evolution of these constants of motion can be determined directly from the self-force equations of motion. In the presence of spacetime symmetries, the situation simplifies: there exist not only constants of motion conjugate to these symmetries, but also conserved currents whose fluxes can be used to determine their evolution. Such a relationship between point-particle motion and fluxes of conserved currents is a flux-balance law. However, there exist constants of motion that are not related to spacetime symmetries, the most notable example of which is the Carter constant in the Kerr spacetime. In this paper, we first present a new approach to flux-balance laws for spacetime symmetries, using the techniques of symplectic currents and symmetry operators, which can also generate more general conserved currents. We then derive flux-balance laws for all constants of motion in the Kerr spacetime, using the fact that the background, geodesic motion is integrable. For simplicity, we restrict derivations in this paper to the scalar self-force problem. While generalizing the discussion in this paper to the gravitational case will be straightforward, there will be additional complications in turning these results into a practical flux-balance law in this case.Comment: 15+3 pages, 1 figure; v2: corrected typos and added appendix and figure, "matches" published versio

How School Leaders Support Teacher Data Use: A Case Study of How School Leaders in New York State Support Teachers’ Use of State, School, and Classroom Data

Due to educational policy, data use in schools is a widespread method of school improvement, yet results remain inconsistent. Across the literature, the school leader is a key determinant of the effectiveness of data use. This study sought to shed light on the role of the school leader in data use through a mixed methods case study. The study included two PreK-2nd grade schools from a school district in Long Island, New York. I administered a survey on data use attitudes and practices to both principals and teachers. I also conducted interviews with both principals and two teachers from each school. And I observed four Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) meetings. Analysis of survey results was conducted through a t-test and ANOVA and coding was used to analyze the transcripts from interviews and observations. Results revealed that both teachers and principals reported feeling high levels of support for data use. Teachers perceived formative data the most useful to their practice, rating it higher than interim or summative data. Collaborative teacher time was used for data use, but the method employed varied from the traditional inquiry cycle described in the literature. Based on these findings, I propose a new model of data use, the Do, Know, Now model, which reflects observed data use both in this study and another. In the Do, Know, Now model, teachers (DO) use existing data to identify a problem, (Know) leverage teacher expertise to consider solutions, and (Now) select a solution for immediate implementation. The Do, Know, Now model accommodates the constraints of everyday life in schools and may be explained by a satisficing decision-making model wherein the decider stops searching once a good enough solution has been found. T he development of a data use model reflective of actual practice is significant for school leaders who seek to use data use to improve student outcomes. By understanding the model teachers are using, school leaders can provide better support. For example, principals may invest in high-quality ready-to-use materials for teachers to select from