Back to School

There are several options to become an electrocardiogram technician. You will need to take EKG technician training. Some hospitals require applicants to have only a high school diploma or GED equivalent, plus interest shown and the potential expected in the health sciences. If employed right out of high school, you can receive on workplace training from a cardiologist or EKG Tech Supervisor to prepare for the duties of an ECG technician.

Most people, however, enroll in a university program to receive their basic education and increase their chances of advancing a career in the health care industry. Certificate, associate and baccalaureate programs are available, lasting from one to four years on average. These programs teach students to adjust and maintain the equipment, to communicate using medical terminology, and understand the importance of patient safety and medical ethics. Specialties in the field, such as cardiovascular tests are always included in the course. If you choose one of associate and baccalaureate programs, you will have to take courses in general academics.

A third way to start a career as an ECG technician is suitable for specialists who have a job in the medical industry, such as nurses. These people can enter a course in a medical organization, or they can enroll in a special teaching program that allows them not to participate in general medical classes. Before choosing a course, make sure there is a possibility to exchange experience for credit and you can move on to specialized courses. To start your career as an ECG technician, you might consider to be certified. Check with your institute to ensure that their training program is suitable for passing certification exams.

Of course, you need to choose an accredited institute with good history and reputation. If you will get advanced courses, this is a good option to get an edge over your competitors.

Decisions are a part of everyday life. The only thing is, we make decisions in a landscape that may not be the most rational place  We may all display messy emotions, imperfect memories and short attention spans on occasion.

There’s always hope.

1. Listen to your instincts. Listen, but don’t let them boss you around. Avoid making snap decisions without the necessary information. Allow things to flow, but respect your instincts.
2. Make a list of alternative actions. If your decision doesn’t have to be made on the spot, write down a number of options and spend quality time analyzing each one.
3. Think ahead. Ask yourself what will happen if you do or don’t take action. Weigh your actions against any similar challenges in your past.
4. Look at things from a distance. Distance can quite often give you a better perspective on matters. Step back and put a little time and space between now and when the decision must be made.
5. Make a concrete decision. Once you’ve decided on a course of action, stick to it with gusto. Otherwise, it’s easy to over analyze your own decisions to the point of not being able to act.

Are you contemplating the decision to attend school? If so, Everest can help you choose a program that matches your career goals and allows you to finish your program in less than a year.* This means you can get the education you need and get on with your life in as little time as possible.

The best decisions are usually made when we have the right information and support structures in place. Everest can help.

2 in 5 students who attend college fail to get a degree from the college at which they began within 6 years.

This scary statistic is based on data from the U.S. Government’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). According to the NCES, 42.7% of students did not get a bachelor’s degree from the college at which they began within 6 years.

While the rates vary farily heavily by sector, they are alarming nonetheless. See the below chart for the all students cohort graduation rates.

Total Public Private 
not-for-profit Private 
for-profit All students         4-year rate 36.2 29.4 50.9 18.6 5-year rate 52.6 49.1 61.6 22.4 6-year rate 57.3 55.0 64.4 24.5

Interesting notes:

• Across all sectors, there’s a significant jump in attainment from year 4 to year 5.
• 60% of women graduate within 6 years, while only 54.2% of men do .
• For each yearly rate, women have a higher attainment percentage than men in both the public and private not-for-profit sectors. However, women trail men in each yearly rate for degree attainment in the private for-profit sector .

It is unclear if most parents are aware that cohort graduation rates are so low. When seeing these numbers for the first time, they can be rather unsettling if one thinks about his/her student’s probable college success. That discomfort may be exacerbated when one considers the potential residual effects that not completing college can have on future employment and the financial investment in college.

Over the next week, I’ll be blogging on some key factors that lead to college withdrawal and failure to persist to a degree. With regard to this information, the more you know about why students withdraw, the more you can prepare and strategize to minimze the risk to your child’s education, your financial investment in school, and your child’s future.

 

Latvia is set to hold a referendum on February 19th, to decide whether Russian should officially be the countrys second national language. Currently, 44% of the population are Russian speakers, however, 16% of the population are ethnic Russians, who do not hold Latvian citizenship thus are not eligible to vote.* According to Latvian law, more than half of Latvian voters must vote in favour for the proposition to pass.

The proposal does not have the backing of President Andris Berzins. “Granting the Russian language the status of the second state language is the denial of Latvia as a national state and it contradicts the basics of the Satversmes (Constitution),” he said. Parliament rejected the bill in December, after a petition signed by 187,000 citizens was forwarded to the Government by the Dzimtā valoda (Mother Tongue) organisation.

Latvia most recently regained independence from Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 2004, Government reforms introduced restrictions on the use of the Russian language in schools.

*Figures sourced from New Europe Online

Welcome to a new year on the Education Front. I hope our readers enjoyed their holidays and are ready to tackle some education issues.

This year, the blog is going to particularly focus on three areas. As always, we will cover many more topics. But these three are worth digging deeply into:

DISD’s selection of a new superintendent and the election of reform-minded trustees. These go together because the Dallas school district will have a hard time selecting a new leader who wants to pursue reforms backed by research without board members who are committed to the same changes.

The type of reforms I’m talking about include developing a stronger pipeline of teachers and principals, focusing on fundamentals for middle schools so students do not fall far behind in those years, and using real-time data to drive classroom decisions.

Some of these reforms I covered in last week’s review of DISD’s progress, but they are worth pressing for again this year.

The work of the Texas Legislature’s education committees before the 2013 session begins. I am especially going to focus on where the Legislature stopped last year.

That means coming up with legislation that helps districts develop teachers and get rid of bad ones. That means helping districts improve their middle schools. And that means determining how efficiently districts spend money.

The Texas Senate worked on legislation in these areas, but the House didn’t take the same lead. This interim work period is the time to lay the foundation for passage next year of reforms like these in both chambers.

Concentrate on what makes for quality teaching. I want to hear from teachers, administrators, academics and others about what separates an exceptional instructor from his or her peers.

We got into this some last year when we discussed teacher evaluations, classroom leadership and career paths for teachers. There is no magic bullet for schools, but clearly they can’t improve without enough innovative, capable instructors.

We will get into this subject with blog entries, guest blogs, Q&As and, of course, your comments.

So, here is to 2012. I look forward to lively, civil conversations on these and other topics.