How did Americans come to quantify their society’s progress and well-being in units of money? In today’s GDP-run world, prices are the standard measure of not only our goods and commodities but our environment, our communities, our nation, even our self-worth. The Pricing of Progress traces the long history of how and why we moderns adopted the monetizing values and valuations of capitalism as an indicator of human prosperity while losing sight of earlier social and moral metrics that did not put a price on everyday life. Eli Cook roots the rise of economic indicators in the emergence of modern capitalism and the contested history of English enclosure, Caribbean slavery, American industrialization, economic thought, and corporate power. He explores how the maximization of market production became the chief objective of American economic and social policy. We see how distinctly capitalist quantification techniques used to manage or invest in railroad corporations, textile factories, real estate holdings, or cotton plantations escaped the confines of the business world and seeped into every nook and cranny of society. As economic elites quantified the nation as a for-profit, capitalized investment, the progress of its inhabitants, free or enslaved, came to be valued according to their moneymaking abilities. Today as in the nineteenth century, political struggles rage over who gets to determine the statistical yardsticks used to gauge the “health” of our economy and nation. The Pricing of Progress helps us grasp the limits and dangers of entrusting economic indicators to measure social welfare and moral goals.

Are we happer, freer, healthier, wealthier, safer, more comforatble, more interesting? How we answer these questions depends on how we define and measure 'a better life'. How and what we measure to show if life is improving is what this book explores. Measuring Progress is the most wide-ranging exploration of lifestyle improvement yet undertaken. It considers social, economic and environmental perspectives. Twenty-three of Australia's leading researchers have contributed chapters on indicators of national performance and what they tell us about the quality and sustainability of life in Australia. The contributors consider how these measures can be improved. The book includes additional commentaries from nine senior bureaucrats, academics and community representatives. Tipics covered include: new measures of progress, the use and abuse of GDP, the causes of correlates of happiness, what 'Middle Australia' thinks about the changes reshaping their lives, income distribution and poverty changes in the workplace and the family, health and well-being, measuring civic and social trust, the state of the environment. Measuring Progress is a major contribution to a debate that could alter ra

"A project has to have a goal, otherwise, how do you know you're done? In the old days of engineering, setting project goals wasn't that hard. But when you're making software products, done is less obvious. When is Microsoft Word done? When is Google done? Or Facebook? In reality, software systems are never done. So then how do we give teams a goal that they can work on? Mostly, we simply ask teams to build features-but features are the wrong way to go. We often build features that create no value. Instead, we need to give teams an outcome to achieve. Setting goals as outcomes sounds simple, but it can be hard to do in practice. This book is a practical guide to using outcomes to guide the work of your team"--Publisher's website.

ASAE's signature guide for successful associations, revised and updated This update of ASAE's all-time bestseller retains the original book's focus on the disciplines that define remarkable associations and provides some insights on how those remarkable organizations fared in light of the economic challenges in the intervening years since the original publication was published. Based on 15 years of data and original, objective research tailored to the association community's needs, 7 Measures of Success provides empirical data and seven success factors common among visionary nonprofits. Turn your organization from ordinary to extraordinary and discover how to: Inspire a customer service-oriented culture Align products and services with your mission Process feedback from members and use the data to deliver results Take actions that position your organization to adapt quickly Without question, this is a must-read book for all levels of association professionals.

State education departments and school districts face an important challenge in implementing a new law that requires disadvantaged students to be held to the same standards as other students. The new requirements come from provisions of the 1994 reauthorization of Title I, the largest federal effort in precollegiate education, which provides aid to "level the field" for disadvantaged students. Testing, Teaching, and Learning is written to help states and school districts comply with the new law, offering guidance for designing and implementing assessment and accountability systems. This book examines standards-based education reform and reviews the research on student assessment, focusing on the needs of disadvantaged students covered by Title I. With examples of states and districts that have track records in new systems, the committee develops a practical "decision framework" for education officials. The book explores how best to design assessment and accountability systems that support high levels of student learning and to work toward continuous improvement. Testing, Teaching, and Learning will be an important tool for all involved in educating disadvantaged studentsâ€"state and local administrators and classroom teachers.