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Solvent posted:If a single company makes a standardized test for an entire nation, that is not able to be discussed, I can see no way that the standard is at all linked to reality. States and school boards choose to adopt the test and could conceivably demand "oversight" in exchange for the contract. Again, I haven't seen the segment so... quote:I'm not sure if you've noticed this everywhere, but people have strong feelings about Israel's history of treatment regarding the people who inhabit the lands surrounding their walled nation. Yeah, I couldn't care less about the "plight" of the Palestinians or whoever's bitching about Israel this week. We won the war and gave the land to Israel. Israel expanded its borders by winning subsequent wars. Acquiring land and property through conquest has been a standard practice since forever. That said, Israel should be commended for showing remarkable restraint, because if I were in charge and a group of people were shooting at my citizens or sending suicide bombers to blow up buses and cafe on my land, I would have bombed them into oblivion and drove whoever survived into the loving sea. In other words, gently caress the Palestinians.
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May 4, 2015 11:12
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I sort of viewed the policy (No Child Left Behind) as just the creation of a new parasitic industry that can attach itself to the education system and suck money from the government to provide an unnecessary service. It's sort of a subtle privatization without turning all public schools into charter, but forcing them to all buy into a system and products developed for profit.
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May 4, 2015 11:30
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Neeksy posted:I sort of viewed the policy (No Child Left Behind) as just the creation of a new parasitic industry that can attach itself to the education system and suck money from the government to provide an unnecessary service. It's sort of a subtle privatization without turning all public schools into charter, but forcing them to all buy into a system and products developed for profit. Well put! Irish Joe posted:Didn't watch the testing episode or recognize unsubtle implications of graft in print. Didn't address or retract the segment about civil forfeiture. gently caress the Palestinians. So full of moral gradient. Good night.
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May 4, 2015 11:33
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Neeksy posted:I sort of viewed the policy (No Child Left Behind) as just the creation of a new parasitic industry that can attach itself to the education system and suck money from the government to provide an unnecessary service. It's sort of a subtle privatization without turning all public schools into charter, but forcing them to all buy into a system and products developed for profit. Everyone wants in on that sweet sweet government contract gravy train.
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May 4, 2015 11:41
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Afro posted:Everyone wants in on that sweet sweet government contract gravy train. Government isn't good for anything except making a profit off of, apparently.
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May 4, 2015 11:53
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Why are corporations responsible for everything wrong on this show?
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May 4, 2015 12:10
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AFoolAndHisMoney posted:Why are corporations responsible for everything wrong on this show? Because it's about real life, I think
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May 4, 2015 12:12
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No one commented that Wyatt cenac is still alive??
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May 4, 2015 13:58
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Edit: Wrong thread.
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May 4, 2015 15:33
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TLG James posted:No one commented that Wyatt cenac is still alive?? Just about to post this.
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May 4, 2015 16:03
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TLG James posted:No one commented that Wyatt cenac is still alive?? Nah, I'm pretty sure that was Russell Simmons.
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May 4, 2015 16:19
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AFoolAndHisMoney posted:Why are corporations responsible for everything wrong on this show? Since nixon/reagan the raison d'etre of the american government in public spending has been to transfer public wealth/assets/tax money to private companies (who lobby government heavily and finance political campaigns) with as little oversight as possible, this can give a short term boost to GDP/growth/etc but over time it results in public services becoming monopolised (usually in local monopolies but sometime nationwide) and run as cheaply as possible to maximise profit rather than quality of service/results.
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May 4, 2015 16:24
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It's amazing how often John Oliver will dive into issues just to pull out some lovely company profiteering off of suffering and somehow never getting any media attention. I thought the whole standardized testing thing was just institutionally flawed, I didn't know that it was another privatized shithole.
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May 4, 2015 17:11
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Phoon posted:Since nixon/reagan the raison d'etre of the american government in public spending has been to transfer public wealth/assets/tax money to private companies (who lobby government heavily and finance political campaigns) with as little oversight as possible, this can give a short term boost to GDP/growth/etc but over time it results in public services becoming monopolised (usually in local monopolies but sometime nationwide) and run as cheaply as possible to maximise profit rather than quality of service/results. Why do you care if you're not from America?
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May 4, 2015 17:33
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DaveWoo posted:Nah, I'm pretty sure that was Russell Simmons. 
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May 4, 2015 17:35
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I'm from Canada, so I didn't know much about No Child Left Behind. (I often heard people bitching about it on other forums and a bit here as well), but Holy poo poo. That girl crying was the  est thing. I recall that I had similar tests in school, but they were only in Grade 4, 7, and 10. I don't recall them being asininely difficult, however in Grade 10 our final exams took the place of the standardized test anyway. That pineapple story sounds like they hired a stoned homeless dude to write it.
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May 4, 2015 18:25
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Irish Joe posted:Why do you care if you're not from America? Are you saying that US corporations do not affect the rest of the world? Have you heard of globalism?
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May 4, 2015 18:32
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Irish Joe posted:I haven't seen the standardized test segment yet, but the very definition of "standardized" implies the existence of a single test/rubric produced by a single company. Yes, and that "company" should be the government (that is, if you must resort to standardized testing at all, which I am strongly against). Privatized education is dumb as hell for a number of reasons.
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May 4, 2015 18:40
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Katana Gomai posted:Yes, and that "company" should be the government (that is, if you must resort to standardized testing at all, which I am strongly against). Privatized education is dumb as hell for a number of reasons. Education isn't privatized, though. States still have the province and the choice to come up with their own curriculum and tests, but, again, that's impractical because then you'd have 50 tests for 50 states and no way to ensure consistency between them. Now, the solution you're proposing--federal control of education--is no solution at all because it will NEVER happen. Period, end of the story. So what are you left with? Well, you're left with the same system that gave us the UCC or the model penal code: groups of dedicated Americans getting together and coming up with a universal resource that it isn't possible for the state or federal governments to come up with on their own. Yeah, the system isn't perfect, but the solution--not buying a defective product--is a whole lot easier, immediate and practical than spending fifty years waiting for the states to ratify a Constitutional amendment ceding education to the federal government. Phoon posted:Are you saying that US corporations do not affect the rest of the world? Have you heard of globalism? Nixon wasn't the president of whatever shithole country you're from.
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May 4, 2015 19:03
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Irish Joe I'm beginning to think you can't read.
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May 4, 2015 19:17
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May 4, 2015 19:40
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John Oliver would accomplish more if they inserted a frame that read "EAT THE RICH" in a massive impact font a couple times an episode. It is nice that he produces easily digestible segments to inform people about important issues but I wouldn't hold my breath about his show ever affecting serious change directly.
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May 4, 2015 19:49
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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:It is nice that he produces easily digestible segments to inform people about important issues but I wouldn't hold my breath about his show ever affecting serious change directly. 
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May 4, 2015 20:02
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Violet_Sky posted:That pineapple story sounds like they hired a stoned homeless dude to write it. No, they hire stoned homeless people to grade those tests apparently. Seriously forgot most of the episode thanks to the "that's not even a good Doors lyric" comment. Way funnier than it should be.
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May 4, 2015 21:19
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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:It is nice that he produces easily digestible segments to inform people about important issues but I wouldn't hold my breath about his show ever affecting serious change directly. Any sort of substantive change for the better in America would require both the willingness and the ability to put large corporate interests six feet under. Fixing healthcare would literally destroy the insurance industry, fixing jails would literally destroy the private-prison system, fixing the banks would literally destroy the banking sector, and so on. None of which will ever happen because drat near everyone in politics is reliant on one or more of these industries in order to get reelected.
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May 4, 2015 22:08
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Pearson are also the evil assclowns that shat up all the L.A. School system Ipads (under some sort of partnership with Apple).
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May 4, 2015 22:08
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Irish Joe posted:Why do I care about what people think of Israel or Palestine, I'm not even from there! loving troll. Go away. E: CONGRATULATIONS IRISH JOE! YOU ARE THE FIRST PERSON ON SA TO MAKE MY IGNORE LIST! Solvent fucked around with this message at 00:39 on May 5, 2015 |
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May 4, 2015 23:26
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Solvent posted:loving troll. Go away. Is there a reason you responded twice to the same reply? Also, for what its worth, the Palestinians could vastly improve their lot in life if they stopped associating with Hamas and other terrorists. I get it, life sucks, but when you poke the beehive, don't come crying to me when you get stung.
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May 5, 2015 00:34
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Seriously.
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May 5, 2015 00:45
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Rarity posted:The "you didn't even notice that's not" running gag is my favourite thing on this show Yep. So happy they brought it back. Feels like he really likes doing it too.
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May 5, 2015 00:47
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One of the things that wasn't really discussed was the passing scores (passing rates were though). I teach in Texas and we use the STAAR test. For the biology test, students must make a 37% in order to pass. And a bunch of kids still don't. For instance, last year's biology test had 54 questions. In order to pass, a student would need to answer 20 questions correctly. Statistically, if a student blindly guessed for every answer they should get ~13.5 correct (there are only 4 answer choices), so lets say 13. That means they have to know the answers to 7 questions, or 13% of the content (not even counting making educated guesses). Far, far too many students test below that benchmark anyway. This test clearly isn't a good indicator of student knowledge, but it is a requirement for graduation. Here is a link to the test in question, if you're curious. The test is developed by, you guessed it, Pearson. Edit: Meh, bad math sorry. Shakugan has it right below. mastajake fucked around with this message at 04:35 on May 5, 2015 |
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May 5, 2015 03:17
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I only teach during the summers for a private teaching company. We only work on reading skills, thank God. But a decent chunk of my job is just sitting with parents and letting them unload about how their school district is just utterly loving up their kids. I teach all over southern california, and its incredibly telling to see which districts prepare their kids and which ones don't have a drat clue how to educate. And oddly enough, it doesn't even have all that much to do with class or economics.
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May 5, 2015 03:23
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Is Irish joe an idiot or does he know what he's doing I can't tell.
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May 5, 2015 03:50
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For those interested, I found that question about the talking pineapple online. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...i01VT_blog.html
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May 5, 2015 03:58
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mastajake posted:For instance, last year's biology test had 54 questions. In order to pass, a student would need to answer 20 questions correctly. Statistically, if a student blindly guessed for every answer they should get ~13.5 correct (there are only 4 answer choices), so lets say 13. That means they have to know the answers to 7 questions, or 13% of the content (not even counting making educated guesses). Guessing you're not a math teacher. Standardized testing as implemented in the US (in terms of teaching to the test, funding and jobs dependent on results etc) is a travesty, though some of the points in the segment were dumb. That some model is used with agriculture doesn't inherently make it unsuitable for use with people. It's obviously an unsuitable model because it makes predictions greater than the maximum, and they are taken at face value. Being all "this is used with cows!" and "look at all this incomprehensible math, we can't trust it because it's math!" (that is actually super basic) was a tad anti-intellectual. I get the whole comedy over accuracy thing, but this was a bit on education after all.
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May 5, 2015 04:10
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Would you mind pointing out the error(s)? Edit: oh, I didn't account for the reduced number of questions assuming some were answered correctly. Right, thanks. mastajake fucked around with this message at 04:20 on May 5, 2015 |
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May 5, 2015 04:14
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good episode- having worked as a Pearson scorer myself (TX STAAR test to be exact) it was great to hear all the shittyness of the job and the extent of questionable practices aired on TV. Why he made a point over the fact that they post jobs on craigslist, though, was lost on me - everybody (from mom&pop shops to Google) does that nowadays so it really doesn't make a difference anymore.
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May 5, 2015 04:21
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mastajake posted:Would you mind pointing out the error(s)? If you know 7 questions, you're only guessing on the 47 remaining questions. So the expected number of questions you'll get right from guessing is 47/4 = 11.75. For an expected score of 18.75. You were adding the known questions plus the number of questions you'd get right by guessing the entire set. You need to know 9 questions and guess the rest to have an expected performance of a passing grade. Your overall point is definitely true though; standards are very low, and those low standards are too often not met.
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May 5, 2015 04:27
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slomomofo posted:good episode- having worked as a Pearson scorer myself (TX STAAR test to be exact) it was great to hear all the shittyness of the job and the extent of questionable practices aired on TV. Why he made a point over the fact that they post jobs on craigslist, though, was lost on me - everybody (from mom&pop shops to Google) does that nowadays so it really doesn't make a difference anymore. Ummmmmmmmmmmmm Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Find me the craigslist add where GOOGLE THE COMPANY. As in Google itself posts a job opening within their company. Like the Google HR department posted the position.
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May 5, 2015 06:15
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Shakugan posted:If you know 7 questions, you're only guessing on the 47 remaining questions. So the expected number of questions you'll get right from guessing is 47/4 = 11.75. For an expected score of 18.75. You were adding the known questions plus the number of questions you'd get right by guessing the entire set. You need to know 9 questions and guess the rest to have an expected performance of a passing grade. Is the issue really that kids are dumb/poorly taught though? Let's look at at question 1 of the test posted a bit further up: quote:DIRECTIONS Both A and D sound right to me. D is probably the answer they want but two animals sharing a unique characteristics IS evidence that they share a species in my mind unless I'm missing something obvious. Let's try another: quote:53 The graph below shows the changes in the number of species in an ecosystem. I have no drat clue here. I mean, I accept that I'm not the brightest cookie in the toolbox but technically can't any of the answers be true depending on the specifics of the ecosystem in question? If a flood kills most of the animals in an area save for the few that adapt well to the disaster wouldn't that explain this graph? Same for a volcanic eruption I'd wager. Looking through this thing I'm thinking I'd probably fail it if I had to take it tomorrow morning. I'm not sure if it's because they're poorly worded and include a lot of unnecessary information (making the test half about reading comprehension) or I'm just old and have forgotten most of this crap because 13 year old readingatwork was right about me ever needing any of this. Either way I'm glad I'm not in public school any more. No wonder kids are throwing up on these things...
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May 5, 2015 06:33
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