Expect the bedpartner to destroy you
When Dr. Walter Stroup showed that Texas’ standardized testing regime is ?awed, the testing company struck back.
[Walter] Stroup, a bookishly handsome associate professor in the University of Texas College of Education, sat patiently until it was his turn to testify. Then Stroup sat down at the witness table and offered the scientific basis behind the widely held suspicion that what the tests measured was not what students have learned but how well students take tests. Every other witness got three minutes; it is a rough measure of the size of the rock that Stroup dropped into this pond that he was allowed to talk and answer lawmakers’ questions for 20 minutes.
A tenured professor at UT with a doctorate in education from Harvard University, Stroup isn’t frequently let out of the lab to address politicians in front of cameras. He talks with no evident concern that he might upset the powerful, and he speaks so quickly that his sentences have to hurry to keep up as he darts down tangents without warning. He taught in classrooms for almost a decade—it must have been a nightmare for his students.
But his testimony to the committee broke through the usual assumption that equated standardized testing with high standards. He reframed the debate over accountability by questioning whether the tests were the right tool for the job. The question wasn’t whether to test or not to test, but whether the tests measured what we thought they did.
Stroup argued that the tests were working exactly as designed, but that the politicians who mandated that schools use them didn’t understand this. In effect, Stroup had caught the government using a bathroom scale to measure a student’s height. The scale wasn’t broken or badly made. The scale was working exactly as designed. It was just the wrong tool for the job. The tests, Stroup said, simply couldn’t measure how much students learned in school.
Stroup testified that for $468 million the Legislature had bought a pile of stress and wasted time from Pearson Education, the biggest player in the standardized-testing industry. Lest anyone miss that Stroup’s message threatened Pearson’s hegemony in the accountability industry, Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock (R-Killeen) brought Stroup’s testimony to a close with a joke that made it perfectly clear. “I’d like to have you and someone from Pearson have a little debate,” Aycock said. “Would you be willing to come back?”
“Sure,” Stroup said. “I’ll come back and mud wrestle.”
But that never happened. Stroup had picked a fight with a special interest in front of politicians. The winner wouldn’t be determined by reason and science but by politics and power. Pearson’s real counterattack took place largely out of public view, where the company attempted to discredit Stroup’s research. Instead of a public debate, Pearson used its money and influence to engage in the time-honored academic tradition of trashing its rival’s work and career behind his back.
*Facism, by definition.
Jonah Goldberg just tattooed “Toldja” onto his forehead. It’ll serve him well for the rest of his life.
Former Florida teacher working to expose the truth about the ‘evil’ education system
Off-topic, but maybe not.
MeTV just showed the first two eps of the old “Superman” TV show from 1952.
George Reeves plays the man o’ steel. Even in tights, the man looks like a boring, middle-class stiff.
Compare with Christopher Reeve, who is far more impressive.
(Pro Tip: It appears that if you want to star as a hunka-hunka man-dood, your stage name has to be a variant of “Reeves.”)
Surely, actors who looked like Christopher Reeve existed in 1952: so why did Boring Middle-Class Stiff get cast?
I mean, another MeTV standby, “The Rifleman,” starred Chuck Connors, whose jib was nicely cut even by today’s standards.
But for “The Fugitive,” a boring-looking guy was cast. I can barely watch the show because of those enormous ears. Look at the size of those side-flaps, man!
Yeah, I know: in the past, the Handsome Men were extremely conventional-looking, whereas now they’re Johnny Depp. But Connors wasn’t no Nancy-boy nor was he Insurance-Salesman Guy.
What happened, girls? Were stable-looking men that interesting as opposed to ruffians like James Dean? I mean, come on: you gawk at fantasy men on the screen while dealing with regular guys in real life, just like men do with women.
Was George Reeves really that hawt back then?
I’m not seeing it. On the other hand, the hawt women of the past are still hawt today.
See, it is on topic: the rise and fall of Western Civ!
Pro Tip:
Soon after you harvest your carrots, cut off the tops. Attractive though they are, the greens will continue to suck moisture from their roots, making your carrots soft and flimsy.
di
Remember the early 50s were the transition from radio to TV AND, most importantly, to be in TV was to spell the kiss-o-death to any movie career. There was very little, if any, movement from TV to the big screen.
TV was considered second fiddle to movies “serious” actors avoided it.
Another stray thought:
I have been perusing the Peterson’s Field Guide to Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs. It doesn’t tell you how to use the plants; it just catalogs which of the plants growing in the west have been used medicinally, including in Chinese and western medicine. It also notes whether research has produced any findings.
Interesting finding:
In most cases, the plants are not used for the same thing across tribal and folk traditions. There’s one plant used as a contraceptive by one tribe and as a conception aid by another, for example. So leaning on a folk tradition for plant usage is going to be hit and miss at best.
Although the plant kingdom is Mother Nature’s Dow Chemical, the plants make their chemicals for their own purposes. How they affect us is entirely coincidental, whether for better or for worse. For example, Nicotiana species produce nicotine because it’s a spanking good insecticide.
There’s no reason to resort to magical thinking about plant remedies. Sometimes a plant produces a chemical that helps us, but not in great quantities or not such that it’s terribly effective. Or it produces something good along with something bad. That’s why drugs are often extracts of plants: to avoid getting stuff that isn’t helpful or perhaps harmful.
If I plucked one leaf from each plant that grows in my yard, I could make a heckuva poisonous salad. It would make you sick but prolly not kill you, unless the poison in the Deadly Nightshade leaves is particularly strong this time of year. The years when I’m growing Foxgloves (Digitalis) I could definitely kill you.
If I really wanted to kill you, I’d walk a few blocks from here and harvest the seed pods from the Ricinus plants that a neighbor is growing. The seeds are the source of castor oil (beneficial) but also of ricin, the most potent toxin known to man.
Mostly I am looking at that stuff for after the zombie apocalypse, should I need an antidepressant (I’m already growing St. John’s Wort), a sedative, or an antiseptic wash.
If someone in my social circle dies from ricin poisoning it wasn’t me, I SWEAR.
TV was considered second fiddle to movies “serious” actors avoided it.
Good point. The other superstition among movie actors still persists: that if they do TV, nobody will show up to see them in the movies.
The De Beer’s Diamond theory, I guess.
also, di, same era in TV had (off the top of my head)
James Garner
Steve McQueen
Clint Eastwood (who looked like a pretty boy next to the rugged Eric Fleming)
Patrick McGoohan
Clint Walker (wow, the body on that dude!)
Buncha Puma concolors just humiliated a herd of long-horned cattle.
I always thought Christopher Reeve looked kinda fem for superman. That seems to be a plus for todays women, in answer to the expressed puzzlement.
public education lol
In other news #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly is a nice diversion.
“Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.”
I always thought Christopher Reeve looked kinda fem for superman.
He’s definitely more fem than George Reeves.
Out of curiosity, whom would you cast, such that he’s not too fem for the mens and not so burly/badass that he’s scary.?
Is this a better Superman? I didn’t see the movie, so I can’t really judge.
What I hate is when I can’t tell which movie they’re talking about even when a photo is provided.
::off to redesign Netflix queue::
I just finished re-watching Cloud Atlas, an epic bit of work. Now off to find and read the book, wondering how on Earth I missed it.
It seems that Batman is easier to cast than Superman, because the former is more Human. I haven’t seen Henry Cavill’s effort, but he was quite good as Henry VIII’s long-suffering best friend in The Tudors.
George Reeves was, I think, successful at his portrayal because he came across a fatherly in a 1950’s kind of way. I liked him, as a beardless youth.
Christopher Reeve was Alan Alda in tights – not impressive at all – and I think was cast ‘ironically’.
The whole Superman concept bores me these days.
Actually, all these superhero movies bore me at my age.
**** A Texas catering business will pay the United States $26,400 for engaging in “citizenship-discrimination,” as part of a settlement with the Justice Department announced Tuesday.
Culinaire International unlawfully discriminated against employees based on their citizenship status, the Justice Department claimed, because it required non-citizen employees to provide extra proof of their right to work in the United States.
Culinaire has agreed to pay the United States $20,460 in civil penalties, receive training in anti-discrimination rules of the Immigration and Nationality Act, revise its work eligibility verification process, and create a $40,000 back pay fund for “potential economic victims.”
“Employers cannot discriminate against workers by requiring them to produce more documents than necessary in the employment eligibility verification and reverification processes,” Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights division, Molly Moran, said in a statement.
A lawful permanent resident’s card expires, but their right to work is permanent, and in this case Culinaire was requiring employees to present a renewed permanent resident card to be verified as work-eligible. The Justice Department claimed this violated a provision in the INA that prohibits employers from requiring extra documentation from non-citizen employees.
The Justice Department and Culinaire International did not immediately respond to request for comment. ****
Good golly.
via ex cathedra & vox popoli
The DC Comics Superman is uninteresting. Give “Sin City’s” Marv Kryptonian superpowers and that would be worth watching.
Unless you want sequels. Kinda hard to stage a follow-up story after he’s torn the universe to shreds.
Make that ‘comic book spin offs and endless mindless sequels to mindless concepts bore me period’ and I’m on board. The only attractive I have to yet another Superman or Thor, &c. movie is a detached interest in the latest technical prowess in advanced visual special effects.
Moar Cloud Atlas – newer concepts not reliant on spammy comic books – please.
“Public Education: Serving Globalization and Multiculturalism by Drumming White Guilt Into Children’s Minds Since 1850“
a new social order
Which if to be consistent must imply the escape from, overthrowing of, or abrogation of an older and then extant order, i.e., this one, to be explicit about it.
“Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.”
Well, technically, it was her house that killed the first victim, and the second death was something that no one with her (admittedly limited) experience could have expected.
Darlene, I am so glad that you mentioned Clint Walker and James Garner. I was going to, if no one else did. (I have an autographed Clint Walker photograph. He’s still alive and takes orders over his website.)
di, I read somewhere that “pretty boys” are more comforting, and therefore more attractive, to tween and teenage girls. Like Leonardo DiCaprio, or Christopher Reeve or Brad Pitt or, I dunno, Justin Bieber. Someone up-thread hit it for George Reeves — he does look fatherly and, therefore, makes you feel safe (which is kind of important for Superman, if you think about it). It doesn’t work for adults (“seriously, why is George from accounting Superman?”), but it would work for kids and younger teens — and that was the target of the show.
It’s interesting how much attractiveness is tied up in how certain features make us feel, not just their aesthetics.
Everything Wrong with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 13 Minutes or Less
A truly comprehensive and incisive critique.
Serious question: If asking someone questions about a field of knowledge is not a reliable way of ascertaining what they know about the field, what is? If you have an alternative, is it one that is realistically applicable on a large scale?
Yes, I understand that there is a danger of manipulated test questions; for instance, the test maker might use a level of vocabulary or cultural knowledge that disadvantages a certain segment of test takers. But these issues can be identified and addressed.
What is a better alternative?
Tai
Where it concerns education, unfortunately it is supposed to be what we rely upon teachers for … to be working with kids long enough over the school year to know whether or not they have mastered the material (rather than just get good at taking a test).
If you’re sitting with a kid each day, guiding them through math or English or science or history, you can tell.
As a parent, dinner table conversation about about subjects, or helping the kid with homework is a good guide if the child is grasping stuff.
Like an old cartoon snowball running downhill and turning into a giant boulder of snow entrapping everything in its path, we lost confidence in teachers being the primary judge of kids learning because of grade inflation and the well documented cases of kids being passed from grade to grade until they “graduate” as illiterates. Then it was objective tests that were to come in and “measure” teaching by how well the kids did on the test (rather than old school observation – cuz we found out the admin fudged that too)
My husband isn’t a good test taker or do interviews that well, but hand him a computer/network/email issue that no one can solve and he can do it. He can also explain what he did in plain English rather than the jargon laced vocabulary that some interviewers *feel* is the mark of someone “technical” enough.
I don’t have much of an answer beside “home school” and “vouchers” but we are really f**king up kids who don’t fit neatly in the bubble.
I don’t understand why Superman has to look like a muscleman at all. He gets his power from our yellow sun. He could be the Steve Buscemi of Krypton and still be the strongest being on Earth.
OT a trifle… Jared Bernstein’s OpEd in the NYT, via ZeroHedge..
Obama’s Former Chief Economist Calls For An End To US Dollar Reserve Status
Let that sink in for a moment, recalling that many economists fear the dollar’s losing reserve status would be a painful transition to higher interest rates, and suddenly the interest on our massive debt can no longer be paid with newly-printed dollars.
But it would make USA more ‘equal’ to other nations, something our little PrezziPutt in Practice is accomplishing rather splendidly. Because he hates America. Except for the nice greens, he hates every privately-held inch of it.
bgbear says September 8, 2014 at 3:08 pm
This.