[F]or the first several years the SAT was offered, males scored higher than females on the Math section but females achieved higher scores on the Verbal section. ETS policy-makers determined that the Verbal test needed to be “balanced” more in favor of males, and added questions pertaining to politics, business and sports to the Verbal portion. Since that time, males have outscored females on both the Math and Verbal sections. Dwyer notes that no similar effort has been made to “balance” the Math section, and concludes that, “It could be done, but it has not been, and I believe that probably an unconscious form of sexism underlies this pattern. When females show the superior performance, ‘balancing’ is required; when males show the superior performance, no adjustments are necessary.”

“Gender Bias in College Admissions Tests”, FairTest.org

And then people urge me everything is fine, of course it is, when you’re ignoring statistics that is.

(via cwnl)

(via truth-has-a-liberal-bias)

Source: fairtest.org

Why French Kids Don't Have ADHD

In the United States, at least 9% of school-aged children have been diagnosed with ADHD, and are taking pharmaceutical medications. In France, the percentage of kids diagnosed and medicated for ADHD is less than .5%. How come the epidemic of ADHD—which has become firmly established in the United States—has almost completely passed over children in France?

Another reason to examine the approaches and practices of our (American) pharmaceutical companies, health care systems and our doctors. This is systemic. 

(via positivelypersistentteach)

Source: chalkdust-n-apples

Yahoo! Just Bought Tumblr for $1.1 Billion

That rumored $1 billion offer from Yahoo! to buy Tumblr? It’s looking like a forgone conclusion at this point. But things are messy and speculative and there are already doomsayers predicting this is a bad idea for everyone involved. But mostly they’re predicting it’s bad for Yahoo!

I’m sad because I’m hoping that Yahoo doesn’t try to blatantly monetize Tumblr the way that Fox did with MySpace, it’s one of the reasons I left MySpace. I’m sad for the Tumblr community that might die as a result of the purchase. I’m sad that stuff like this might not happen on Tumblr anymore: Jackie Rosas, California Teen, Uses The Internet To Prevent Tumblr User’s Suicide 

Anyone else feel the same?

positivelypersistentteach: life-on-christie-road: katsplanet: yahoo wants to buy tumblr so i’m making an early prediction as to what would happen if this were to take place I swear, if yahoo buys tumblr and things go to hell, I’m leaving  BARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRF This feels like an invasion of my home. If Yahoo purchases Tumblr, we can all bet that Tumblr will be the next MySpace: A wasteland of abandoned accounts. 
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positivelypersistentteach:

life-on-christie-road:

katsplanet:

yahoo wants to buy tumblr so i’m making an early prediction as to what would happen if this were to take place

I swear, if yahoo buys tumblr and things go to hell, I’m leaving 

BARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRF

This feels like an invasion of my home.

If Yahoo purchases Tumblr, we can all bet that Tumblr will be the next MySpace: A wasteland of abandoned accounts. 

Source: katsplanet

futurist-foresight: DIY bionics as a step towards fully integrated neural linked systems. alexob: DIY bionics - making kids smile again. See the joy in Liam’s eyes as he is grasping a ball with his right hand for the first time. By the time this cute fellow grows up, he will have a bionic hand that will be connected to his neural-system and be indistinguishable from his biological body; but all Liam cares about for now his being able to play ball. 
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futurist-foresight:

DIY bionics as a step towards fully integrated neural linked systems.

alexob:

DIY bionics - making kids smile again.

See the joy in Liam’s eyes as he is grasping a ball with his right hand for the first time. By the time this cute fellow grows up, he will have a bionic hand that will be connected to his neural-system and be indistinguishable from his biological body; but all Liam cares about for now his being able to play ball. 

Source: makerbot.com

  • 2 Plays
  • Standardized Testing Undermines TeachingDiane Ravitch

How come the American public education system uses test scores to determine whether students or teachers are successful? Is that how we measure success in real life? Does your supervisor/manager/boss ask you to take tests, filling in which multiple choice answer is THE correct answer, to measure if you’re doing a good job every 2 years?

I wanted to know what Diane Ravitch, education expert, historian of education and Research Professor of Education at New York University, thought about testing in our schools and I found this interview. One factoid I found interesting from this interview is that when she looked at the most successful education systems in the world, she found that they were all public - NOT privatized, like what we’re trying to do here in America with charter schools. Did you know that? Also why are we comparing ourselves to other industrialized nations when it comes to education if we’re not going to try do what works in those countries? Oh, and you know what else? America’s NEVER been No. 1 in the world in education.

Read the interview and related stories on NPR

There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.”

We regard this action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news.

Gary Pruitt, President and CEO of the Associated Press, in a letter (PDF) to US Attorney General Eric Holder.

The News, via the AP:

The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for the Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.

In all, the government seized those records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

As Declan McCullagh, chief political correspondent for CNET, points out, 28 CFR 50.10 (the Code of Federal Regulations) includes the following:

No subpoena may be issued to any member of the news media or for the telephone toll records of any member of the news media without the express authorization of the Attorney General… Failure to obtain the prior approval of the Attorney General may constitute grounds for an administrative reprimand or other appropriate disciplinary action.

So, evidently, Eric Holder gave his express authorization for monitoring of the Associated Press’ phone records. Besides the initial WTF, we wait to hear how this is spun to justify the intrusion.

(via futurejournalismproject)

Brittany Wenger’s success and innovation demonstrate the reason we need to incorporate coding into the American education curriculum, I think as early as elementary school. While we wait for our education system to catch up, here are some “Learn to Code for Free” resources: Coursera Google Code University Code School Udacity Code.org Learn Street Treehouse Code Academy Watch Brittany Wenger at TEDxWomen 2012:
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Brittany Wenger’s success and innovation demonstrate the reason we need to incorporate coding into the American education curriculum, I think as early as elementary school. While we wait for our education system to catch up, here are some “Learn to Code for Free” resources:

Watch Brittany Wenger at TEDxWomen 2012: