If and when we send colonists to Mars and beyond, we’re going to need habitats unlike any we’ve built before. To encourage out-of-the box thinking, NASA and America Makes are kicking off a $2.25 million dollar competition to design and build 3D printed space habitats.
As Netflix looks for growth at home and abroad it may now have its sights on one of the most lucrative markets in the world, which also happens to be one of the most censored one. Netflix is reportedly in talks with local broadcasters in China in order to offer its library of content to potential users in the People’s Republic. Earlier this year Netflix did hint that it wouldn’t be opposed to send original and globally-licensed content to China through a “small service.”
The Wall Street Journal claims that Netflix is talking with local online broadcasters Wasu and BesTV in order to expand its user base outside of the markets that it currently operates in.
Netflix is currently available in the United States as well as several countries in Europe, though many subscribers use VPN services to access Netflix from unsupported countries.
The report claims that the parties are negotiating about restrictions on foreign content and the censorship of “objectionable” material, Netflix will probably have to agree with the local definition of objectionable if it wants the approval to send its content to China.
If a deal is reached, the local online broadcasters will stream Netflix content to mobile and other devices. No official announcement has been made as yet.
Netflix Library Could Be Coming To China , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use. 
We reported last month that security researcher Chris Roberts was detained by the authorities and subsequently banned by United Airlines after tweeting about being able to hack the plane, a tweet which he thought was supposed to be funny. He suggested in his tweet that he could hack the plane to drop the oxygen masks by simply plugging into the inflight entertainment box under his seat. The FBI claims that his actions were actually more sinister, that he commandeered the plane’s controls.
FBI agent Mark Hurley details an interview with Roberts on April 15th after he was detailed at Syracuse airport, claiming that Roberts had “exploited/gained access to, or ‘hacked’ the [in-flight entertainment] system. He stated that he then overwrote code on the airplane’s Thrust Management Computer while aboard a flight. He stated that he successfully commanded the system he had accessed to issue the climb command.”
It’s also claimed that Roberts said he caused one of the plane’s engines to climb which resulted in a lateral or sideways movement of the airplane, and apparently he also agreed to using software to monitor traffic from the cockpit system.
While admitting to Wired that he has hacked in-flight networks as many as 15 times for the purpose of observation, he denies these specific allegations made by the FBI. So far the authorities have not yet charged Roberts with a crime.
FBI Claims Security Researcher Commandeered Plane’s Controls , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use. 
Elle King grew up in southern Ohio but was made for Gulf Shores — and the Hangout festival. The singer-songwriter whose full-length album debut Love Stuff was released last year, now lives in New York, likes to party, frolic in the ocean and speak without a net.
“I’m a water baby to no end,” she said during a quick hangout interview hours after her performance on the BMI stage on May 16. “I’ve been in the ocean since the second I walked offstage till like 5 seconds before I came over here. It’s beautiful. The water is amazing, incredible.”
Her man-hating song “Good to be a Man,” recorded for an earlier EP, was a hit during her early afternoon Hangout set, but she also gave equal time to haters of the opposite sex, saying women can be just as bad.
But King, who took three planes to get to Gulf Shores from Los Angeles, where she wound up a tour with James Bay, proved to be a bundle of fun onstage and during this Snapshot interview, the second in a series featuring up-and-coming artists who were performing at the Hangout from May 15-17. The selfie she took was with a couple of band members.
Claim to fame: What got you here?
EK: Probably my man-hating song. (laughs) No, I think I write funny songs that make people kind of like stop what they’re doing and be like, “What did you say?” And then it makes them laugh a little bit. And then they realize that my band is pretty talented and they enjoy the show so people just kept coming. And then I put out a full album of talking shit and now I’m living the dream.
You’re on the clock to make an Unabashedly Shameless Plug for 10 seconds: Go!
EK: My name is Elle King and I’ve got nice tits and I can drink you under the table.
Secret you’re finally well-adjusted enough to share?
EK: My first name is a boy’s name. It’s Tanner. I’ve always gone by my middle name but, yeah, my first name is Tanner. And King is my mom’s last name. I took my mom’s last name since I was 18.
Where do you go from here (literally or figuratively)?
EK: To the top! No, just kidding. I go home for a few days. I get to play with my dogs (Blue and Arrow), make out with this cute boy, see my mommy and then I go to Hong Kong.
Beach essential: Shades, swimsuit or volleyball?
EK: None. Beer. C’mon, why is beer not a choice? Add it to the list.
Shore thing in Gulf Shores (what’s on top of your to-do list)?
EK: See Major Lazer. Huge fan. Amazing. Just so wild, so crazy. I’m gonna be naked. Come find me, I’ll be that naked chick on the beach.
What did you want to be growing up?
EK: This. Just a cool person. (laughs) No, I wanted to be a musician. I just wanted to be onstage. It’s the first thing I can remember.
What’s your biggest fear about the water?
EK: The stuff you can’t see. It’ll get you. I’ve been pinched by a crab, I’ve gotten crabs. No, I’m just kidding. (laughs) I heard they put up the purple flags (Friday). And I was like, “Gross!”
Flip-flops, sneakers or Crocs?
EK: I’m actually a barefoot girl. But my suitcase got lost so I only had my boots and it was hot when I was walking around, so I bought flip-flops. But I have to say I’m barefoot at any time.
Surf, paddleboard, para-sail, deep-sea fishing or snorkeling?
EK: Ooh, snorkel. So I can see the fish.
Your greatest athletic feat?
EK: None. I can chug. I can chug better than any man. It’s fucked up.
What do you have that Skrillex and Diplo don’t?
EK: Tits.
If you could do to dinner and a movie with another Hangout performer this weekend, who would it be, what would you see and why?
EK: Diplo. I’d see … ooh, that’s tough. Uh, Roger Rabbit. But we’d get stoned first, you know.
Along with Elle King, Day 2 of Hangout featured performances by the Mowgli’s, Drive-By Truckers and one of the best of the fest by San Fermin, a Brooklyn-based eight-piece outfit that I will feature at a later date. Here’s a snapshot look at Day 2:
The Mowgli’s Katie Earl
Drive-By Truckers’ Mike Cooley
San Fermin’s Charlene Kaye
Fans at the Surf stage for the Mowgli’s
Concert photos my Michael Bialas. See more photos from Day 2 of the Hangout Festival.
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Living mindfully is what really matters, and the point of practicing mindfulness is just what the words imply: it’s about training specific skills so we can apply them in real life.
Mindfulness, by itself, is not the be-all end-all. Mindfulness means paying attention–accurately and openly–to what’s happening in and around you moment-by-moment. It’s a profoundly lucid form of transcendent awareness and it involves laser-like focus, unwavering concentration and a compassionate orientation. Mindfulness is a method, but living with greater skill, wisdom and kindness is the meaning.
With mindfulness, you can perceive reality and understand your own role. This essential mental skill facilitates the development of other virtuous capacities and qualities. If you remain present, truly present, you can share the very best of yourself with others by acting skillfully and constructively.
In contrast, without mindfulness, we tend to remain engrossed in our issues and therefore limited in our capacity to notice, much less care for, anyone or anything else. By itself, mindfulness is value-neutral, if not simply narcissistic.
But how–and why–we practice is up to us.
Consider:
What’s the point of practicing mindful breathing? Is it to use the breath as a focus for training attention in general? Or is it to become the best, most mindful breather? Sounds silly, but it’s a very real question for most of us.
The higher the quality of your attention, the more powerful it is–whether for good or for ill. Mindful attention is like a razor-sharp knife, and how you wield it determines the value.
If your mindfulness practice is solely about your own experience, you might end up with razor-burn or worse. If you practice mindfulness to have an advantage over others, your mind can cut and hurt, and bring shame.
But if you dedicate your mindfulness practice to giving the best of yourself (and increasingly the capacity of that “best”) then you use the sharp edge of your mind to cut away ignorance and create more and more space for love. After all, attention is an expression of love, and attention what we tend to crave for–and from–those we love.
The point of mindful listening ultimately transcends hearing. The technique involves becoming increasingly more attuned to the process of listening. It’s not just about sound and silence, but also the mental process of differentiating between auditory data and the meanings we ascribe. This enables us to hear “better” and then generalize beyond hearing to gain clarity and accuracy in our experience of reality.
We can hear what is, which helps us work constructively with what is. Although sometimes the right action is not to take any action, mindful listening does not imply passivity. Mindful listening is open, compassionate and alert.
At a broader level, consider that while using mindfulness to reduce stress is beneficial for our own health and wellbeing… the greater benefit lies in improving our ability to do right by–and for–others. Stressed thoughts, words and actions can easily hurt others. The more balanced my emotional state, I less I risk harming others. The steadier and more emotionally healthy I become, the more energy and intention I have to contribute positively in my relationships and the world.
In sum, mindfulness is both process and outcome; it is a skill to practice and apply. Doing so deepens our capacity and broadens our ability.
Although each of us trains individually, mindfulness is not about “me.” Rather, living mindfully allows us dedicate our own practice to a greater purpose and the greater good.
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As former Governor Jeb Bush (R-FL) flails about trying to use his family name to attract financial and elite support while also desperately trying to distance himself from his brother’s disastrous record, there is another problem he cannot run away from: The 12 Bush years were the worst on record for net new private sector job creation.
Not just the worst, but no one has even come close to being the second worst.
The totals for the 12 years we let these children of privilege use their instincts (or “gut” as W told us to rely upon) were abysmal, a total of 747,000 net new private sector jobs.
That’s it. Less than 1 million new private sector jobs in 12 years of Bush presidencies.
President Obama creates as many new private sector jobs in 3-4 months as the Bushes did in 12 years.
To understand this more fully, the Bushes averaged 5,190 new jobs per month for 12 years. No, not 51,000 that would be considered terrible, awful and devastating. But one-tenth of that, 5,190. There are no words to describe how abysmal that is.
Lest one believe that Junior were the culprit, crashing his daddy’s numbers, we can break it down further. Under Bush Senior there were a grand total of 1,084,000 new private sector jobs and Junior had a net negative 337,000 jobs. Other than Junior, Senior’s 1 million jobs in 4 years is the lowest by far of any modern presidency
So, the proposition Jeb is making to the nation appears, in essence, to be this: we should rely on a third Bush’s instincts (whose genetic defects on economic policy are described above) to extend President Obama’s economic recovery from his brother’s most disastrous economic and financial collapse since the Great Depression.
For Mitt Romney it was the 47 percent. For the Bushes, it is the 747,000.
Jeb Bush must think the American people are fools, or gluttons for punishment, to give the Bush instincts and hangers-on a third chance.
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The sight of a baseball hurling toward your body provokes fear in most people. But Johnny Sewald of the Arizona State baseball team is not most people.
The outfielder caught a baseball with, like, his elbow or something while up to bat against the Washington State Cougars on Saturday. Calm, cool and collected, Sewald then surprised the crowd by dropping the ball into his hand and tossing it back to Washington State pitcher Layne Bruner, who acted like it was no big deal as well.
The announcers, who are soon to become Internet legends, did not act so chill. Here is a rough transcript of their hilarious reaction, but you should really just listen yourself:
Ooh. Did he catch it? Yaaa-HAAAAAH, wooooo! HAHA. CHECK THIS OUT. WHAT. JUST. HAPPENED? HE CAUGHT IT. AND THEN HE THREW IT BACK AT HIM. THIS COULD BE ONE OF THE GREATEST THINGS I’VE EVER SEEN ON A BASEBALL FIELD. DO IT, JOHNNY. HAHAHAHA. [Clap. Clap. Clap.] AH, SON.
Sports, man. Sports.
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To placate their pique at his effort to get a non-proliferation agreement with Iran, Barack Obama met last Thursday at Camp David with Saudi royals and leaders of the other five feudal dictatorships of the Persian Gulf. He reaffirmed the United States “ironclad” commitment to their security and promised even more military aid and cooperation. After the personal dust-up between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu settles, we can expect the Administration and Congress to add even more steel to our commitment to protect and subsidize Israel by adding more to its already vast store of sophisticated weapons.
Thus, we take another step deeper into the tragedy of US intervention in the Middle East that has become a noxious farce.
Consider just one of the head-spinning subplots: we are allied with our declared enemy, Iran, against the bloody Islamic State, which was spawned from the chaos created by our own earlier decisions to invade Iraq and to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria, which has us fighting side-by-side with jihadist crazies financed by Saudi Arabia, whom we are supporting against the Houthis in Yemen, the bitter rivals of Al Qaeda– the perpetrators of 9-11!
Since 1980, we have invaded, occupied and/or bombed at least 14 different Muslim countries. After the sacrifice of thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars, the region is now a cauldron of death and destruction. Yet, we persist, with no end in sight. As a former Air Force General Charles F. Wald remarked told the Washington Post, “We’re not going to see an end to this in our lifetime.”
Democrats and Republicans snipe over tactics, but neither wants to discuss the question of whether we should be there in the first place. Even liberals counseling caution, like the New York Times editorial board, hasten to agrees that the US must play a “leading role” in solving the Middle East’s many problems. In other worlds, stay the course.
The ordinary citizen trying to make sense of all this might reasonably ask: why? The President’s answer is that the war is in our “national interest.” Congress says, Amen. The phrase causes politicians and pundits on talk shows to synchronize the nodding of their heads, signaling that the national interest should not have to be explained – and certainly not debated.
When pressed for more specifics, our governing class offers four rationales for this endless war: 1) Fighting Terrorism, 2) Containing Iran, 3) Securing Oil, 4) Defending Israel. But when the citizen in whose vital interest the war is supposedly being fought takes a close look, he/she will find that none of these arguments -or all of them together – justifies the terrible cost, or even makes much sense.
Terrorism.
The claim is that we will prevent another 9/11 by killing terrorists and keeping them offshore. But by now it is obvious that our interventions are counter-productive, i.e., they have vastly enlarged the pool of American-hating fanatics, willing to kill themselves in order to hurt us.
Americans are appalled when shown ISIS’s public beheadings on TV. What they are not shown is the beheadings routinely performed by the Saudi Arabian government and our “moderate” allies. Nor are they told that militias allied to the US-backed government in Iraq have killed prisoners by boring holes in their skulls with electric drills. This is the way bad people behave in that part of the world. ISIS is a symptom, not a cause, of Middle East fanaticism – a problem rooted in corruption, tyranny and ignorance, which the United States cannot solve. Meanwhile, Arab governments themselves have enough firepower to defeat ISIS if they can put aside their own differences to do it. If they can’t, it is not our job to save them from their own folly.
The rationale here is embarrassingly circular – we must remain in the Middle East to protect against terrorists who hate America because we are in the Middle East. George W Bush’s often echoed claim that “They hate us for our freedoms” is nonsense. They hate us because we are foreign invaders. The longer we stay, the most likely it is that we will see another 9/11. And as the Boston Marathon bombing demonstrates, the people who carry out the next attack are more likely to live here, than there.
Iran
Iran is not a threat to US security and will not be as far as one can see into the future. Its hostility to the US is a product of over 50 years of our active interference in its politics, beginning in 1953 when the CIA overthrew the democratically elected prime minister and replaced him with a king.
Barack Obama is right that stopping the spread of nuclear weapons should be one of our highest international priorities. But taking sides in the Middle East’s political and religious civil wars has undercut our credibility, making it look like we are more interested in checking Iran’s influence than nuclear proliferation. Why, the inquiring American citizen might ask, is it OK for Israel and Pakistan to refuse to sign international treaties and allow inspection of their nuclear facilities, but not Iran?
In any event, the leverage that brought Iran to the negotiating table was not the US military’s presence or saber rattling in Washington. It was the economic sanctions.
Oil.
Oil is an international commodity. When it comes out of the ground it is sold on world markets. Producing countries need consumers. US consumers buy oil at world prices, and it is available to them as it is to everyone else who can pay for it. They get no special discount for having military bases in the area.
The economic motivation for the invasion of Iraq was not to assure that we Americans would have gas for our cars and oil for our furnaces, but to assure that American-based oil companies would be the ones to bring it here.
Today, we get less than 10 percent of our oil from the Persian Gulf. The US is now projected to pass both Saudi Arabia and Russia as the world’s largest oil producer in the next two years. By 2020 North America, and likely the US alone, will be self-sufficient in oil and gas.
The claim that Americans need to be in the Middle East for the oil has gone from dubious to implausible.
Israel
The United States does not need Israel to protect its security. Nor does Israel need the US.
Israel has by far the most powerful sophisticated military in the entire region. Its arsenal includes nuclear and chemical weapons that, because Israel has refused to ratify international nonproliferation treaties banning, it can continue to develop with no outside interference. The surrounding Arab states are dysfunctional, disorganized and caught in the brutal quasi-religious war between Sunnis led by Saudi Arabia and Shiites led by Iran that is likely to drag on for decades. Hezbollah, which arose in Lebanon as a result of Israel’s 1982 invasion, can harass, but is certainly no threat to Israel’s existence.
Even if Iran eventually builds a bomb, Israel would still have the capacity to blow that country back to the Stone Age, and there is no evidence that Iran’s political establishment is suicidal.
The security problem for Israel comes from within the territory it controls: the status of the conquered, embittered Palestinians, who in 1948 and 1967 were driven out of their homes and herded into the ghettos of the West Bank and Gaza in order make room for the Jewish state.
The Palestinians are militarily powerless. They can throw stones and occasionally talk some lost soul into becoming a suicide bomber. From Gaza they can lob wobbly mortars over the Israel border. But always at the cost of harsh retaliation. Two thousand Gazans were killed in the Israeli punitive attacks of August 2014. It will take them ten years to rebuild their homes and infrastructure.
Yet the Palestinians will not give up their own dream of an independent homeland – at least on the territory occupied by the Israel army since 1967. So for almost a half century, our governments have pushed both sides to negotiate a permanent solution, pouring billions in aid to Israel, and lesser, but substantial amounts to placate the Palestinians and to bribe Egypt and Jordan into recognizing Israel. We have paid a huge political price; our role as collaborator in the Palestinian oppression is a major source of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world.
The US effort has failed. Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis — both driven by anger, mutual distrust and historical grievances — have behaved well. But, Israel is the one in control of the West Bank. So any credible solution requires that it end the apartheid system they have imposed, either by giving Israeli citizenship to the Palestinians (One-State) or by permitting the establishment of an independent Palestine (Two-States).
The Israelis will never accept a one state solution with the Palestinians. Among other reasons is a widely shared fear of the faster Palestinian birthrate. The re-election of Benjamin Netanyahu in March after he promised Israeli voters he would never accept two states, has buried that idea as well. The real Israel solution is already in motion on the ground –pushing Jewish settlements further and further into the Palestinians’ territory until there is no space left for a Palestinian state.
There are now about 600,000 people in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and their number is growing. No Israeli government in the foreseeable future will be capable of evicting a substantial share of them in order to give the Palestinians room to form an independent country. The only pressure on Israel is the fear that it might become an international pariah state – as South Africa did before it ended its apartheid. But so long as Israel is under the political protection of the US, it can, and will, ignore world opinion.
Our choice therefore is either to remain as enabler of Israel’s “settler” solution, or, as part of a general withdrawal from the region, to let the Israelis and Palestinians deal with the consequences of their own behavior. Indeed, US disengagement might be the political jolt needed to force a change.
Thus, the real answer to the question of why our country is stuck in the Middle East will not be found in the phrase, “national interest.” Rather it will be found among a much narrower group of special interests — military contractors, oil sheikdoms, the Israel lobby, and a media that hypnotizes the electorate into equating patriotism and war.
These interests are formidable. Their fallback argument is that we are in too far even to contemplate pulling out. Much too complicated. And America’s “credibility” is at stake.
Maybe. But our credibility as a democracy is also at stake. To maintain it, responsible citizens should at least demand clarity about why we are slogging deeper and deeper into this quagmire, putting lives at risk, wasting enormous resources and diverting the attention of the US government from the deterioration of our national economy – the fundamental source of national security.
America’s bi-partisan governing class has no intention of opening up their Middle East misadventure to such scrutiny. So it’s up to the citizenry. The 2016 president election campaign will force candidates into forums, town meetings and question-and-answer sessions. It may be the last chance for citizens to pierce the veils of glib rhetoric that hide the reasons our rulers have pushed us into a part of the world where we have no real business and where our presence has only made things worse.
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It is hard to pick up a book, a newspaper, or an online story these days without running into suicide. Today’s New York Times has two stories related to suicide: “What’s Lurking Behind the Suicides,” about Native Americans taking their lives, and a slightly more upbeat story called, “No Longer Wanting to Die,” about interventions that work for suicidal thoughts. (I am currently writing a book review for the New York Journal of Books on a novel called “A Cure For Suicide.”)
Many of us ask ourselves–are the number of suicides going up, or is the media just telling us more about them? And is the United States alone in this, or are other countries also experiencing high levels of self-imposed death?
Each year, more than 40,000 Americans take their own lives, and in 2013, suicide rates were highest among people ages 45 to 64, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last year a CDC study, which looked at 2012 U.S. mortality data, found Americans expected to live longer than ever but that the rate for suicide increased 2.4 percent. We are experiencing, as a nation, the highest rates of suicide in more than 25 years. The suicide rate is now 12.6 suicide deaths per 100,000 Americans, which is close to the rate of 12.8 in 1987.
What we also know from data is that suicide is disturbingly common among young people. Shockingly, suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people in the US, after unintentional injury. More specifically, according to the most recent data available, suicide is the second leading cause of death among people ages 15 to 34, and the third leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 14. Although young men between the ages of 10 and 24 are taking their own lives less often than they did 20 years ago, the suicide rate among young women is slightly higher than it was in 1994.
Suicide and thoughts about suicide start early. About 17 percent of high school students in the US say that they have seriously considered suicide, and 8 percent say that they have made an attempt. Overall, at least 25 percent of children and adolescents have suicidal thoughts at some point during their lives.
Why does suicide occur?
The factors leading to suicide are as complex as human nature. According to the CDC, warning signs of suicide include a family history of suicide, a history of depression or other mental illness, a history of alcohol or drug abuse, a stressful life event or loss, as well as exposure to other people’s suicidal behaviors. We also have to take into account post traumatic stress disorder, especially for returning veterans, economic distress and social dislocation. Lastly, we can’t ignore the growing movement around death with dignity for those with terminal illnesses who want to choose to die.
The good news about all this is that we actually have better and more reporting about mental distress. For example, in the past few years more media reporting and research have appeared on the role of bullying–particularly cyber bullying and suicide. The CDC has a Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System – a biannual questionnaire of teens in grades 9-12 in all 50 states constructed to provide a representative sample of high school students in the United States. In a study on bullying in the United States, one team reports that depression and suicide are much more common in teens who have been the victim of bullying in school and/or electronically. Moreover, these risks were additive among teens who were the victim of both forms of bullying.
The United States is not alone in the area of suicides. More than 800 000 people die by suicide every year – around one person every 40 seconds, according to WHO’s first global report on suicide prevention. Some 75% of suicides occur in low- and middle-income countries. Globally, suicide rates are highest in people aged 70 years and over. (In some countries, however, the highest rates are found among the young. Notably, suicide is the second leading cause of death in 15-29 year old people globally. In many parts of the world, the subject of suicide remains taboo. Only 30 countries in the world have national suicide prevention strategies.
What role do media play in the issue of suicide? Media coverage of suicides has grown both online and in traditional media outlets. Social networking has raised the level and preponderance of discussion of depression and suicide. Colleges and universities are paying more attention to the problem and recognizing the need for more on-campus resources. We also tend to hear more stories about suicide in “clusters” these days because of a phenomenon called “suicide clustering–the instance of several consecutive suicides in a single window of time and space, and usually in one geographic region.)
Is media sensationalizing suicide?
Some studies have speculated that the way media report suicide may glamorize the act and promote imitation suicide behavior, but most experts say not talking about suicide ultimately prevents people who need help from coming forward. The truth is the media deserves credit for bringing the issue of suicide to light. Reducing the stigma of mental illness is half the battle. Removing taboos and encouraging open conversation is a positive step. We need more articles about depression, not less.
Suicide is not a happy topic but we need to hear about it and talk about. This is one issue where media can have a good impact. So, let’s keep up the dialogue.
Tara D. Sonenshine is a lecturer at George Washington University and a practitioner of public diplomacy and public affairs.
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The full range of debate about the Big Standardized Tests really comes down to answering two critical questions about the testing.
1. Does the test collect good data?
The whole justification for the BS Tests is that they will collect all sorts of rich and useful data about students, schools, and educational programs.
I have been amazed at the widespread, childlike, bland faith that many people have in anything called a “standardized test.” If it’s a “standardized test,” then surely it must measure real stuff with accuracy, reliability and validity. Sure, the reasoning goes, they wouldn’t be putting the test out there if it weren’t really measuring stuff.
But to date, no evidence has appeared that the BS Tests are reliable, valid, or actually measuring anything that they claim to measure. The test contents are locked under a Giant Cone of Secrecy, as if the test is some sort of educational vampire that will evaporate if sunlight hits it. Nor have the data collected by the BS Test been clearly linked to anything useful.
“Well, since she got a great score on the PARCC, we can be assured that she will be a happy, productive and rich member of society,” said nobody, ever.
Nor is the data rich with any level of data at all. Instead, we get reports that are the equivalent of saying the student was either “Pathetic,” “Sad,” “Okee dokee-ish,” and “Mighty Swell.”
Do the BS Tests measure anything other than the students’ ability to take the BS Tests? Do the test results actually mean anything? If the test fans can’t answer those questions, we’re wasting everyone’s time.
2. What action is taken with the data?
The tests are supposed to provide data on which to act. Does that — can that — happen?
On the classroom level, no. Data is too meager, non-transparent, and just plain late to do anybody any good. “Well, last year you score Okee-dokee-ish because you missed some questions that I’m not allowed to see, so I’ve customized an educational program to address what I imagine your problem areas used to be,” is not a useful thing to say to a student.
But what about identifying schools that need help? Is the data used to help those schools? Not unless by “help” you mean “close” or “take over” or “strip of resources so students can go to a charter instead.” Our current system does not identify schools for help; it identifies schools for punishment.
Of course, it’s hard to come up with a good action plan based on bad data, which is why we need answers to Question #1 before we can do anything with Question #2.
We can’t fix what we don’t measure.
Well, maybe, but it doesn’t matter because right now our process is as follows:
1) Hey, your bicycle looks like it’s not working right.
2) I’ve measured the lead content of the paint on the bicycle by squeezing the bouncy part of the seat. Your bike is definitely defective.
3) I have thrown your bicycle in the dumpster.
We aren’t measuring anything, and we aren’t fixing anything. Outside of that, test-driven accountability is working out very Okee dokee-ish.
This post originally appeared at Curmudgucation.
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