The Price of a Human Life

The College Board, through its alter ego the Educational Testing Service (ETS), is soliciting teachers to sign up for a trial program in which teachers can serve on an advisory panel that will help them develop a testing platform, "a suite of tools," "that will measure student learning." Oh, and for signing up, teachers agree to have their classes undergo field testing in the Spring.

I will share the email text below.

For this invaluable help, the ETS will pay the school, NOT the teacher but the school, five dollars for every completed test.

Sorry, I should have warned you to put your drink down. Sorry I can't help you clean up the liquid you just spewed on your floor.

Five bucks. Five dollars. It puts me in mind of the scene from the second Harry Potter movie when Lucius Malfoy asks Arthur Weasley what's the point in being a disgrace to the name of wizard if he's not being well paid for it.

Indeed. Why would I sell out my students (I wouldn't do it for any price), but ETS is not going to pay well for it. Data mining on the cheap. AND they don't offer to pay me, but they will give a measly five bucks to my school.

If I was tempted, I would tell them my students are worth far more than that. Should we open negotiations at $500,000 per completed field test?

You're right, not enough.

ETS, let's start at five million, but I expect more.

What is the price of a human life? What price can we put on human data?

What ETS offers wouldn't buy even a Big Mac anymore. Nope, can't stomach it, will not cooperate with a corporation that wants a human life for less than the cost of a hamburger.

Here's the email text:

ETS is seeking teachers to participate in an online survey panel which will aid in the development of assessment tools that can be used in your classroom. Your input will help us to develop the product to be responsive to the needs of today’s students and educators.  Over the next two years, we will also be conducting a variety of activities and studies that will allow us to collect feedback on our items, systems, and products.  In thanks for your participation, we will provide you with a giftcertificate.com gift card for each survey and/or activity you complete.We are in the process of developing a new suite of tools, including Summative, Benchmark/Interim, and formative components to be used within the classroom, to measure student’s knowledge, skills and abilities in mathematics and English language arts, from elementary to high school grades. This new product from ETS, called the Winsight™ Assessment System, will be a unified, configurable system that harnesses the strength of ETS research, providing insight into where students are and where they need to be-- and enabling educators to create a pathway to get them there.Winsight is flexibly designed for your state’s standards and ETS Learning Progressions and integrates the state summative, interim and formative assessments into one inter-connected assessment system that requires less summative testing time, by measuring what is truly important, and makes learning deeper and more transparent. Winsight will deliver more actionable information to guide instructional strategies thereby creating a richer environment for teaching and learning and leading to improved outcomes for your students.In addition to the online survey panels, we will be conducting a field test this spring to test items and the end-to-end delivery system.  These field tests are being conducted across the country, with students in Grades 3-10.  In appreciation for the work, your school will receive a $5 honorarium for every completed test, as well as information on student’s performance and professional development materials that explore how students’ conceptual understanding develops in key areas of mathematics and English language arts.If you would like to take advantage of any of these opportunities, please fill out our survey by clicking the survey link below:Survey LinkThank you for your consideration. We look forward to your response!The ETS Winsight Team

The Trump GIF or Should I Say Gaffe?

So a jokester makes this GIF of the president striking a golf ball, which then hits Hilary Clinton in the back (oh, the wonders of Photoshop) and causes her to fall down.

https://twitter.com/Fuctupmind/status/908163011793358848/photo/1



The president sees it in his Twitter feed and retweets. He must have found it hilarious.

But in his weird Trumpian way, he condemns himself at the same time.

As an avid golfer, Trump knows that such an errant golf shot that has left the golf course to strike a person at an airport who is boarding a plane is OUT OF BOUNDS.

Let the irony sink in.

The jokester forgot to edit in a speech bubble with the president shouting "Fore!" to warn persons to duck.

Yes, so what seems to be a ha-ha for Trump is actually a condemnation of his disregard for other people to the point of showing him callous to the danger he has put them into.

Why in the world did he think this was worthy of a retweet?

Donald Trump, you are out-of-bounds, sir. An honorable golfer would call a penalty on himself.

Are you game?

People of Faith and Natural Disasters

Long, long time ago: well, 25 years to be exact, I was taking a course in biblical Greek because the seminary I would enter in January demanded that students come in with expertise in the language. Although they allowed students to take a course upon matriculation for no credit, I as always worked to meet the need and enrolled in a Miami seminary, a very small outfit, to get the needed knowledge. When I arrived in Wilmore, Kentucky, I took and passed an exam to prove I could read and understand the language.

(Yawns, okay, why is this relevant?)

Because 25 years and a few weeks ago, Hurricane Andrew devasted South Florida with 165 mph winds.

That delayed the start of the course. But when it began, we had an info session with everyone in the room: students, profs, deans.

I remember to this day how one dean talked about Hurricane Andrew and how it was forecast to strike West Palm Beach directly, which would cause unimaginable death and destruction to millions of people, but he was convinced that God put his hooks into the storm and pulled it south where it would not impact as many persons.

Hooray for you, God! Thanks for sparing me, but damn, do I feel bad for the people who got it.

Later, in my class, as people shared their Andrew experience, I realized that many people in that room had to listen to that spiel knowing that their homes were destroyed, knowing the hard work they were engaged in to rebuild their lives, and knowing that they were committed to not letting a Category 5 hurricane disrupt their education. They didn't share their feelings, but we can imagine how they felt hearing that God spared me, but it sucks to be you.

I recall that memory as Irma approaches Florida. Please, Christians, however it turns out, can we not embarrass ourselves? Let's not thank God loudly if we are spared the worst of the storm when others are not. We are not better, we have not lived better lives, if you need some help, I direct you to read Ecclesiastes.

Or perhaps these words from the Gospel will help: [God] causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous.

It happens to us all. Long after the hurricane has passed (now is not the time), we can have a discussion about sin and how the entire world fell with humanity and so everything, including climate and weather, is imperfect and potentially harmful.

I haven't prayed much about this storm. Does that surprise you?

But I'm not smart enough to know what is best. I leave that up to God. I simply trust in His goodness, and that He will make all things better according to his purposes.

In this life or the next one. That is another theological discussion we can leave till later.

For now, let's do what we can to survive and then to help others to recover. Regardless of faith or creed, let's protect human life.

It's what Jesus wants us to do.