Recent Debates

It is becoming increasingly possible to "design" your own children by choosing desirable traits, and removing undesirable ones. Is this ethical? Should it be allowed? If so, to what degree?

Everyone (else) celebrates their birthday on the same day every year. However, people born on leap days can't do that because their birthday only occurs once every 4 years. What is to be done??

Here is a new description

The vast majority of the world's population has no memory of sexually harassing Sharon Bialik, so it's statistically improbable that Herman Cain would have such a memory, whether or not he actually did it.

Slashdot recently posted this story on the #Occupy movement's use of the internet as a form of direct decision making (democracy in action). Could this work on a national, or even global scale?

Schools in the United States are facing tough budget choices and cutting back on teaching positions, tutors, support staff, summer programs, and extracurricular activities. According to a recent survey, 78 percent of educators said they are experiencing a lack of funding and it has affected student learning. Unmentioned in any of the reports of financial problems is the fact that, at the same time money is so short, we are keeping a number of useless tests and actually increasing testing in the face of empirical evidence showing that these tests do not increase student achievement. A clear example of a current useless test is the high school exit exam used in many states. Studies consistently show that exit exams do not lead to more college attendance, increased student learning, or higher employment. In fact, researchers have yet to discover any benefits of having a high school exit exam. The U.S. Department of Education is planning an astonishing increase in testing. In addition to end-of-year tests in reading and math, the department supports testing several times during the year (interim testing). The department is also encouraging testing in other subjects as well. Recently, the department announced plans to test children before they enter kindergarten ("Race to Top Initiative Sparks Assessment Fears," Aug. 24, 2011). In addition, all tests will be administered online, a huge expense. There is no evidence that the new tests will help children. Monty Neil of Fairtest.Org has noted that all new proposals to improve the education law (the renewal of No Child Left Behind) and heavily “test-centric,” keeping all the old tests and adding more. We all agree that assessment is part of teaching and learning, but our philosophy should be "no unnecessary testing." Determine which tests are useful and eliminate the others. Overtesting is choking our schools both intellectually and financially.