German ethics council demands opt-out system for transplants

AbstractOpt-in or opt-out? That is the basic question to be answered. The decision to promote actions of “opt-in” type as opposed to those of the “opt-out” type, for the sake of private autonomy, does not ensure the effective application of european competition law. On the contrary, it may decrease the application’s intensity and effectiveness. Recent reforms among European state members such as in the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway are powerful indications that the opt-out principle may result in the effective implementation of competition law. There is no doubt that a mixed system (hybrid system), providing the court with the power to decide in favour of either the opt-in or the opt-out system, will result in better implementation of competition law. At the present time there are two pending cases in England (Dorothy Gibson and Mastercard) for which the decision on opt-out or opt-in are highly anticipated. Should the court decide, in one or both of the cases, on an opt-out approach, this will bring a momentous reevaluation of the entire collective redress concept.

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Unstandardizing Testing: Low-Scoring American Minority Students in the Crosshairs of Conservative Policymakers

Journal of Education in Black Sea Region ◽

10.31578/jebs.v3i2.131 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Sami Chedhli Nighaoui

Keyword(s):

Critical Race Theory ◽

Minority Students ◽

Standardized Tests ◽

Feedback Mechanism ◽

Cultural Bias ◽

Testing System ◽

Quantitative Methodology ◽

Race Theory ◽

Cultural Backgrounds ◽

Opt Out

That standardized tests do not accurately assess the true competencies of minority test takers is a widely shared claim among conservative educationists. The opt-out-of-testing community has lately grown unprecedentedly vocal in several states, questioning even more seriously the accountability of the testing system altogether. This paper adopts a Critical Race Theory perspective to investigate the conceptual underpinnings of conservative criticism as well as the interpretations made popular using quantitative methodology. The key premise of this paper is that a colorblind approach to testing understates the importance of a range of unquantifiable variables, mainly the linguitic and cultural backgrounds of the test takers, in determining assessment outcome. It attempts to demonstrate where specifically standardized tests may not be used as a reliable feedback mechanism and suggests that a more flexible assessment paradigm be considered, one that engages learning quality followup to keep cultural bias to a strict minimum.

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