6 ms·

So is "controversial" the same as unfair or bad? Journalists often use "controversial" to discredit something that is not in accordance to their ideology. Contr

by jansan 6y ago

So is "controversial" the same as unfair or bad? Journalists often use "controversial" to discredit something that is not in accordance to their ideology. Controversial politicians (which politician isn't controversial?), controversial university professors, controversial speeches, controversial thoughts...

chongli 6y ago
It's controversial in the sense that a bunch of people are protesting about it. Whether it's actually unfair or bad is unknown. Fairness is a complicated thing. A lot of it is based on feeling and relative status, rather than some objective measure of well-being. One person might find it deeply unfair that another person has a lot of money, relatively speaking. But take that money away and redistribute it equally between the two and now the latter person may find the situation unfair.
- jonp888 6y ago
  If what is written here is true then it's way beyond 'unfair' and on towards mathemtically nonsensicle: https://twitter.com/alexhern/status/1294200553661227008 https://twitter.com/alexhern/status/1294200553661227008 It is claimed that in any class where the chance of someone failing is judged to be > 0%, even if it is a tiny fraction of a percentage point, then the algorithm requires that someone in the class MUST be given a failing grade, even if it the weakest student in a very high performing class.
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    >If what is written here is true ... So is it? The guy is mining theoretical examples, but I wonder if in practice anyone has been hurt by this. And if they have (let's say a non-failing student was given a failing grade), why not handle those cases within a manual appeals process? After all, the exams weren't written, so no matter what mechanism you choose their will be students that get higher markers than they otherwise would have received and lower marker than they otherwise deserved - but I suspect, even in those cases, the marks will be in the same ballpark.
    - weego 6y ago
      Of course children have been hurt by this is practice, there are numerous cases of children getting down graded from their predicted results so badly they're having University offer places withdrawn, and it's not by a point or two, we're talking straight A students getting demotd to Ds across the board because their school has a history of bad results, which are irrelevant to any given student right now. Oxford have decided to ignore results and honor previously given offers because the process is so untrustworthy.
      - macspoofing 6y ago
        >Of course children have been hurt by this is practice, there are numerous cases of children getting down graded from their predicted results so badly they're having University offer places withdrawn Yes. I understand there will be cases like this, but what numbers are we talking about? And you were never going to prevent circumstances like those. >we're talking straight A students getting demotd to Ds across the board because their school has a history of bad results, which are irrelevant to any given student right now. That's not irrelevant. Schools don't flip their standards from year or another. A bad school this year, will be a bad school next year. And many students are hurt by mark inflation. It isn't fair that one school will give out B, while another A+ for the same academic performance - and that certainly happens. There was a case in Canada some time ago where it came out that Universities were scoring high-schools based on performance of their alumni and normalizing the marks of new applicants based on those metrics. It was a small controversy, but what else are they going to do? The alternative is to assume that 'A' from one school is the same as 'A' from another - which is grossly unfair. >Oxford have decided to ignore results and honor previously given offers because the process is so untrustworthy. Good. Everyone understands that this is a weird time and everyone is trying their best. This is why this does not worry me one bit. I fully expect all schools that rely on these marks to be a little bit more understanding.
        pjc50 6y ago
        Marks aren't awarded by the school per se, they're awarded by one of the agencies such as AQA. This results in a lot of angry and upset teachers as the marks just received are a surprise to them too. The Scottish government SQA has already backed down on its "adjustment" and agreed to use estimated marks from teachers and mock exams.
- weego 6y ago
  It's very clearly unfair, I'm not sure what your example has to do with anything. No students performance should be a sum based on how previous students have done at their school. That's literally reinforcing the postcode divide in education quality that were supposed to turn a blind eye to. My home town school has historically refused to even put children in for exams if they didn't get at least a C grade in their mocks because they valued league table position so highly (helps with investment and alumni donations etc). That cynical and should-be-illegal approach clearly benefits their students in this situation more than schools in the area that do right by their children. And more than any of that, this is the real world effects of the bullshit algorithm peddlers have been pushing for the last few years. Algorithms can solve any real world problem given the data. Well they can't. They can give the proposition of an answer to the problem, but at costs to some that are too high to bear.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    My high school had one person 3 years prior to my senior year get into an Ivy, and then before that it was no one in recent memory. In my senior class, 6 of us got into Ivies. I can only imagine what my life would be like if we only got the "fair" allotment of zero Ivy spots in a system like this.
    - stordoff 6y ago
      Similar happened to me (UK) - my school went from performing under the national average for the preceding three years to being notably above for my year group, and no one could remember anyone going to Oxbridge, but there were two of us in that year (the school barely even knew about the extra exams we had to take - required for one, optional for the other - so the prep. was more or less entirely self-taught).
handelaar 6y ago
In this case, yes it is. Low-performing students at private schools are having their estimated Cs and Ds bumped up to As. Stellar students at schools in poor areas who got As in their mock exams and have teacher-predicted As are being awarded Ds instead.
- JoeSmithson 6y ago
  > "Low-performing students at private schools are having their estimated Cs and Ds bumped up to As" Do you have an example of this happening? It seems basically impossible from my understanding of the process. ----- Edit: I think I understand how it can happen. A school with a cohort that is small, but large enough to get the algorithm, and a previously exemplary results, has an unusually bad pupil. I can see this happening in a subject like Further Maths where only good students take it
dynamite-ready 6y ago
I wanted to use the word 'contentious', but I felt that would bend Hacker News rules. 'controversial' certainly feels like the right word in this case. The scheme is flawed, as it clearly penalises some students, and benefits others. And many are rightfully outraged by that. So yes. 'Controversial', I think.

by jansan 6y ago

chongli 6y ago

It's controversial in the sense that a bunch of people are protesting about it. Whether it's actually unfair or bad is unknown. Fairness is a complicated thing. A lot of it is based on feeling and relative status, rather than some objective measure of well-being. One person might find it deeply unfair that another person has a lot of money, relatively speaking. But take that money away and redistribute it equally between the two and now the latter person may find the situation unfair.

jonp888 6y ago
If what is written here is true then it's way beyond 'unfair' and on towards mathemtically nonsensicle: https://twitter.com/alexhern/status/1294200553661227008 https://twitter.com/alexhern/status/1294200553661227008 It is claimed that in any class where the chance of someone failing is judged to be > 0%, even if it is a tiny fraction of a percentage point, then the algorithm requires that someone in the class MUST be given a failing grade, even if it the weakest student in a very high performing class.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >If what is written here is true ... So is it? The guy is mining theoretical examples, but I wonder if in practice anyone has been hurt by this. And if they have (let's say a non-failing student was given a failing grade), why not handle those cases within a manual appeals process? After all, the exams weren't written, so no matter what mechanism you choose their will be students that get higher markers than they otherwise would have received and lower marker than they otherwise deserved - but I suspect, even in those cases, the marks will be in the same ballpark.
  - weego 6y ago
    Of course children have been hurt by this is practice, there are numerous cases of children getting down graded from their predicted results so badly they're having University offer places withdrawn, and it's not by a point or two, we're talking straight A students getting demotd to Ds across the board because their school has a history of bad results, which are irrelevant to any given student right now. Oxford have decided to ignore results and honor previously given offers because the process is so untrustworthy.
    - macspoofing 6y ago
      >Of course children have been hurt by this is practice, there are numerous cases of children getting down graded from their predicted results so badly they're having University offer places withdrawn Yes. I understand there will be cases like this, but what numbers are we talking about? And you were never going to prevent circumstances like those. >we're talking straight A students getting demotd to Ds across the board because their school has a history of bad results, which are irrelevant to any given student right now. That's not irrelevant. Schools don't flip their standards from year or another. A bad school this year, will be a bad school next year. And many students are hurt by mark inflation. It isn't fair that one school will give out B, while another A+ for the same academic performance - and that certainly happens. There was a case in Canada some time ago where it came out that Universities were scoring high-schools based on performance of their alumni and normalizing the marks of new applicants based on those metrics. It was a small controversy, but what else are they going to do? The alternative is to assume that 'A' from one school is the same as 'A' from another - which is grossly unfair. >Oxford have decided to ignore results and honor previously given offers because the process is so untrustworthy. Good. Everyone understands that this is a weird time and everyone is trying their best. This is why this does not worry me one bit. I fully expect all schools that rely on these marks to be a little bit more understanding.
      - pjc50 6y ago
        Marks aren't awarded by the school per se, they're awarded by one of the agencies such as AQA. This results in a lot of angry and upset teachers as the marks just received are a surprise to them too. The Scottish government SQA has already backed down on its "adjustment" and agreed to use estimated marks from teachers and mock exams.
weego 6y ago
It's very clearly unfair, I'm not sure what your example has to do with anything. No students performance should be a sum based on how previous students have done at their school. That's literally reinforcing the postcode divide in education quality that were supposed to turn a blind eye to. My home town school has historically refused to even put children in for exams if they didn't get at least a C grade in their mocks because they valued league table position so highly (helps with investment and alumni donations etc). That cynical and should-be-illegal approach clearly benefits their students in this situation more than schools in the area that do right by their children. And more than any of that, this is the real world effects of the bullshit algorithm peddlers have been pushing for the last few years. Algorithms can solve any real world problem given the data. Well they can't. They can give the proposition of an answer to the problem, but at costs to some that are too high to bear.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  My high school had one person 3 years prior to my senior year get into an Ivy, and then before that it was no one in recent memory. In my senior class, 6 of us got into Ivies. I can only imagine what my life would be like if we only got the "fair" allotment of zero Ivy spots in a system like this.
  - stordoff 6y ago
    Similar happened to me (UK) - my school went from performing under the national average for the preceding three years to being notably above for my year group, and no one could remember anyone going to Oxbridge, but there were two of us in that year (the school barely even knew about the extra exams we had to take - required for one, optional for the other - so the prep. was more or less entirely self-taught).

handelaar 6y ago

In this case, yes it is. Low-performing students at private schools are having their estimated Cs and Ds bumped up to As. Stellar students at schools in poor areas who got As in their mock exams and have teacher-predicted As are being awarded Ds instead.

JoeSmithson 6y ago
> "Low-performing students at private schools are having their estimated Cs and Ds bumped up to As" Do you have an example of this happening? It seems basically impossible from my understanding of the process. ----- Edit: I think I understand how it can happen. A school with a cohort that is small, but large enough to get the algorithm, and a previously exemplary results, has an unusually bad pupil. I can see this happening in a subject like Further Maths where only good students take it

dynamite-ready 6y ago

I wanted to use the word 'contentious', but I felt that would bend Hacker News rules. 'controversial' certainly feels like the right word in this case. The scheme is flawed, as it clearly penalises some students, and benefits others. And many are rightfully outraged by that. So yes. 'Controversial', I think.