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> The issue is that all teachers significantly > over-predicted their students grades, > but less so at high-performing schools. "All teachers" is a sweepi
by lhnz 6y ago
> The issue is that all teachers significantly
> over-predicted their students grades,
> but less so at high-performing schools.
"All teachers" is a sweeping statement.
There are teachers in comprehensive schools that are tough-markers, too. My wife, who is a teacher in a London school, was annoyed in both directions - there were teachers that she felt had given away high grades, but there was also a teacher that had given the kids in her class grades lower than she expected they'd get (as her identity is tied to being overly careful and she liked to grade kids harder in mocks, etc).
What she felt was bad was that cohorts of kids were often very different year upon year. Last year there were particularly bright kids doing Physics in her school, but this year there was only a few kids and they were much worse. But the algorithm awarded them grades above what she expected.
There were also kids that she expects would have worked hard before their exams and gotten results above what they were given. They didn't get given the chance to do this.
- mjburgess 6y agoI meant all teachers across school types, not all teachers individually. In both state and private schools, teachers over-predicted. But higher-performing schools have higher and more uniform results, so there's less room to actually over predict -- so there's comparatively less reduction. That's just an in-built concequence of what it means to be a high performing school
- lhnz 6y agoSure. It makes sense. I don't believe in the media conspiracy that the Tories created an algorithm that systematically awards higher grades to rich kids because of inherent classism or even by accident. But I do really disagree with the insistence that all teachers in comprehensive schools were conspiring to give their kids higher grades than they deserved -- this view was frequently repeated on social media. Even if there were some that were doing this and it was apparent from the statistics, teachers are not a homogenous group and there are many teachers that take fair grading very seriously and even take enjoyment in being tough markers. I don't know the data but my own worry is that this will have hurt the high variance or lazy kids that won't normally get high grades but would normally settle down and revise hard for such an important exam. I hope that these kids will be given the opportunity to resit the exam for free, since I doubt an algorithm could capture the variance that exists every year.
- ppod 6y agoJust to be clear about what actually happened, the results were weighted on a per-school basis, based on results from the previous four years. The disparity in weighting is not solely down to effects at the top of the distribution.
- lhnz 6y agohttps://thaines.com/post/alevels2020 https://thaines.com/post/alevels2020 I just read this article, and it was interesting.