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You are under the mistaken assumption that somehow exams are more fair or get a better view of what students can do. It's well established that exams measure a

You are under the mistaken assumption that somehow exams are more fair or get a better view of what students can do. It's well established that exams measure a few limited congnitive constructs and its not the smartest or most hard working students that perform best, but rather those who are prepared by teachers for those exact constructs and the precise way of answering them. A brilliant student at a public school might study hard and still not get as good results as a mediocre and lazy student at a private school which tells them and drills them on the exam topics (often having their teachers in the exam boards and anyway paying more so that those teachers that care and know how yo play the game ate likely to be recruited there). It's absurd to think a central exam gives a more accurate picture of... What? Aptitude? Effort? ...? Than the teachers can have from working with students often for several years, seeing their work ethics, involvement in class, personal situations, etc. In short: the system was broken and biased to begin with (at least in England, Scotland is doing much better). Now this bias and favour of 'better' schools is explicitly enforced through this weighting algorithm.

harry8 6y ago
Exams, being far, far from perfect /ARE/ more fair. Why? because it is the same exam for everyone. The person marking the exam has no information about the person who wrote the paper, not their name, not what they look like, not how rich they are, not how pretty they are, not what school they attend. Whether or not you can achieve better outcomes or get a better indication of capability with other means, that total anonymity and an absolutely common hurdle is a kind of fair that is tough to match in assessment. It shouldn't be under-vauled. We should be sure that any alternative really is better. Let's not pretend that teachers' aren't subject to unconscious bias. I've also met a few who were just horrible human beings who had no business being in teaching.
- kbut 6y ago
  Not what school they attend: Except they dont mark their own schools and i think they keep the schools papers together in bundles. Plus markers have been to open days and continuous development days with the other teachers. plus they are having meetings daily to discuss how to mark classes of answers (where teaching methods used come up). i think the net of this is that they often do know what school they are marking (especially for the outliers - best and worst schools). For some subjects e.g. computer science then the pupils will answer in the langiages they were taught, so if its a python answer you know its one of the schools that teaches python) There is kind of just a problem overall with comparing private schools to state schools. At the very least this process may have worked better if they had two data sets, one for private one for atate schools. Beyond that though a stastical solution was never going to work, you cannot generate accurate discrete/quantized data, only representative random data. private schools imho teach you to pass the exam, they are more cut throat about focussing on this than state schools. and the teachers seem to fight harder for their kids - the difference in personal statements from private school teachers compared to state schools on uni applications would be an interesting study. I am not saying i have answers, just intereted in thw discussion. Overall i am always left with a few basic ideas to keep things fair (though i sometimes think some of these may be dumb and i am not suggesting do all of them): -Zero charitable status or governemnt support for private education. -cap the number of students a uni can take from one school (e.g. dont take the top 100 students, take the top 1 from 100 schools) -ban people who were not state educated from governemnt positions. This is contravertial but imho you effectively live a different life when you go to privare schools (class sizes, support and oppourtunity are in comparable)

harry8 6y ago

Exams, being far, far from perfect /ARE/ more fair. Why? because it is the same exam for everyone. The person marking the exam has no information about the person who wrote the paper, not their name, not what they look like, not how rich they are, not how pretty they are, not what school they attend. Whether or not you can achieve better outcomes or get a better indication of capability with other means, that total anonymity and an absolutely common hurdle is a kind of fair that is tough to match in assessment. It shouldn't be under-vauled. We should be sure that any alternative really is better. Let's not pretend that teachers' aren't subject to unconscious bias. I've also met a few who were just horrible human beings who had no business being in teaching.

kbut 6y ago
Not what school they attend: Except they dont mark their own schools and i think they keep the schools papers together in bundles. Plus markers have been to open days and continuous development days with the other teachers. plus they are having meetings daily to discuss how to mark classes of answers (where teaching methods used come up). i think the net of this is that they often do know what school they are marking (especially for the outliers - best and worst schools). For some subjects e.g. computer science then the pupils will answer in the langiages they were taught, so if its a python answer you know its one of the schools that teaches python) There is kind of just a problem overall with comparing private schools to state schools. At the very least this process may have worked better if they had two data sets, one for private one for atate schools. Beyond that though a stastical solution was never going to work, you cannot generate accurate discrete/quantized data, only representative random data. private schools imho teach you to pass the exam, they are more cut throat about focussing on this than state schools. and the teachers seem to fight harder for their kids - the difference in personal statements from private school teachers compared to state schools on uni applications would be an interesting study. I am not saying i have answers, just intereted in thw discussion. Overall i am always left with a few basic ideas to keep things fair (though i sometimes think some of these may be dumb and i am not suggesting do all of them): -Zero charitable status or governemnt support for private education. -cap the number of students a uni can take from one school (e.g. dont take the top 100 students, take the top 1 from 100 schools) -ban people who were not state educated from governemnt positions. This is contravertial but imho you effectively live a different life when you go to privare schools (class sizes, support and oppourtunity are in comparable)