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> Catch up refers to being at or around a historical moving average. Is it that complicated to understand? This is the statement, and while it's needlessly con

by toolz 4y ago

> Catch up refers to being at or around a historical moving average. Is it that complicated to understand? This is the statement, and while it's needlessly condescending I don't find it dismissive at all, it rebuts the point rather concretely. We have measurements that are specifically targeted at measuring education level. This is what "catching up" refers to. Those measurements might be bad, but I disagree strongly that they are meaningless as we have strong indicators that show the measurements do predict real-world success. GPA, for example is positively correlated with adulthood income by quite a lot. Maybe these are self-fulfilling measurements? Hard to prove one way or another, but they certainly measure things that society has proven they care about.

maxbond 4y ago
Come on dude. Condescension and dismissal are nearly synonyms. I don't know why you're dying on this hill, your argument stands equally well without it. Society deciding something is important is not what I mean by "meaningful" here. GPA predicting success is, as you note, a self fulfilling prophesy - so if we just assigned them at random, and then colleges and employers continued to take them seriously, that would just a meaningful exercise? And then if in successive generations we assigned your GPA to be the average of your parent's GPA - still great?
- toolz 4y ago
  > what I mean by "meaningful" here Then what do you mean by meaningful here? I can't think of anything people would consider more meaningful than ability to produce/provide in relation to educations purpose in todays society. No one presumes we're talking about underwater basket-weaving when we talk about the education system, because it's rather focused on enabling the youth to learn the skills necessary to compete in todays economy. > GPA predicting success is, as you note, a self fulfilling prophesy This is not an argument I made - it's a possibility, but I do not consider that to be an understood fact and I believe anyone, myself included, would have a very difficult time evidencing this claim in either direction (which is what I noted). > so if we just assigned them at random, and then colleges and employers continued to take them seriously This is quite the qualifier - no one would take GPAs seriously if we assigned them at random for the same reasons employers don't hire from their stacks of applicants at random. > And then if in successive generations we assigned your GPA to be the average of your parent's GPA - still great? GPA isn't a measurement against past generations, it's a measurement against your peers - this isn't a valid use of the metrics GPA try to provide. We have testing that attempts to answer "is the current generation more educated than the past?" but that metric is not GPA. Things like literacy rate would be useful for estimating if our education system is getting better.
  - maxbond 4y ago
    Meaningful here means, you have set out to measure something well defined, that is measurable, and you have succeeded in creating something with a sufficient SNR to inform sound decisions. Not that it is meaningful in a moral sense. Yes, this is a contrived hypothetical. I'm not stating this is how GPA works, I'm asking whether that would be acceptable. I'm asking you to suspend disbelief so we can have a discussion. I can see that isn't something you are willing to do, so I bid you a good day.

by toolz 4y ago

maxbond 4y ago

Come on dude. Condescension and dismissal are nearly synonyms. I don't know why you're dying on this hill, your argument stands equally well without it. Society deciding something is important is not what I mean by "meaningful" here. GPA predicting success is, as you note, a self fulfilling prophesy - so if we just assigned them at random, and then colleges and employers continued to take them seriously, that would just a meaningful exercise? And then if in successive generations we assigned your GPA to be the average of your parent's GPA - still great?

toolz 4y ago
> what I mean by "meaningful" here Then what do you mean by meaningful here? I can't think of anything people would consider more meaningful than ability to produce/provide in relation to educations purpose in todays society. No one presumes we're talking about underwater basket-weaving when we talk about the education system, because it's rather focused on enabling the youth to learn the skills necessary to compete in todays economy. > GPA predicting success is, as you note, a self fulfilling prophesy This is not an argument I made - it's a possibility, but I do not consider that to be an understood fact and I believe anyone, myself included, would have a very difficult time evidencing this claim in either direction (which is what I noted). > so if we just assigned them at random, and then colleges and employers continued to take them seriously This is quite the qualifier - no one would take GPAs seriously if we assigned them at random for the same reasons employers don't hire from their stacks of applicants at random. > And then if in successive generations we assigned your GPA to be the average of your parent's GPA - still great? GPA isn't a measurement against past generations, it's a measurement against your peers - this isn't a valid use of the metrics GPA try to provide. We have testing that attempts to answer "is the current generation more educated than the past?" but that metric is not GPA. Things like literacy rate would be useful for estimating if our education system is getting better.
- maxbond 4y ago
  Meaningful here means, you have set out to measure something well defined, that is measurable, and you have succeeded in creating something with a sufficient SNR to inform sound decisions. Not that it is meaningful in a moral sense. Yes, this is a contrived hypothetical. I'm not stating this is how GPA works, I'm asking whether that would be acceptable. I'm asking you to suspend disbelief so we can have a discussion. I can see that isn't something you are willing to do, so I bid you a good day.