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> and exam scores are normalized This never should've been done to begin with. Education isn't supposed to be a competition.

by dns_snek 10mo ago

corndoge 10mo ago
I think the intent is to calibrate for instruction quality
- cherryteastain 10mo ago
  When I was grading labs as a TA, the intent was communicated to me rather as "per university teaching guidelines we mustn't have too many students get the top grade but we also mustn't have too many students fail"
  - throw-the-towel 10mo ago
    Reminds me of "stack ranking" in performance reviews.
    - kelseyfrog 10mo ago
      The purpose of normalized grades is to habituate future workers to this so that by the time they find it in the real world they don't resist. It's part of reproducing the labor-captial relationship.
      - gus_massa 10mo ago
        It also helps to avoid populist teachers that give everyone a A+++ to avoid students complains, and also idiots that give everyone a C because only God is A and only the teacher is B. (We don't use that method here, we use other method to try to avoid both problems.)
      - DiggyJohnson 10mo ago
        Where is the incentive for test makers in academia to accommodate this outcome? It sounds nice but I don’t think jaded professors or overworked, inexperienced, and stressed TAs have a reason to do this. It sounds nice but it doesn’t actually seem connected.
observationist 10mo ago
If the purpose of a system is what it does, what is the purpose of this education system that seems to uniformly and spectacularly fail to educate children? It's not supposed to be a competition, but there should be incentives and oversight and controls and all the features you'd want to be able to reward outliers and foster excellence and all the good things while minimizing the bad. What we have is tragic and absurd.
- huhkerrf 10mo ago
  https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpose-of https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpo...

> and exam scores are normalized This never should've been done to begin with. Education isn't supposed to be a competition.

corndoge 10mo ago

I think the intent is to calibrate for instruction quality

cherryteastain 10mo ago
When I was grading labs as a TA, the intent was communicated to me rather as "per university teaching guidelines we mustn't have too many students get the top grade but we also mustn't have too many students fail"
- throw-the-towel 10mo ago
  Reminds me of "stack ranking" in performance reviews.
  - kelseyfrog 10mo ago
    The purpose of normalized grades is to habituate future workers to this so that by the time they find it in the real world they don't resist. It's part of reproducing the labor-captial relationship.
    - gus_massa 10mo ago
      It also helps to avoid populist teachers that give everyone a A+++ to avoid students complains, and also idiots that give everyone a C because only God is A and only the teacher is B. (We don't use that method here, we use other method to try to avoid both problems.)
    - DiggyJohnson 10mo ago
      Where is the incentive for test makers in academia to accommodate this outcome? It sounds nice but I don’t think jaded professors or overworked, inexperienced, and stressed TAs have a reason to do this. It sounds nice but it doesn’t actually seem connected.

observationist 10mo ago

If the purpose of a system is what it does, what is the purpose of this education system that seems to uniformly and spectacularly fail to educate children? It's not supposed to be a competition, but there should be incentives and oversight and controls and all the features you'd want to be able to reward outliers and foster excellence and all the good things while minimizing the bad. What we have is tragic and absurd.

huhkerrf 10mo ago
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpose-of https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpo...