Teachers – grade inflation – algorithms: cats know better!
Live by statistical modelling – die by statistical modelling! That’s my interpretation of the A-Level ‘scandal’. I wasn’t going to touch this with a bargepole, but the whole mess, shorn of the thicket of wailings and complaints in ‘Our MSM’, is yet another example for their anti-government crusade – a crusade on which they embark every day without doing due diligence, without doing background research.
They don’t even check out what their colleagues wrote, never mind what can be found in other papers or indeed blogs. Instead, readers are inundated with accusations that pupils from ‘poorer’ backgrounds were disproportionately downgraded by this exam exercise:
“The exam watchdog has been accused of creating an A-level grading system that punished poorer students at state schools while their wealthier, privately educated peers had their results upgraded. The proportion of grades awarded to pupils at independent schools increased more than twice as much as those handed to students at those at state schools, official figures showed.” (paywalled link)
Ooh – posh pupils did better than poor ones, how perfectly unfair! Here are some numbers, reported in The Times:
“The overall A-level results, across England, Northern Ireland and Wales, show record highs for A* and A grades. Grades for private school pupils were up by 4.7 per cent compared with last year. Sixth-form college grades were up only 0.3 per cent. Schools in the poorest areas also had more teacher assessments downgraded than those in the wealthiest. Sixth-form colleges have formally complained to ministers.” (link, paywalled)
Oh dear! We are given a rebuttal though – see this snippet, published in the DT:
“The exam regulator has accused teachers of submitting “implausibly high” predicted grades amid a growing fall-out over A-level results day. On Thursday, official data revealed that close to 40 per cent of results were downgraded from teachers’ predictions (see graphic below), prompting students to complain that they had been let down by the system.” (paywalled link)
No, mustn’t criticise those teachers – must criticise ‘posh schools’! But now look at this amazing announcement, published in The Times:
“Record numbers of disadvantaged teenagers have won places at university this year despite disappointing A-level results for some. More than 210,000 have been accepted — a record number for results day, even though the number of 18-year-olds has fallen and grades have been volatile.” (link, paywalled)
So why the wailings about ‘poorer pupils being disadvantaged’? Why the wailings about unfairness and disappointments and ‘appeals’ when we read that actually, A* and A grades have risen? And – they’re going to Uni anyway, aren’t they! What is missing in these articles and reports? Questions which ought to be asked about teachers and how they grade their students!
Let’s not ask how come 40% of teachers, especially in those ‘poorer’ areas and ‘poorer’ schools, have had their assessments downgraded by this Ofqual ‘algorithm‘ because they had been ‘implausibly high’. Let’s not even ask if this implausible upgrading happened in previous years. After all, Universities and colleges need students to keep their business model running and who cares if a huge proportion of those young people end up in debt, with worthless qualifications! Who’d notice!
Let’s also not ask how diligent all those teachers were when instructing their pupils during the CV-19 school closures. How good were their online video teaching material and methods? Moreover, shouldn’t there have been complaints from those poorer state schools about not having been given enough ‘resources’, like laptops and broadband connections for themselves and all their pupils?
There surely must have been some, or did the Teachers’ unions not care? Were they too intent on keeping schools closed until next year because that created headlines about bad BoJo trying to kill those precious teachers by exposing them to CV-19? I seem to remember those headlines … Of course, Labour had to wade in as well, in a Starmerish way:
“Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, called for an urgent review of the system before next week’s GCSE results, calling it fatally flawed.” (link, paywalled)
And this is what it’s all about: “The System”, created by government! It’s not about teachers and their utopian high assessments, it’s about appealing against that algorithm. Thanks to the negligence of ‘Our MSM’, not even Starmer seems to know how this algorithm came about. More on that below!
Obviously, one mustn’t voice one’s suspicion that grade inflation might have been due to teachers’ ‘generosity’, to engineer an outcome sending more students from poorer parts of the country to Uni, regardless of actual academic qualifications. As far as ‘Our MSM’ ae concerned, the whole mess is solely the fault of the Education Secretary:
“Gavin Williamson […] came under pressure to follow Scotland, where grades created by an algorithm were withdrawn and teachers’ predicted results will take their place.” (paywalled link)
It’s as if using an ‘algorithm’ is now a heinous crime. It’s as if Williamson and his henchpeople had spent their time creating something to impose on all those wonderful teachers – surely our next ‘heroes’ even though they’ve done eff all for their pupils during the Lockdown.
However, it turns out that they themselves were involved in creating this algorithm, as were their Trade Unions, as were headmasters and even pupils. I was pointed to a blog entry (here) where this was mentioned. They provided a link to the Ofqual Consultation paper where this is documented. You can find that paper here. This is a government publication. It’s not a state secret. You don’t need to use the Freedom of Information Act to read it – and it makes interesting reading!
For example, Ofqual conducted a consultation “that ran between 15 April and 29 April 2020 and which received 12,623 completed responses.”. They set out the areas to be addressed:
“We explained the aims of our proposed approach to standardising grades and the principles which underpin it, and made proposals to support these. For example, we set out our proposals to address key questions such as: how we should use statistical evidence to identify and adjust overly generous or harsh centre assessment grades; whether evidence of changes in a school or college’s past performance should inform our interpretation of this evidence; whether any issues of bias can be addressed through statistical adjustment.” (link)
Recall – this consultation took place in April, so teachers knew what was being proposed. And still they inflated their grades! Above all, Ofqual received over 12,000 replies on these points, from local authorities, schools, teachers, Unis … Interestingly, there were 78 from Teacher’s ‘representative group and union’. This wasn’t sprung suddenly on poor unsuspecting teachers. They were involved, they were consulted, and they all knew that an algorithm based on statistical models was going to be used. The data for the model was actually provided by the schools and teachers themselves.
I suggest humbly that this algorithm was more realistic that that other algorithm, the statistical model on which Lockdown was based. I ask in a most humbly fashion why it is ok to demand this Ofqual model be scrapped while that other one is still being used, false and corrupted PHE data notwithstanding, questions about the validity of CV-19 tests notwithstanding. I ask this especially since Johnson is giving with one hand – allowing further easing of restrictions – while taking away with the other, imposing fines up to £3,200 for ‘repeatedly not muzzling up’ in public (paywalled link).
I leave you with a quite remarkable attempt at hauling another Tory minister into this A-Level mess. He’s been out of the headlines for a long time, but behind very closed doors and totally en coulisse he is apparently being touted as Johnson replacement. Dedicating a whole article today, on his attempts to tighten up the A-level grade inflation when he was education minister (from 2010 to 2014) is quite a feat.
The Times’ headline gives the game away: “A-level results: Gove’s reforms fail to prevent rise in top grades” (link, paywalled). Never mind the war he had to fight against the massed power of civil serpents and teachers’ unions. Never mind that some time has obviously passed between his time as education secretary and today. Never mind that the changes he instituted – scrapping course work for sat exams – had a result which provides one reason for the rather successful resistance of that ‘education blob’:
“One consequence of scrapping course work was that boys out-performed girls at the highest level. In contrast, under this year’s assessed grades, girls have done particularly well.” (link, paywalled)
One other point is missing here. One of his SpAds at that time was a certain Mr D. Cummings. You might have heard of him. I am amazed that The Times, the foremost belligerent in the Anti-Cummings-War, hasn’t seen fit to mention him! But at least they’ve now thrown the first little dart at Gove, so that’s ok then.
I wonder if it’ll dawn on ‘Our MSM’, on Labour, on teachers’ Trade Unions and the rest of the wailers and moaners who want to scupper this year’s A-Level result because it was ‘done by algorithm’ that we can make the same demand for scuppering Lockdown in its entirety, muzzle wearing included. That was, after all, also based on algorithms and statistical models.
‘Live by statistical modelling – die by statistical modelling’. No exception, else the cry about ‘following the science’ becomes even more tarnished.
KBO!
My first reaction Viv, was that it rather looks like Independent Schools are now actually BETTER than State Schools. That certainly did not used to be the case.
Interesting what you say about Gove. I’ve thought for a long time that Sat Exams were a better test than teacher assessed course work but I did not realise that Gove thought so too.
The whole system has now been corrupted by all the leftie, PC propaganda politicians and unions.
PS. Are the cats learning to count mice? I particularly like the naughty bored one washing his face.
Retired Biology teacher, retired Edexcel Examiner.
I worked most of my teaching career in a Comp in a very deprived town in West Cornwall.
Much hinges on the school’s Head and my school was blessed with a particularly poor onefor many years: keen to follow whatever educationally fashionable fads prevailed at the time. He bullied his staff and one of his ploys was the active encouragement of grade inflation in teacher assessments. Then we would get it in the neck if our charges didn’t make their predicted grades!
In our deprived area we had a disproportionately high number of disaffected parents, the sort who DON’T want their children to do better than they did. These would drag down results because they wouldn’t and couldn’t support homework and derided academic achievement. We also had plenty of children from poor homes who WERE supported and who worked damned hard to better themselves. In the nature/nurture balance, very non-PC to cite, we had a disproportionately high number of cerebrally challenged children from similarly challenged parents. These tended to depress results meaning that the small number of well above average ability pupils stood out and did well in exams. However, teachers can become used to a lower average ability group so that a slightly above average attainer appears to them to be brilliant. This is where over-optimistic grades can be predicted. This may go towards explaining the 12% improvement in grades this year going by teacher assessments – a ridiculous improvement over the previous year and therefore likely to cause suspicion, as well as whatever an “algorithm” is which with one stroke of the ethereal brush downgrades all pupils from schools with a history of lower than average performance.
If the teacher assessed grades are the ones used this year then in the future any 2020 exam grades will be viewed with suspicion. But all of the lower than average performing schools should appeal grades on behalf of their best pupils – though how this will be moderated I have no idea unless the moderators have great wodges of written work from each appellant to wade through and even that would not be necessarily reliable.
It is without a doubt a tricky one and I am glad all this has happened long after I retired from teaching and exam work. I just feel for the kids caught up in it.
Would it not have been better to cancel the 2019-2020 academic year? Though maybe that would throw up more problems to be solved!
(Wheatley/Trust excellent posts)
For years I had wondered where all of you competent teachers had gone…….you know, the ones who REALLY cared.
You know – the ones who really knew their subject/s.
The same place competent parents had disappeared to……that place I call oblivion.
And on reflection, it came to me…..
it was at about fifteen years after the time that immigration took hold (we all have a cross to bear)……..and by ‘took hold’ I really mean, ‘let loose’, – after the devastation of the war years.
The seeds had been sown, metaphorically and physically in the middle to late forties, when America joined in the European War, and so to the arrival of ‘the Yanks’. Nylons, casual sex, reefers and noise…….unremitting noise.
This was when noise became recognised as music. When cigarettes became more important than food; when we started sleeping with ‘partners’ rather than our husbands or wives. When ‘art’ needed to be explained in incomprehensible psychological clap-trap. And when in literature ‘the kitchen sink’ took the place of Elysian Fields; when unmarried teenage ‘mothers’ were given homes, prams, praise and applause, rather than suffering any reprimand for ‘loose morals and looser living’………..they became a considerable part of the ‘throw-away’ Society.
Long-service to a Company or Corporation was derided rather than being celebrated……….And so the standards, one after another, were reduced and fell to the onslaught of the ‘I’m all right Jack’ Organisers; car companies were brought to their knees by the Union Militants, Red Ken and his mugs, and factories were dismantled in their droves, to be sent overseas, piece by piece, with detailed instructions on how to make the products cheaper, so as to destroy our traditional industries. Decline, decline, decline………
Coal-mining, with its attendant massive labour force, was coming to its end in the UK. and burgeoning in China and the rest of the world………….( thus killing any hope we had of competing industrially with the rest of the world )
Young rioters, replete ‘wiv bovver-boots’ were being schooled in the craft of disobedience, from Brighton to Manchester……….to percolate towards full-time criminality…….consequently prisons began to fill to capacity…….So as a result sentencing needed to be less severe than of old…….and io course, psychobabble had by this time taken hold…….and so saw the rise of Freudian excuses for every crime in the book and on the planet.
The lowering of educational standards of course kept pace with the general decline…………there was a time when school teachers could, and would, handle and teach two or more subjects…….and now we are fortunate if they fully grasp just one.
Politics of course has become a cash-cow for second-rate Lawyers and ‘University-bred-political-clones’ ….to employ those who are unable or unwilling to call a spade a spade….largely because they have never seen one…let alone used one.
So friends, I will rest my diatribe ‘ere I send you to sleep………perchance to dream……of a bygone age……..when our educational system and standards were the toast of the world.
A few years ago there was a programme on BBC Radio 4 about about how well pupils at school do in their exams and the factors that influence their results. It was trailed as being broadcast in two parts. I listened to the first part, and the final conclusion was summed up as “if you want to do well at school choose your parents wisely”. The second part was not broadcast; no explanation was given and I do remember wondering at the time if the conclusion at the end of the first part had been not at all what the “doctor” (BBC dictator) had ordered.
This has a bearing on the current discussion about “disadvantaged” pupils. Such debate does seem to endorse the notion that children from disadvantaged” backgrounds do less well at school. But why? If one assumes that all teaching is prefect and that children from disadvantaged backgrounds do less well then it confirms that results are influenced by parental contribution outside school. And this begs the obvious question as to just how good are teachers.
The Labour cacophony that grades should be based on teacher’s assessments is flawed for several reasons, not the least that it ignores the possibility that teachers might be biased; after all they have a vested interest in as much as results reflected back on them.
Also, the exam system is intended to be balanced across all the pupils taking the exams, and to do so must mean an assessment across all the results. If teacher’s assessments are going to be used unquestioningly then at least some will, shall we say, err on the side of a higher mark safe in the knowledge that their judgement will not be questioned. And that is unfair on good teachers, of who there are no doubt a good many.
In the sixth form at grammar school two subjects were Pure Maths and Applied Maths. In the Lower 6th one teacher took us for Pure and another took us for Applied. At the end of the first year the “Pure” teacher left the school and in the second year the “Applied” teacher took us for both Pure and Applied Maths. His first “Pure” lesson started by him saying that we were going to start again from the beginning of the two year course and complete it in one year. I got a “B”, which was very good for me.
It is less distressing to think that Boris has lost the plot, than to consider the reality.
Boris has finally nailed his colours to the mast. It’s the RED Flag of Marxism. His ship is sinking and he will go down with it.
He isn’t responsibe for “the plot”, it was devised long ago, but as PM he is in charge now and has done nothing to thwart the plans.
There is only one truth and that is the State. Anyone who might have a different viewpoint is a “dissident” and must be punished. (that is Marxist theory, by the way)… We have ways of making you wear masks.
What else? The destruction of the traditional family. The destruction of communities, facilitated by uncontrolled immigration. The denigration of Christianity by whatever means…same sex marriage, abortion on demand, LGBTQ perversions encouraged and to be taught in schools… Leftist ideology taught in schools and colleges… all Marxist theory being put into practice on his watch.
The Tory party is standing on the Quarterdeck alongside Boris. Is there not one amongst them who will plunge a knife into the “captain’s ” back., and give the crew a chance to save the ship?
As most of that was either introduced or continued with bells on by Camoron and Treason May then the answer must be ” No. ” No one stabbed them in the back as they resigned after years of havoc. The only thing that would force the hand of a Tory Casca would be appalling results in the local elections if they can’t delay them due to all the false positive tests. Might be too late by then. Riots and a breakdown in compliance would do the job a lot faster but its the Marxists who tend to riot and mask compliance for example is well in the 90s%.
All we want from Johnson is Brexit then he can be thrown overboard.
I wonder if no-body coming from abroad to our universities has any effect ?. This money is propping up our country
This is from America, but it’s an example of the LEFTIE mindset, and where they intend to take us:
Nashville councilwoman wants attempted murder charges for people who don’t wear face mask:
https://www.theblaze.com/news/nashville-councilwoman-wants-attempted-murder-charges-for-people-who-dont-wear-mask-pass-on-covid-19
If teachers knew back in April that grades would be given by assessment rather than exams, of course they would bump up their predictions in an effort to big up their teaching prowess. Pity the poor students whose hopes were unfairly elevated by their teachers only to be dashed by a dose of assessed realism.
I thought myself that the algorithm to check against the previous year’s performance, as a counter to teachers’ having inflated their pupils’ projected grades, was a reasonable workaround. Of course you can get good years and bad years in student quality which said algorithm wouldn’t be able to allow for but ultimately the students have the option to sit the exams for real in October. Personally there is little point going to university this autumn with all the killjoy rules and lack of face to face teaching so it makes a lot of sense to sit the exams properly then get a temp job or do voluntary work or go travelling (if possible with all the craziness) before applying for 21/22 with known grades.
Should have never closed the schools in the first place or at least got them all back in early June. But we are where we are.