Keeping the status quo in place

 

Subject: Keeping the status quo in place.

The apparent debacle surrounding the method of defining who gets high or low grades in this years A level and GCSE results is an interesting example of so much which is wrong in our society.

Using algorithms to define group preferences is common, they are used to define us in so many areas of our life and often provide a tag which is hard to shift no matter how much individual reality speaks to the contrary. They are used famously for bundling us into groups to target for advertising a product and in security to profile sections of society for observance. In artificial intelligence (AI)  they are the backbone of sifting out the options by excluding a whole raft of information deemed unnecessary to define a clean outcome. The outcome is more important than the complicated process we humans use to reach decisions, morals and ethics are way too complicated, as is the complex symmetry built up between teacher and child based on months of interaction and observation.

The pandemic has floored the educational system more than many others. Learning and teaching are integrated in a way that is seldom seen in other sectors of life. The child is nascent in this process of development it requires the prodding support of teachers to gain the confidence and unfurl any talent they may have and many a successful person can trace their success back to a particular teacher. Teachers are human and like all of us make mistakes but as a barometer of a child's ability, both educationally and emotionally the teacher is best placed to present the authorities with a true picture of the children in their class and much better than a statistical algorithm which judges trends not individuals.

The real bogey in the system is the parity given to the school, its type and previous exam results which is meat and drink to the statistical assumptions made by the algorithm since the future is predicated on the past. In part this is true but it ends up emphasising the grouping of our society into the class structure it has and the prejudicial attempt to maintain the caste system by the families who's son's and daughters are closeted in a private educational caste and who's futures therefore are tied up in the maintenance of just such a system.

Under the system used in England this year the best grades awarded by the algorithm inevitably go to the pupils who go to the schools who did well last year and low and behold this award goes to the private school who's money provides the very best in virtually every aspect of educational endeavour. This built in proviso that what went before will repeat itself year on year avoids the quirk of nature, the talented child from a working class background living in a working class town or city. This child and there are thousands of them are weighted by birth and post code.

In the unique circumstance of school closures due to the pandemic and the artificial assessment forced on the authorities one would have hoped the Establishment would have broken new ground and relied on teacher assessment across the board to filter out the able from the less able. Yes there might have been some favouritism but would it have been any worse than the favouritism which money brings.

Scotland, a much more socially progressive country saw the inequity that the algorithm was predicting and did a U turn and settled on teacher assessment but we in England are saddled with entitlement and an encrusted tradition for keeping the status quo in place