Hi Ed, as a former science teacher I can tell you much more about why grades are worthless. We are barely scratching the surface of the broader issues at play here including:
-examiner bias
-"scripts" for answers, not demonstration of knowledge
-simplification of English & Maths skills required across all subjects
-"wokery" in the curriculum(especially this one)
-repeatable and predictable exam formats
-distribution of marks, not a standard to reach for an "A" grade (now a 7)
-reformatting the grades from A-U to 1-9
-help for "disabled" pupils (you'd be amazed how common dyslexia is in private schools)
-no standard across subjects and introduction of bollocks subjects - e.g a 9 in physics compared to a 9 in business studies are worlds apart, this wasn't always the case
-teacher determined grades during covid
Although all these issues were in place, I left teaching when schools became experimental injection centres, happy to share more for anyone curious. Made an account just to post this.
Indeed it does, it's a horrendous system. Schools are also incentivised to diagnose also and I would argue are a bigger factor than parents, as the level of funding they receive is directly tied into the # disabilities in the school.
All of the staff who are privy to this pot of money actively go out of their way to diagnose healthy children with nonsense disabilites. Which initially seems harmless enough, perhaps even beneficial if it gets the school more money but when plenty of these diagnoses lead to medication it is very sinister.
Another factor people aren't aware of, is when the government awards teachers a pay raise all of the money comes from the school budget. So a teacher pay raise is money taken away from pupils. Totally broken system. I homeschool
Simon Webb also did a recent video (hilarious) confronting those who were sceptical of his credentials, asking if he passed his 11+. Highly entertaining.
I don't see why in a society of an average IQ of 120 say, that the bottom half fail if they meet valid mastery criteria. It would be stupid to fail competent drivers on the basis that they are the bottom 5%.
Your last point, about the Internet being more accessible to students these days - I was thinking about this the other day. As an undergraduate in 1999, I relied solely on books from the campus library. If a book wasn't currently available, I had to put my name on a waiting list. We did have Internet access on campus, albeit limited time-slots and obviously not rich with resources.
No doubt my grades would've been vastly improved if I'd exercised a little cunning and used what students have access to these days. I could've basically cherry-picked, being careful to reference my sources. But would I have learnt anything?
I'm grateful for my education. I still prefer to read books, physical or otherwise digital e-books, that's just how I was taught - not just to consume content but to think critically about the subject matter, form opinions and connections.
I went to 'new parks community school and project' in Leicester, in the mid > 80's. Mostly we were locked in the classroom , and left to trash it. I pretended I had gcses on my cv , and I've been a successful bin man ever since.
You're missing an even more important fact - Far more children are taking GCSEs and A levels. When I took my O levels in 1983 half of children didn't take any O levels, they took CSEs which were of a much lower standard. So 15% of pupils getting a GCSE A today is a doubling of 15% getting an A in 1983.
The number taking A levels must have tripled or more, that means even with the same grading system you'd have a massive decrease in standards
Well surely the point is broadly only the brightest children took these exams. So the grades only covered a top slice of young people anyway. So say an E was still in the top say 30%.
It turns out I was perhaps unduly generous. In my school-leaving cohort, 15% of school leavers came away with at least one A level. So a single E put you in the top 15%. Now not every bright pupil took A levels, for a whole host of reasons, but even so....
Only if you you widen the trawl across society. If the population increases but you were to still take the top 15% or whatever you wouldn't necessarily lower the standard. It's the fact the increased numbers include a huge contingent of lesser ability pupils, but with the top percentage remaining the same, or increasing, makes your point. We are not disagreeing.
We are disagreeing, back in the 80s the top 15% took A levels and the top 10% of those got an A (1.5% of the population). Now if we take the current A level numbers and applied the same rules, 50% take A levels, top 10% get A, that's the top 5% of the population. Not only that but that curve has been shifted to the left so the mark achieved to get an A would be lower
An American expatriate YouTuber called Evan Edinger, a Maths graduate, has a video where he attempts the British A Level (C1) Maths exam paper under exam conditions and marks it. He gets a B grade. His educated opinion is that it is the right standard of difficulty. (It's apparently a paper from the older style AS level/A Level scheme.)
You're taking a recent US Uni graduate and asking him to rate the modern A level when we know for a fact standards in both US and UK have fallen over the last 30 years.
It is also an exam featuring topics he will know nothing about since there is no standardisation even in A levels over the last 40 years (matrices being a prime example). All it really shows is the US degree and masters level maths exams are not the same standard as the UK A level, something most people have always agreed on.
I don't know what the modern A level maths is like, I do know it is far easier to take A levels now because you can get coaching advice on youtube that is far superior to the teaching in UK schools (I've two daughters who have taken A levels in Economics, English and History who will confirm this).
I checked the Pearson website for the 2023 'A' Level grade boundaries and they are 244/300 (81%) for A* grade in Mathematics and 196/300 (65%) for A grade.
Evan Edinger was born in 1990, so he would have studied for the equivalent exams at High School some years ago.
He also made a YouTube video (link below) where he attempted the GCSE Maths Higher exam paper and commented that it was indeed more difficult than the American Maths tests.
Hi Ed, as a former science teacher I can tell you much more about why grades are worthless. We are barely scratching the surface of the broader issues at play here including:
-examiner bias
-"scripts" for answers, not demonstration of knowledge
-simplification of English & Maths skills required across all subjects
-"wokery" in the curriculum(especially this one)
-repeatable and predictable exam formats
-distribution of marks, not a standard to reach for an "A" grade (now a 7)
-reformatting the grades from A-U to 1-9
-help for "disabled" pupils (you'd be amazed how common dyslexia is in private schools)
-no standard across subjects and introduction of bollocks subjects - e.g a 9 in physics compared to a 9 in business studies are worlds apart, this wasn't always the case
-teacher determined grades during covid
Although all these issues were in place, I left teaching when schools became experimental injection centres, happy to share more for anyone curious. Made an account just to post this.
Simon Webb did a good video on how middle class parents now push to get their child labelled. This gives them extra time in exams etc.
Indeed it does, it's a horrendous system. Schools are also incentivised to diagnose also and I would argue are a bigger factor than parents, as the level of funding they receive is directly tied into the # disabilities in the school.
All of the staff who are privy to this pot of money actively go out of their way to diagnose healthy children with nonsense disabilites. Which initially seems harmless enough, perhaps even beneficial if it gets the school more money but when plenty of these diagnoses lead to medication it is very sinister.
Another factor people aren't aware of, is when the government awards teachers a pay raise all of the money comes from the school budget. So a teacher pay raise is money taken away from pupils. Totally broken system. I homeschool
Simon Webb also did a recent video (hilarious) confronting those who were sceptical of his credentials, asking if he passed his 11+. Highly entertaining.
Brilliant comment. Thank you.
I don't see why in a society of an average IQ of 120 say, that the bottom half fail if they meet valid mastery criteria. It would be stupid to fail competent drivers on the basis that they are the bottom 5%.
Because of the Bell Curve.
So according to your theory, an African with an 85IQ passes but hypothetical man in 120 IQ land with a 90IQ fails. Smart that.
Your last point, about the Internet being more accessible to students these days - I was thinking about this the other day. As an undergraduate in 1999, I relied solely on books from the campus library. If a book wasn't currently available, I had to put my name on a waiting list. We did have Internet access on campus, albeit limited time-slots and obviously not rich with resources.
No doubt my grades would've been vastly improved if I'd exercised a little cunning and used what students have access to these days. I could've basically cherry-picked, being careful to reference my sources. But would I have learnt anything?
I'm grateful for my education. I still prefer to read books, physical or otherwise digital e-books, that's just how I was taught - not just to consume content but to think critically about the subject matter, form opinions and connections.
Great video.
You'd have learned to plagiarise, a very useful skill as older university students will tell you
Indeed
I went to 'new parks community school and project' in Leicester, in the mid > 80's. Mostly we were locked in the classroom , and left to trash it. I pretended I had gcses on my cv , and I've been a successful bin man ever since.
It's obvious the grades should be normalised across each annual contingent, at least.
They used to be graded according to your cohort - Top 10% got A, next 15% got B etc etc. At least then you knew someone with an A was in the top 10%
You're missing an even more important fact - Far more children are taking GCSEs and A levels. When I took my O levels in 1983 half of children didn't take any O levels, they took CSEs which were of a much lower standard. So 15% of pupils getting a GCSE A today is a doubling of 15% getting an A in 1983.
The number taking A levels must have tripled or more, that means even with the same grading system you'd have a massive decrease in standards
Well surely the point is broadly only the brightest children took these exams. So the grades only covered a top slice of young people anyway. So say an E was still in the top say 30%.
Then yes. Now that's not the case.
It turns out I was perhaps unduly generous. In my school-leaving cohort, 15% of school leavers came away with at least one A level. So a single E put you in the top 15%. Now not every bright pupil took A levels, for a whole host of reasons, but even so....
Just do the maths : Treble the intake and have the same Percentage getting As and you've lowered the standard considerably
Only if you you widen the trawl across society. If the population increases but you were to still take the top 15% or whatever you wouldn't necessarily lower the standard. It's the fact the increased numbers include a huge contingent of lesser ability pupils, but with the top percentage remaining the same, or increasing, makes your point. We are not disagreeing.
We are disagreeing, back in the 80s the top 15% took A levels and the top 10% of those got an A (1.5% of the population). Now if we take the current A level numbers and applied the same rules, 50% take A levels, top 10% get A, that's the top 5% of the population. Not only that but that curve has been shifted to the left so the mark achieved to get an A would be lower
An American expatriate YouTuber called Evan Edinger, a Maths graduate, has a video where he attempts the British A Level (C1) Maths exam paper under exam conditions and marks it. He gets a B grade. His educated opinion is that it is the right standard of difficulty. (It's apparently a paper from the older style AS level/A Level scheme.)
https://youtu.be/9l50XPsna0E?si=00L9sSSGRsdFuU_6
You're taking a recent US Uni graduate and asking him to rate the modern A level when we know for a fact standards in both US and UK have fallen over the last 30 years.
It is also an exam featuring topics he will know nothing about since there is no standardisation even in A levels over the last 40 years (matrices being a prime example). All it really shows is the US degree and masters level maths exams are not the same standard as the UK A level, something most people have always agreed on.
I don't know what the modern A level maths is like, I do know it is far easier to take A levels now because you can get coaching advice on youtube that is far superior to the teaching in UK schools (I've two daughters who have taken A levels in Economics, English and History who will confirm this).
I checked the Pearson website for the 2023 'A' Level grade boundaries and they are 244/300 (81%) for A* grade in Mathematics and 196/300 (65%) for A grade.
Evan Edinger was born in 1990, so he would have studied for the equivalent exams at High School some years ago.
He also made a YouTube video (link below) where he attempted the GCSE Maths Higher exam paper and commented that it was indeed more difficult than the American Maths tests.
https://youtu.be/QpzD2NQdfVg?si=e4wl0mQQdEQi5NPF
Could we not devise an exam for each important subject which is standard across time as well as adopting this Finnish system?