Monday 17th August 2020

[refitman]

Morning all.

[citizenJA]

Good morning, everyone.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Good morefternoon, all.

[citizenJA]

A glorious, fresh breeze just came through the window.

[citizenJA]

@AnatolyKasparov
I'm glad you're here but I want to make clear I wasn't using a metaphor about the fresh breeze coming through the window when I posted about it.
I've no doubt you're fresh.
I'm bailing out of this post now.
The value of posting it at all is questionable but we've all known each other a long time and you've always been patient with me.

[RogerOThornhill]

Morning all.

CatNeilan
@CatNeilan
I've been told by a backbencher to expect an announcement on schools at 4pm today
12:07 PM · Aug 17, 2020·Twitter Web App

Not clear what the announcement will be, but source thinks U-turn on the cards

[AnatolyKasparov]

Hmmm, you might think so but with this lot anything is possible.

[frog222]

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Miles King @MilesKing10

Appears that Ofqual's algorithm caused today's A-level chaos. Ofqual chair Roger Taylor, also chairs the Centre for Data Ethics & Innovation (CDEI). Cummings' fave AI consultants - Faculty, have some juicy contracts with CDEI. And Faculty's COO Richard Sargeant is on CDEI board.

The Royal Statistical Society offered help in April, but refused to sign NDA's ! https://news.sky.com/story/a-levels-exa ... s-12049289" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[citizenJA]

The Children’s Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, says the algorithm used to determine this year’s A-Level and GCSE results in England is “irredeemably flawed”.
---
Longfield said if switching to teacher-assessed grades results in more students going to universities “then so be it”. “Ministers will just have to expand the number of places,”

(cJA bold)
This is good

It is notable that other countries in Europe have managed to find better, more creative and fairer ways than the UK of replacing or managing final school examinations during Covid-19. In due course, I hope the Government and Ofqual will consider the injustices that occur when the efforts, talents and dreams of children are considered to be reducible to the output from a statistical model.

Why wasn't the entirely feasible step taken expanding & allowing larger numbers into universities? These are UK young people (I'm not particularly fussed with allowing non-UK young people opportunities but I've a point in this specific case) being denied UK university places. How can any government expect these young people to responsibly gain knowledge and necessary training benefiting themselves and the UK after using a demonstrably unreasonably, unjustifiably crude mechanism shutting them out? How can this government even begin defending this? Disgraceful, mean, counterproductive, total inability seeing the bigger picture.

[citizenJA]

Miles King @MilesKing10

Appears that Ofqual's algorithm caused today's A-level chaos. Ofqual chair Roger Taylor, also chairs the Centre for Data Ethics & Innovation (CDEI). Cummings' fave AI consultants - Faculty, have some juicy contracts with CDEI. And Faculty's COO Richard Sargeant is on CDEI board.

The Royal Statistical Society offered help in April, but refused to sign NDA's ! https://news.sky.com/story/a-levels-exa ... s-12049289" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Non-disclosure agreements stipulating five years silence for those in the Royal Statistical Society
it's not appropriate or reasonable demanding that in this case

[AnatolyKasparov]

@AnatolyKasparov
I'm glad you're here but I want to make clear I wasn't using a metaphor about the fresh breeze coming through the window when I posted about it.
I've no doubt you're fresh.
I'm bailing out of this post now.
The value of posting it at all is questionable but we've all known each other a long time and you've always been patient with me.

I have no problem with any of your posts

[Willow904]

Northern Ireland haven't u-turned on A levels but have announced they're abandoning the moderation algorithm for GCSEs.
England is already facing a large number of appeals plus legal challenges over A levels. Boris and co might find this worthwhile if it means private school pupils hanging onto uni places they got with their not-so-downgraded grades but I can't see how preventing grade inflation at GCSE would be worth the even bigger level of appeals, expense, legal challenges and loss of political support.
If they do back down on GCSEs can they really front it out on A levels, though? Possibly if Wales and NI are the same and the appeals process for A levels is free, fair and swift. (So probably no then!)

[Willow904]

Ah, now the pressure is on:

Lewis Goodall@lewis_goodall
BREAK: in a major u-turn, the Welsh govt will award A-levels and GCSEs on the basis of teacher assessments (CAGs).

In Great Britain, that now only leaves England as the exception.

[RogerOThornhill]

Camilla Turner
@camillahmturner
·
46m
BREAKING: Gavin Williamson to perform a full U-turn and award teachers' predicted grades for both A-levels and GCSEs. This will be announced at 4pm #alevels2020 #alevels #gcses2020 #gcseresults #exams

Wonder whether he'll announce his resignation at the same time?

[citizenJA]

@AnatolyKasparov
I'm glad you're here but I want to make clear I wasn't using a metaphor about the fresh breeze coming through the window when I posted about it.
I've no doubt you're fresh.
I'm bailing out of this post now.
The value of posting it at all is questionable but we've all known each other a long time and you've always been patient with me.

I have no problem with any of your posts

[AnatolyKasparov]

Camilla Turner
@camillahmturner
·
46m
BREAKING: Gavin Williamson to perform a full U-turn and award teachers' predicted grades for both A-levels and GCSEs. This will be announced at 4pm #alevels2020 #alevels #gcses2020 #gcseresults #exams

Wonder whether he'll announce his resignation at the same time?

Now, what did you actually expect the answer for that question to be?

[Willow904]

Gavin Williamson now having to pretend he only realised the A level results were unfair this morning and look like a complete muppet to cover for Johnson's first real failure to get away with class warfare disguised as populism.

[RogerOThornhill]

Worth going back a step from this exchange between Sam Freedman and Ed Balls...

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including this...

John Dickens
@JohndickensSW
OMG, Williamson is blaming all this on Ofqual - he's totally thrown them under the bus. HE WAS THE PERSON WHO INSTRUCTED OFQUAL THE SYSTEM COULD NOT ALLOW AN INFLATION IN RESULTS, WHICH IT DID (Source: from press briefing going on now)
5:40 PM · Aug 17, 2020·TweetDeck

[frog222]

"" Roger Taylor is the chair of Ofqual, the exam watchdog that has come under heavy fire for its deployment of an algorithm to decide the results of ‘A’ Level and GCSE students unable to sit exams due to the Coronavirus pandemic – a decision the Government has U-turned on this afternoon.

Taylor – a former private schoolboy who, ironically, flunked his ‘A’ Levels – is also chair of the Government’s Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI), which advises ministers on the how new technologies should be managed, harnessed and regulated.

In March 2019, the CDEI was commissioned by the Government to investigate how algorithms can reinforce human biases, including racial and socioeconomic discrimination. The full report hasn’t been published yet, despite the body’s stated aim to present its evidence to the Government in March this year.

However, the CDEI produced an interim report in July last year that delivered some preliminary conclusions – many of which make for embarrassing reading, given that Ofqual’s algorithm has been accused of entrenching structural inequalities in the education system. """ cont

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/08/17/exam ... wn-report/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

More er conspiratorial stuff -- "" Movers and shakers

Interestingly, in October 2019, DfE strategy chief Tom Nixon left his civil service role to join Faculty – the AI firm Cummings used for the Vote Leave campaign. This firm is now embedded in the Tory government. As New Statesman Tech reported:

Nixon… has been tasked with establishing the company’s government practice and deepening its work with Whitehall and the wider public sector.

In January of this year, Ofqual was already looking into AI marking of exams. Then when it came to designing 2020’s marking algorithm, more people came on board. These included Tim Leunig, a prominent civil servant who Cummings reportedly had “quite a good relationship” with when they were both at the DfE.

If Cummings did have a hand in (or influence over) the Ofqual algorithm, it would fit in well with the government’s drive to promote further education for the ‘less-intelligent’ (i.e. ‘poorest’), and universities for the ‘brightest’ (‘richest’) students. ""

https://www.thecanary.co/opinion/2020/0 ... class-war/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

'Companies' at the heart of government !

Lessons from the failure of that algorithm, and the Terribly Clever people behind it ?

( GIGO == garbage in, garbage out ! )

[RogerOThornhill]

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and

Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley
@lottelydia
·
9m
"shitshow at the fuck factory" is now the official slogan of UK HE.

[GetYou]

Talk about failing upwards:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... th-england

[citizenJA]

Goodnight, everyone.
love,
cJA

[RogerOThornhill]

Does anyone know how all four countries decided to use an/this algorithm for awarding grades?

Incidentally the [Chris] Cook Plan was, according to him, not award grades at all but to use GCSEs and personal statements. Presumably that would have meant that this process could have been over by now easily.