Scrutable

Allo V Psycho wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 6:28 pm

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 1:32 pm

However, since applicants are admitted to medicine only if they have very high grades, there is an inbuilt, significant, and discriminatory bias

Is it really discriminatory that private schools do a better job of teaching A-level chemistry & biology on average?
I'd hate to think that there were people with significant policy influence who thought the right answer here was to try and put handicaps on the private school kids or just accept less knowledge from the state school kids. Surely the only sane response here is to improve state education?

I could probably reasonably say that I was a person with policy influence, for what it is worth.

Is it really discriminatory that private schools do a better job of teaching A-level chemistry & biology on average?

Yes.
If the goal is to recruit those candidates who are best able to fulfil the needs of the health care professions, and better candidates are selected against, on the basis of extraneous factors, for the benefit of worse candidates, then that is discriminatory.

And yes, in principle, it could arguably be societally just to adapt entrance standards on the basis of backgrounds, so that candidates of equivalent performance capabilities in the future were admitted. Subtracting two A Level grades from private or selective school candidates would work psychometrically.

There are two major reason why I do not favour such different initial entrance tariffs on a population basis. The first is that we do not admit populations, but individuals. And there is no way of determining whether any given individual has been unfairly benefited or discriminated against. The second is that, as discussions on this forum have indicated, assessing 'background' is very difficult.

As far as improving state schools goes, that is beyond my individual power, and beyond the power or remit of medical schools. But medical schools are not therefore absolved from attempting to address the problem.

My solutions have been to identify promising candidates from challenged backgrounds, by a number of metrics. then the task is to give them the opportunity bring out their abilities before selection. Examples are programmes such as those of Pamela Garlick at Kings and the Southampton BM6 programme.

I should emphasise that this is not merely intended for the benefit of the individuals. Health care delivery benefits from the presence of individuals from a diversity of backgrounds, and even medical education is the better for such diversity. The same is true for students with health challenges. For instance, I have admitted a student in a wheelchair, in an old building with limited disabled access. Her classmates formed a cheerful support team to help her, guided by the student herself. I think they will be better doctors for having seen a 'disabled' person first as a friend, colleague and peer, rather than a victim. The same is true for students from different ethnicities and backgrounds. We are not doing such candidates a 'favour': we are benefiting, first the educational programme, and second, health care delivery.

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 6:59 pm

dyqik wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 6:46 pm

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 4:46 pm

They are both feedback mechanisms to raise or maintain the quality of education.

So nothing directly relevant to measuring educational efficiency then. Got it.

Yes, very much so. Objective assessment is one way of comparing performance. Voucher schemes allow parents' subjective preferences to be taken into account so that their view of what would be best for their particular child is taken into account (much like a consumer market).

dyqik wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 8:02 pm

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 6:59 pm

dyqik wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 6:46 pm

So nothing directly relevant to measuring educational efficiency then. Got it.

Yes, very much so. Objective assessment is one way of comparing performance. Voucher schemes allow parents' subjective preferences to be taken into account so that their view of what would be best for their particular child is taken into account (much like a consumer market).

No, that's still not relevant to whether objective measures work at all, and can be used to determine efficiency.

plodder wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 8:29 pm Because there's still no certainty as to whether you're "measuring" the "right" thing?

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 8:43 pm

plodder wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 8:29 pm Because there's still no certainty as to whether you're "measuring" the "right" thing?

You can choose what to measure. Or you can let parents decide what is important for their child (wealthy enough parents can already do that). Dyqik doesn't want to do either of those things.

plodder wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 8:29 pm Because there's still no certainty as to whether you're "measuring" the "right" thing?

dyqik wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 8:54 pm
I've made no statement on that,

You are claiming it's possible to make an objective measure of educational efficiency that is useful to determining if educational funding has really increased at the front lines.

It's like saying you can objectively measure the performance of a software engineer or a coder. You can make objective measures, like the extremely dumb "lines of code" measure, or somewhat smarter "bug tickets closed" or "story points earned", as well as smarter ones than that, but they all have perverse outcomes in the real world and are usually fairly easily gamed if you rely on them over subjective assessments.

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:13 pm

You are claiming it's possible to make an objective measure of educational efficiency that is useful to determining if educational funding has really increased at the front lines.

No I'm not. I don't think increased funding is necessary for greater attainment. I think objective measures of educational efficiency are a necessary part of a case for any additional funding.

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:13 pm

It's like saying you can objectively measure the performance of a software engineer or a coder. You can make objective measures, like the extremely dumb "lines of code" measure, or somewhat smarter "bug tickets closed" or "story points earned", as well as smarter ones than that, but they all have perverse outcomes in the real world and are usually fairly easily gamed if you rely on them over subjective assessments.

I know you think that, which is why I asked you if exam results were useless. I don't think grades in things like GCSE maths are at all like 'lines of code' measures.

dyqik wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:18 pm

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:13 pm

You are claiming it's possible to make an objective measure of educational efficiency that is useful to determining if educational funding has really increased at the front lines.

No I'm not. I don't think increased funding is necessary for greater attainment. I think objective measures of educational efficiency are a necessary part of a case for any additional funding.

Which is it? Your two sentences here are contradictory. You say you are not claiming that it's possible to make useful objective measure of educational efficiency, and then you say one is necessary.

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:13 pm I don't think exam results are useless. I just don't think they are a measure of productivity of an educational establishment - something that is widely supported by evidence. They are deeply biased and confounded measures of school performance, and only subjective assessment of what they mean can be used to interpret them in that context.

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:30 pm

dyqik wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:18 pm

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:13 pm

No I'm not. I don't think increased funding is necessary for greater attainment. I think objective measures of educational efficiency are a necessary part of a case for any additional funding.

Which is it? Your two sentences here are contradictory. You say you are not claiming that it's possible to make useful objective measure of educational efficiency, and then you say one is necessary.

You said that objective measurements for determining educational efficiency would tell you whether funding had really reached the front line. I don't agree that it would tell you that. Increased funding at the front line can be wasted.

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:30 pm

dyqik wrote: I don't think exam results are useless. I just don't think they are a measure of productivity of an educational establishment - something that is widely supported by evidence. They are deeply biased and confounded measures of school performance, and only subjective assessment of what they mean can be used to interpret them in that context.

Exam results at the end of the process aren't sufficient, but longitudinal measure of a child's improvement in their time at the school (as SATs attempt to) can be useful.

dyqik wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:42 pm
So the whole efficiency discussion is a red herring, irrelevant to this discussion of whether funding had actually increased.

Longitudinal measures are still deeply confounded with factors outside the control of the schools. Social ones in particular.

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:49 pm

Longitudinal measures are still deeply confounded with factors outside the control of the schools. Social ones in particular.

Yes, but it's possible to adjust for those other social factors and over large enough numbers they still tell you something useful.

dyqik wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:57 pm That adjustment is necessarily a subjective process. It's the kind of thing I've been talking about the whole time.

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:49 pm We already know, from the original source, that the UK's education budget has increased ahead of inflation over the last few decades.

Gfamily wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 10:40 pm

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:49 pm We already know, from the original source, that the UK's education budget has increased ahead of inflation over the last few decades.

Can we just review this...
I know you like to talk about the overall education budget, but it has to be acknowledged that the schools budget has fallen behind inflation for the majority of the last decade.

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 10:42 pm

Gfamily wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 10:40 pm

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:49 pm We already know, from the original source, that the UK's education budget has increased ahead of inflation over the last few decades.

Can we just review this...
I know you like to talk about the overall education budget, but it has to be acknowledged that the schools budget has fallen behind inflation for the majority of the last decade.

The schools budget is only one of the graphs. There is also data for several decades worth of overall education spend. Real education spending is significantly higher in real terms than it was in 1980.

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 10:06 pm

dyqik wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:57 pm That adjustment is necessarily a subjective process. It's the kind of thing I've been talking about the whole time.

Why is it necessarily subjective? Comparing child progress amongst like-for-like social backgrounds is possible in an objective way.

Gfamily wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 10:59 pm But in terms of funding of schools it's dishonest to deny their decline in funding by pointing to increases elsewhere.

dyqik wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 11:01 pm

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 10:06 pm

dyqik wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:57 pm That adjustment is necessarily a subjective process. It's the kind of thing I've been talking about the whole time.

Why is it necessarily subjective? Comparing child progress amongst like-for-like social backgrounds is possible in an objective way.

No, it's not. There's dozens of factors, measured mostly subjectively, that combine differently in different places.

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 11:02 pm

Gfamily wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 10:59 pm But in terms of funding of schools it's dishonest to deny their decline in funding by pointing to increases elsewhere.

Per-pupil School funding hasn't decreased since 1980, it's grown. It's decreased since 2010, but over the last 3 decades it's still increased substantially.

Gfamily wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 11:10 pm

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 11:02 pm

Gfamily wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 10:59 pm But in terms of funding of schools it's dishonest to deny their decline in funding by pointing to increases elsewhere.

Per-pupil School funding hasn't decreased since 1980, it's grown. It's decreased since 2010, but over the last 3 decades it's still increased substantially.

For me, even that (going back 40 years for a baseline) is basically dishonest.

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 11:23 pm

Gfamily wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 11:10 pm

sheldrake wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 11:02 pm

Per-pupil School funding hasn't decreased since 1980, it's grown. It's decreased since 2010, but over the last 3 decades it's still increased substantially.

For me, even that (going back 40 years for a baseline) is basically dishonest.

How so? Thats the same time period over which I said educational quality had declined (the original seed for this debate was my assertion that quality had gone down despite per-pupil funding increasing).

Per pupil funding has increased over that period. Quality did decrease over that period. It improved a bit thanks to Gove in the last decade. My whole point was that money was not the problen, it was the culture and goals of our educational establishment.