Thousands may get upgrades as errors in Leaving Cert calculated grades system identified

Education Minister failed to keep Leaving Cert 'fair and accurate', court hears

Irish Independent
 
Won't let me link the article, say spam or something but just Google what I posted and you will see it on today's Independent
 
Link here. So to be clear, the court has heard it claimed, but it has not yet been proven.
 
It seems clear-cut to me that the Minister's intervention to exclude historical school data will have been to the detriment of many who could have expected higher points, but I can't see the profit in taking these cases.
 
Most people want the grades their teachers predicted for them before the algorithm messed them up. Would this be a possible outcome if he wins the case?
 
So we have learnt nothing from last year. Feel so sorry for the students and there parents.
 
HollyBud said:
So we have learnt nothing from last year. Feel so sorry for the students and there parents.
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The ASTI have exercised their veto over the will of the people as expressed through their elected government. Don't blame the ASTI; every Public Sector Union has the same veto.
 
So don't blame the Software, don't blame the minister and now don't blame the unions despite that fact that they have walked out on talks...
you point last year was this is not something that was foreseen, that argument does not hold water this time. It was clear there was a strong possibility that this would happen again and guess what, here we are again with no plan A and no plan B....
 
I'm just saying that the Unions are doing what Unions do; looking after their members at the expense of everyone else. In this case the "everyone else" happens to be children but if anyone thinks their needs are to the fore here then I've a bridge to sell them.
The Minister? She's way out of her depth.
 

My daughter was LC in 2020, got marked down on 3 subjects by that cursed algorithm. Whatever about 2 of those mark-downs one was particularly unfair, Music. They had an exceptional class, all doing piano, violin etc since they were 4-5. Their teacher was reknowned in the British Isles and had won competitions in Ireland and England and produced many many A1s over a long teaching career. She marked them for 8 A1s (I don't know about the rest of the class) but the algorithm comes in and says, sorry you can only have 3 A1s because that is some sort of national average. The fact that this was an exceptionally high performing school in Music was irrelevant (and no, it was not a private school or a Leeson Street-esque). This is somewhat similar to the experience of the German school in Dublin which I thought was farcical and only arose because past performance was not allowed to enter grading considerations..... more social engineering BS. Past performance is not a guarantee but it is an indicator and ideology should not enter grading where you are trying the next best objectivity to actual exams.

My daughter was disappointed and still quotes the teacher grades as her LC results but she is more sanguine than me and has dusted it off and gone on to college. I on the other hand am bitter about it to this day. I don't know about the other teacher A1s she got (think it was Economics and Irish) but the Music one in particular riles me. If background, effort, money, application, gifted teachers are factors then they should not have been parked in the interests of so-called "social equality". PGs were meant to be a proxy for objective marking and the algorithm is unsound as can be seen with the experience of the German school.

.... end of rant!
 
Purple said:
The ASTI have exercised their veto over the will of the people as expressed through their elected government. Don't blame the ASTI; every Public Sector Union has the same veto.
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Sometimes I wonder about this Citizens Assembly. Instead of feeding us duff constitutional amendments (blasphemy?) give us something of substance, I can think of a good few. Like, should there not be a "public good" override on a lot of these constitutional personal rights? We are an interdependent society afterall and what may be good for one individual is disadvantageous, even to detrement, of the rest of society. The same could be said of unions. Yes, they are there to protect their members rights and that is fine. However, somebody (a Judge) should be able to override that right on the basis of the public good. Yes, "public good" is a nebulous concept and should require a high threshold before it can be invoked but society should rank at least as high as the individual.
 
Sadim said:
Sometimes I wonder about this Citizens Assembly
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I always wonder about it. A bunch of retirees and civil servants with nothing better to do.
I'd prefer if we elected our public representatives and they made decisions in a Parliament. That way they could be accountable to the people. You know, democracy.

I don't like unaccountable and I don't like "big"; big government, big banks, big tech, big business etc. If we have to have them then I want Government to be in charge and I want our elected representatives to make sure it is efficient and that our TD's spend most of their time being utterly ruthless in making sure it is efficient so that it can regulate and oversee the other "bigs" on our behalf.
 

Could not agree more Purple. I wrote a Letter to the Ed for the Indo a few years back about this.

Out of 100 members,
- one a judge (fair enough)
- 33 from the Oireachtas (who already have their own assembly... them being there only undermines the original concept)
- 66 randoms (although I remember reading where they were stuck for attendees and the polling company picked some of their mates)

Also, for a 90% confidence level from a voting population of 3,100,000 with a +/- 5% margin of error requires a random sample of 271. The only random bit about the Citizens Assembly are the 66!

Besides, we elect the Oireachtas and it is up to them to govern the country
 

Are both your points not contradictory? Public Good in the second you're in favour of, but in the first the public good was put forward as a reason for not giving higher grades purely based on the history of the schools. Is it only a "public" good when it suits you?

Whatever about this year, last year was impossible for the right thing to be done for every single LC student. I'm sure your daughter did deserve an A1 in music, if she's managed to get over it though so should you.
 

Was only giving a personal example of the PG system and how it seemed to prejudice high performing students eg. the German school in Dublin. I don't think that had anything to do with the "public good". To my mind, the PG system deliberately ignored past performance on the assumption that it favoured private or grind schools and past performance probably would have favoured those schools. By excluding that factor the Dept of Ed basically said high grades do not come from private or grind schools whereas the stats show different.

As regards a "public good" clause in the constitution, yes I think it does have merits. You only have to look at all the restrictions in place with Covid, I am no lawyer but I would imagine the legal soundness of some of them are questionable. Like, as a citizen of this republic is the state within its rights to stop me travelling from say, Cork to Kerry. I would be surprised if this was valid but maybe somebody could enlighten me. That said, I think the state should have emergency powers for something like Covid where our individual rights are curtailed for a specific reason and a limited time.
 
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