Middle-class students have been thrown under the bus
Playing with people’s lives is no less wrong just because those who are being kicked are perceived to be advantaged in some way, writes
HUGE numbers of students have not got the college courses they expected, because, it seems, of the school they went to. What’s actually happened here is the opposite to what happened in the UK, but arguably just as bad.
There, they disadvantaged students in low-performing schools to reflect what they were statistically likely to get. Here, we disadvantaged middle-ranking kids in high-achieving schools in a way that doesn’t, in fact, reflect what they were statistically likely to get.
In effect, we threw middle-class kids under the bus in a calculated grades system that engaged in a form of social engineering.
We deliberately ignored the track record of high-achieving schools — many of which are not, in fact, private — while bumping up the Deis schools.
And while you might argue that the world is an unfair place and that maybe this a blow to the establishment elite that some might welcome, the social divide is not the fault of 18-year-old kids — many of whom have worked tirelessly for the past six years in the hope and reasonable expectation that they wouldn’t be penalised for working hard or going to a good school.
The Government knew this situation was coming. Once they realised the outcome of the estimated and standardised test results, they provided an additional 1,250 college places two weeks ago and then a further 800 places last week. But that still isn’t enough to offset the skewing of this year’s grades.
Almost a quarter of students will not get any course in their top three choices — in other words, the things they actually want to study at third level.
And that’s not even to mention those students — 10,000 of them — who delayed their application from last year and have been blindsided by this turn of events.
We threw out school rankings but used class rankings — so middle-ranked kids in high-achieving schools, who might have expected a very good Leaving Cert with points in the 500s, were marked down in large numbers to give them an ‘average Leaving Cert’ in national terms. We know that in all likelihood, had they sat the exam, they’d have done much better.
St Kilian’s is a German school in Dublin where the pupils are fully bilingual and fluent in German. Those native German speakers received only 14pc H1s this year. Normally almost half the year get an H1, and all get high honours. But national averages were applied that rejected the obvious fairness that would have reflected that happening this year.
The Institute of Education on Dublin’s Leeson Street, where many kids are already repeating their Leaving, saw some students actually doing worse this year than they had done in their original 2019 exam.
Yvonne O’Toole, the principal there, says 96pc of their students were marked down and that children who attend were pushed down into a standardised norm. So despite the fact that they outperform the national average every single year, they were squeezed into the national average in 2020.
It’s worth remembering that many of the pupils there are from backgrounds where they could not afford private school but scraped together the fees for a one-year repeat course. Are they to now repeat a second time in the wake of all this?
Ms O’Toole says they’ve engaged
‘Kids shouldn’t be penalised for going to a good school’
both a data analysis firm and a legal opinion to challenge what has occurred.
One private school principal told me she was livid at the downgrading of her students in up to half their subjects — many of whom lost in excess of 30 points. That, coupled with the grade inflation, means the chances of them getting the course they wanted (and had been likely to get) now seems remote.
What happens next will be interesting. Parents and schools are taking legal advice at this point, as the appeals process as it stands will not help them.
Appeals on the grounds of technical issues are all that are allowed. Appeals on the basis that the system itself is flawed and unfair, currently, are not.
Many of the parents of the children affected are middle-class, liberal, lefties themselves — the very people who would normally be keen to see kids in a Deis school, given a leg-up and easier access to a college place. But it’s questionable whether those values will stand in the face of those college places being at the expense of their own kids. There is no middle-class value held more dearly than their educational aspirations for their children. Fine Gael should feel very afraid right now.
In the UK, college places were eventually honoured for downgraded, disadvantaged kids. In the maelstrom we’re about to see unfold next week — when the teachers’ initial, estimated, grades are shown to students — I wonder will we see the same thing happen for downgraded children here?
The class of 2020 have surely been through enough. Inverted class bias in their exam results is not something they need on top of everything else. Schools that normally perform below the national average got a bounce in this — and that is no bad thing — but schools that normally perform better were dragged down.
Playing with people’s lives in this form of social standardisation is no less wrong just because it’s middle-class kids being kicked. Either predict the grades more accurately or ensure enough college places for all.