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Comment by dixie_land | Hacker News Reader

In this age of computerized tests, it shouldn’t be hard to randomize the ordering of choices for every question.

We keep lowering the bars on tests to give a trophy to every kid, and we “pickachu face” when we fall behind china on STEM

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> We keep lowering the bars on tests to give a trophy to every kid

If you read the example you'll see it has nothing to do with giving trophy passing grades to the kids.

Instead it has everything to do with money. There is a bunch of federal and state funding that is keyed off of passing rates, number of kids who graduate, etc. Then for teachers anything other than kids passing means they have to deal with parents complaining, their superintendents applying more pressure, etc. For parents who can't afford to pay for their kid to go to tertiary education of some form, their kid is dependent on "passing" these tests. Finally for the regents: they get negative public pressure if large amounts of kids fail, in addition multi choice tests are _vastly_ easier and more importantly cheaper to grade, so the types of question are limited to those that can have multi choice answers.

So note that in no part of the above does "trophy for every kid" come up, nor is even relevant. Kids feelings aren't considered nor relevant. It is just easier, cheaper, and results in them receiving more money, if the graduation numbers are increased due to passing grades being lower.

Right, people optimize for what is measured against - aka Goodhart's law.

> it shouldn’t be hard to randomize the ordering of choices for every question

This article works equally well for guessing A, B or D on every question. The problem isn't randomization.

I meant this as two-parts:

1. it's trivia nowadays to make sure 25% distribution of answers for MC; and 2. I agree with you, in that the main problem is that you only need 17% to pass, i.e. participation awards

Well, C works better for this particular test because it has unusually many C answers in the multiple choice. Relying only on points from MC questions, you would expect to pass ~12% of these tests for any given choice of answer to guess every time.

Now, having a single answer being correct often often enough to pass this mark would happen ~47% of the time, but between the blatant irresponsibility with the standard, the fact that C is the more or less the canonical answer to just guess when you don't (this might be regional or whatever), and the exactness of the cutoff, I wouldn't be surprised if this test were intentionally arranged to make specifically the "pick C" strategy a pass either.

"This would disproportionally affect ..." the rest you know. To be completely equitable, the school should send graduation certificates by mail to those students who chose to opt out of the exams.

Seems logical for China to just fund political parties and DEI initiatives. Cheaper than building a blue-water navy.

That’s already happening.

I mean kinda. You're seeing the result of people doing their best to create equity with a system they only control a teeny tiny part of. The boil the pond equitable solution would be to make HS optional and disallow discrimination on the basis of having a diploma [1]. The boil the ocean solution is to reorganize schools around actual learning instead of a treadmill of pointless tests. Literally no kid needs these tests, they are for the benefit of school administrators and politicians to have easy to quantify metric that they're doing the bare minimum.

What would you do if you were on the state exam board and you realize that your state's education system is failing huge swaths of the kids in your state but then turning it around and saying that's the kids' problem, and there is nothing you can do to actually affect the underlying problem? They don't have the political capital to eliminate the tests entirely because "test scores" so they make them impossible to fail.

Here, straight from the article:

> Unfortunately, this solution is difficult to implement. Implementation is difficult because of all the reasons that drove NYSED off the cliffs of insanity in the first place. Look at the incentives. NYSED and local school districts have large financial incentives to graduate as many students as possible. These incentives were put in place by both federal and state legislators who meant well and were trying to encourage good public school performance (good performance == graduation, of course, in their eyes). Teachers and principals have large quality-of-life incentives to pass students. Failing students brings scrutiny, parent and student complaints, superintendent pressure, guidance counselor inquisitions, paperwork, and meeting after meeting. It’s much easier to pass everyone.

Kids aren't allowed to fail these tests. But when the school system fails, it's the students that are the one holding the bag because their individual responsibility to pass them and so this is the band-aid. And here's the thing, the sky isn't falling due to this band-aid because the test scores were worthless in the first place. Anyone with academic pursuits didn't need the test, and anyone without them also didn't need the test.

[1] I know, bold statement. But as long as students aren't actually getting an education and there's no real motivation to fix it why even bother with the song and dance? Might as well let the kids sleep in and socialize at the pool or a skate park rather than 5 minutes between classes. I have never met a single person who doesn't echo the sentiment of their HS classes being worthless, and I'm no exception. The only lasting "education" I got when I was 16 was teaching myself calc and programming.

Hey, it is easier to say “you are actually fine, here’s your passing score!” to the disproportionately affected, instead of, maybe, solving the actual problem!

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