An algorithm that blew up Italy’s school system
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An algorithm that blew up Italy’s school system
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Re: An algorithm that blew up Italy’s school system
#2Recently, Kentucky had similar problems with algos and tech, but with bus routes. [1] And here I was thinking it was just an American problem.
Infuriating that children and education are being used as cash cows for the corrupt and incompetent - promise efficiency for the kids and system, deliver absolute shit for everyone, except the execs who got paid. Fucking evil.
Re: An algorithm that blew up Italy’s school system
#3Why do i read such stories at all?
Now i can‘t tell, if it’s the algorithm or the implementation
or both and i’m left with more questions than before!
Edit: typo
Re: An algorithm that blew up Italy’s school system
#4I suspect that anything which jiggers school times is going to attract a fairly large constituency that vocally hates the change. Boston went through this about 5 years ago. https://www.media.mit.edu/articles/what-the-boston-school-bu...
Which pretty much happens whenever you have self-perceived winners and losers with a policy change.
Not sure what the eventual outcome of that proposed change was.
[Oops. Meant to reply to another comment. But there are some similarities across algorithmic optimizations though it's not clear how much of the problem here was the algorithm vs. the implementation.]
Re: An algorithm that blew up Italy’s school system
#5Who does that algorithm really serve?
Re: An algorithm that blew up Italy’s school system
#6I suspect that anything which jiggers school times is going to attract a fairly large constituency that vocally hates the change. Boston went through this about 5 years ago. https://www.media.mit.edu/articles/what-the-boston-school-bu... Which pretty much happens whenever you have self-perceived winners and losers with a policy change. Not sure what the eventual outcome of that proposed change was. [Oops. Meant to re…
> I suspect that anything which jiggers school times
That isn't what the article is about.
Re: An algorithm that blew up Italy’s school system
#7Why do i read such stories at all? Now i can‘t tell, if it’s the algorithm or the implementation or both and i’m left with more questions than before! Edit: typo
Seemingly it is implementation:
>Why did such errors occur?
>When the algorithm finds an ideal candidate for a position, it does not reset the list of remaining candidates before commencing the search to fill the next vacancy. Thus, those candidates who missed out on the first role that matched their preferences are definitively discarded from the pool of available teachers, with no possibility of employment. The algorithm classes those discarded teachers as “drop-outs”, ignoring the possibility of matching them with new vacancies.
And (possibly) also incorrect data:
>Often teachers input the wrong data on the system because of an interface that is not very transparent, complex and difficult to access. The scores can therefore already be distorted upstream, without taking into account human errors by the school offices.” Aspiring teachers often find themselves alone in facing complex procedures and error is often inevitable and sometimes irreparable.
Re: An algorithm that blew up Italy’s school system
#8Why do i read such stories at all? Now i can‘t tell, if it’s the algorithm or the implementation or both and i’m left with more questions than before! Edit: typo
It could serve as a parable you'd tell a junior engineer interested writing algorithms that get applied to people's livelihood. Beware your own hubris, demonstrate or simulate results and show them to all stakeholders like the union, do controlled rollouts (why not start with 1 region in the country?), verify inputs that could be untrustworthy. Basically all the usual lessons one learns the first time they write an algo for people and it blows up in their face embarrassingly.
Re: An algorithm that blew up Italy’s school system
#9Recently, Kentucky had similar problems with algos and tech, but with bus routes. [1] And here I was thinking it was just an American problem. Infuriating that children and education are being used as cash cows for the corrupt and incompetent - promise efficiency for the kids and system, deliver absolute shit for everyone, except the execs who got paid. Fucking evil. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37121138
You see it everywhere indeed.
Where I live, schools are starting to force everyone to buy or rent specific laptops from specific companies. The less financially-abled can't buy a good second hand laptop for cheap, the ones who can pay for them are scammed by high prices and shitty hardware. The company running the show is happy though, of course.
Re: An algorithm that blew up Italy’s school system
#10Interesting. My brother-in-law teaches in Bologna and has just been affected by this. He was literally just telling me about it 30 mins before I saw this here! The algo didn't match his first preference, then ditched him for subsequent matches.
The real kicker is that this article is from April and refers to the mess last year. Despite all the havoc, they proceeded to use it again, with predictable results.