Who lost the most marks when cheating was stopped? • Hacker News Board

Re: Who lost the most marks when cheating was stopped?

#21

Post by 21 » Sat, May 06, 2017, 10:52 PM UTC

jordansmithnz wrote: post #11

It never ceases to amaze me how much our life is determined by something we have zero control over - the family we are born into. "Life isn't fair" couldn't be more true here I guess. This isn't to say that social status/family has to determine someone's future - I'm a firm believer that hard work and choices can turn that around. Although on a purely statistical basis, it seems that this is rarely the case.

You can go even further. Think about how your live would have been if you were born in most of Africa.

Re: Who lost the most marks when cheating was stopped?

#22

Post by wbl » Sat, May 06, 2017, 10:53 PM UTC

geppeto wrote: post #13

zdean wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The aim was to show that in the absence of academic cheating, a meritocracy would emerge. What the researcher realized was that the deck was stacked against poorer students and in favor of richer students...in essence, the cheating/rigging was happening before the kids walked into school...and the academic cheating was a response to level the playing field.

New York City experienced a similar reality. They aimed to help poor and disenfranchised groups get into their specialized public schools, by forcing a meritocracy, as disproportionately wealthy and white families were accepted because admittance was previously too discretionary and lots of excuses were made about why (hm sounds familiar). After the meritocracy was established it became disproportionately asian by a…

Have you looked up the incomes of students at Stuy? There are plenty of poor Asians in NYC.

Re: Who lost the most marks when cheating was stopped?

#23

Post by niftich » Sat, May 06, 2017, 10:55 PM UTC

Wealth correlates well with opportunity and choices; students coming from wealthier families can better afford to acquire other compensating controls -- like private tutoring, or simply eating the fail on the exam and relying on social capital and social networks to make up for it after the fact.

The poor can't afford such measures and lack the social connections, so they have no choice to play outside the confines of the system and expect results; they have to obtain the relevant differentiator -- in this case, grades -- leaving some desperate subset among them to resort to the most overt, blatant types of cheating to get ahead.

Re: Who lost the most marks when cheating was stopped?

#24

Post by akarve » Sat, May 06, 2017, 10:56 PM UTC

Nary a consideration of the possibility that poverty and cheating were correlated. "Equality" is euphemism for "the world how I arbitrarily want it--facts be damned."

Re: Who lost the most marks when cheating was stopped?

#25

Post by SamReidHughes » Sat, May 06, 2017, 10:57 PM UTC

jordansmithnz wrote: post #19

SamReidHughes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social status doesn't make you get bad grades on exams. Being stupid does. You can expect kids with poorer parents to do worse on exams in any place where smart people are better at making money.

Are you suggesting that children in poorer families are born less smart than children from wealthier families?

Absolutely. Because smart people are better at making money and intelligence is a heritable trait.

Re: Who lost the most marks when cheating was stopped?

#26

Post by zepto » Sat, May 06, 2017, 10:59 PM UTC

SamReidHughes wrote: post #14

jordansmithnz wrote: post #11

It never ceases to amaze me how much our life is determined by something we have zero control over - the family we are born into. "Life isn't fair" couldn't be more true here I guess. This isn't to say that social status/family has to determine someone's future - I'm a firm believer that hard work and choices can turn that around. Although on a purely statistical basis, it seems that this is rarely the case.

Social status doesn't make you get bad grades on exams. Being stupid does. You can expect kids with poorer parents to do worse on exams in any place where smart people are better at making money.

There are no places where social status does not make it easier to make money.

Re: Who lost the most marks when cheating was stopped?

#27

Post by zepto » Sat, May 06, 2017, 11:01 PM UTC

SamReidHughes wrote: post #25

jordansmithnz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that children in poorer families are born less smart than children from wealthier families?

Absolutely. Because smart people are better at making money and intelligence is a heritable trait.

Only if you simplistically ignore that social status and wealth are also heritable and make it much easier to make money regardless of intelligence.

Re: Who lost the most marks when cheating was stopped?

#28

Post by danieltillett » Sat, May 06, 2017, 11:03 PM UTC

What I find most interesting about the article is the complete lack of concern if the anti-corruption efforts have had an effect on absolute performance. It is though what is important is the pass rate on the exams, not the learning the material tested.

Re: Who lost the most marks when cheating was stopped?

#29

Post by ChuckMcM » Sat, May 06, 2017, 11:03 PM UTC

21 wrote: post #12

smbullet wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most likely culprit, it emerged, was that the "collective" and "petty" forms of corruption, as witnessed by Dr Borcan herself, had a curious effect: they might be paid for chiefly by well-off students bribing invigilators, but everyone benefited. It gave the poorer students "a free ride" to higher marks. It's poorly worded but they seem to hypothesise that poorer students were sort of piggy backing off of those w…

Yep. I was in such an exam, and there was a voluntary collection of money to bribe the invigilators. I didn't pay in and was looked down because. I didn't cheat, but I could have if I wanted. More interestingly, the teachers (which were the invigilators) rationalized this as "everybody is cheating, if you don't than the stupid kids from the country side would have bigger grades than you, so you should cheat too" (I w…

Thank you for sharing that. It seems that the 'test score' was more important than actually educating the student. My assumption was that if the education was effective then the student would have no difficultly passing the test.

So I wonder a bit at what makes education ineffective. I coached at risk latino high school students briefly while attending college and for them it was pretty clear that they needed to work to help support the family so they had fewer hours to devote to study. I suggested to the program that paying these kids minimum wage to spend time with a tutor would pay for itself in reduced social services costs and police costs down the road but they were not interested in hearing about that.

Re: Who lost the most marks when cheating was stopped?

#30

Post by Buge » Sat, May 06, 2017, 11:07 PM UTC

Fraztastic wrote: post #9

jstanley wrote: post #3

> one of the consequences is precisely the reverse of its aims So... was the aim to reduce cheating, or was it just to disadvantage the richer kids? Because if the aim was really to reduce cheating, then I can't see how any of the consequences were precisely the reverse of the aims.

Article seems not very well written. Even the initial "You might expect a less corrupt exam system to allow ability to shine through regardless of the economic status of the students" doesn't make sense on its face. Why would I think exam cheating would influence structural problems, advantages and disadvantages, associated with SES levels? Getting rid of cheating doesn't get rid of private tutors, better equipped sc…

There were monetary bribes being given to the test proctors. Usually when bribery takes place, it benefits the rich who have money to pay the bribes. Clamping down on bribery would in that case hurt the rich.