A-level results and the end of grade inflation

[GussieFinkNottle]

It's that time of year and many an anxious student has received their public exam results in Britain. This year, however, some controversy surrounds the yearly media circus:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-28772974
Probably as an intended result of Gove's divisive reforms, the Grade inflation that had been steady since the days of Thatcher:
has stabilised, to the gratification of universities, businesses and the general public (though not perhaps some disappointed students). The first dip in results in decades has taken place with the more rigorous standards imposed. Whether or not the new syllabus is popular, this can only be a good thing as A grades were becoming less and less valuable.

What is your opinion of the A-level turnaround, the ex-education minister's reforms, and the general climate of A level results? Are there any others on TWC who got theirs this year like me? And does anyone who did theirs in years past have any stories of their own A-level dramas?




P.S.
As usual the papers and other media have been publishing their A-level results celebration photos. It's in a strange way heartening to know that they're all still unashamedly living up to their caricatures. The Telegraph and Daily Mail, as always, went with the attractive girls stereotype.
Telegraph:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Mail:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Guardian, eager to prove its worthiness and set itself apart from such crass behaviour, rather self righteously went for pictures of celebrating Muslim students:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The BBC went with a family-friendly mother and daughter celebrating pic:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The stats actually show boys did better than girls at getting the top grades this year, though you'd never know it from the coverage!

[hellheaven1987]

Feminists do not care about boys.

[GussieFinkNottle]

Feminists do not care about boys.

I'm not so sure that it's feminism that prompts newspapers to plaster their front pages with pretty 18 year old girls. This has come as a surprise though, since in recent years the girls did better.
By definition though, feminists do care about the boys, since they want equality, not matriarchy (I am male, and a feminist, and see no contradiction in terms)

[Denny Crane!]

It's that time of year and many an anxious student has received their public exam results in Britain. This year, however, some controversy surrounds the yearly media circus:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-28772974
Probably as an intended result of Gove's divisive reforms, the Grade inflation that had been steady since the days of Thatcher:
has stabilised, to the gratification of universities, businesses and the general public (though not perhaps some disappointed students). The first dip in results in decades has taken place with the more rigorous standards imposed. Whether or not the new syllabus is popular, this can only be a good thing as A grades were becoming less and less valuable.

What is your opinion of the A-level turnaround, the ex-education minister's reforms, and the general climate of A level results? Are there any others on TWC who got theirs this year like me? And does anyone who did theirs in years past have any stories of their own A-level dramas?




P.S.
As usual the papers and other media have been publishing their A-level results celebration photos. It's in a strange way heartening to know that they're all still unashamedly living up to their caricatures. The Telegraph and Daily Mail, as always, went with the attractive girls stereotype.
Telegraph:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Mail:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Guardian, eager to prove its worthiness and set itself apart from such crass behaviour, rather self righteously went for pictures of celebrating Muslim students:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The BBC went with a family-friendly mother and daughter celebrating pic:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The stats actually show boys did better than girls at getting the top grades this year, though you'd never know it from the coverage!

Feminists do not care about boys.

Worth noting all of the focus is all women, muslim women though thank god an out of focus male student.

Disgusting display of misandry.

The statistics are minute and a focus on grades is a distraction from huge deficiencies in delivering what we need to business out of our educational system. There is crappy focus on grades, and there are needs never the two may meet.

Then we got photos of women and muslims doing stuff.

Yeah.

[Copperknickers II]

Worth noting all of the focus is all women, muslim women though thank god an out of focus male student.

Disgusting display of misandry.

To be fair, although it's ridiculous that pretty much every news story these days includes a picture of a young woman, in this case it's understandable.

'So we want volunteers for a photo to go in the newspaper. We'd like you to jump up and down with big cheesy grins on your faces. Now do it 10 times and we'll choose the best one.'

Girls = Yay! Can you take one on my phone as well?

Boys = Um... you're alright mate.

[Dr Zoidberg]

I just want to know how anybody got any study done at the school the woman in the second 'Mail' photo went to. Wow-wee!

[hellheaven1987]

I just want to know how anybody got any study done at the school the woman in the second 'Mail' photo went to. Wow-wee!

Too meaty for me.

[Flavius Julius Nepos Augustus]

The boys take the salary
@dr. the girls on the right?

[Dr Zoidberg]

That solo shot of the leggy blonde in green dress. She's a stunner.

[Condottiere 40K]

Girls are regarded as expressing more emotion, and policy wise, you'd want a more educated female electorate.

[Pielstick]

Pretty much what Denny wrote. The education system in the UK is focused too much on headline grabbing pass rates and grades. It's not turning out people who are ready to embark on professional careers.

I can't help but look at this A-Level thing and take it in the wider context of the enormous pressure on kids to go to university. Too many kids going to university and too many Mickey Mouse degrees that are absolutely worthless on the job market.

I did my A-Levels in 1999 (physics, maths and the old AS Level mechanics and discrete maths) and I remember an engineering professor from the University of Greenwich coming to my school in Canterbury and begging, pleading for people to study engineering at university. I also remember the deputy head of my sixth form saying even if we come out with all E grades not to worry because clearing will get us a place at university, but the degree will be worthless and finally that the only degrees employers value are ones from the red brick universities. My girlfriend at the time got a C in chemistry, and Es in biology and physics.... but she got into the University of Central Lancashire to study forensic science.

I had huge pressure put on me to go to university but the thought of spending another three or four years in education was absolutely horrific for me. You simply don't need to go to university to get a decent career - I did a part academic part vocational training for three years - and when I finished I was earning more than a graduate, now at the age of 33 I currently earn £42k and that will go up to £55k by next April.... I've never been near a university. Funnily enough I've worked with guys who do have engineering degrees who don't know their arse from their elbow. I even had one boss who had multiple engineering and science degrees but he recoiled when given an oily spanner and couldn't provide any leadership or direction in an emergency and I had to push him to one side.



Bottom line of my rant is the education system needs to stop being used as a political football, stop being used as a revenue generating industry by universities and colleges, and needs to be fit for purpose - and that is supplying the job market with people with relevant and useful skills.

[Love Mountain]

What is this Forum's opinion on the American college system? Reading Pielsticks rant I cannot help but note the similarities between American and British systems.

[empr guy]

in my experiences there are plenty of people in my college that I can only assume were pressured into going, or just want the money from the career (im at a college with a large pharmacy program which afaik is impossible to do without the degree). All the science programs have substantial drop out rates because the requirements to get in apparently don't correlate to the actual work so you end up with people wasting 2 or 3 years.

And in a similar vein as pielstick people with terrible grades are allowed into universities, and the degrees that those people go for are either "mickey mouse" degrees or unobtainable. It's very over emphasized, in my school district there was a choice to go to a vocational oriented high school instead of mine which was very college oriented. The only problem was that you had to make a choice in 8th grade, when pretty much no one knew what they were actually going to do with their lives (i picked my major 3 years after that). I think what makes it worse is I've had friends who want to do basic engineering be mechanics etc, but as taught in a college it is very conceptual with math and physics which drives them away, and I feel like if they learned it through experience instead of in a class room they'd be fine.

[Condottiere 40K]

One complaint I heard about American colleges, was that easy access to student loans creates the inflationary tuition costs, and a business model that tries to create a demand for any and all forms of certification.

[Love Mountain]

The American government is effectively subsidizing higher-level education. While I get the point of doing that, it's effectively bred a culture of entitlement and an incredibly corrupt and one-track business model. Where students and their money are assets, and educational goals are there to provide results and marketing; not actual skills and value.

[Pielstick]

in my experiences there are plenty of people in my college that I can only assume were pressured into going, or just want the money from the career (im at a college with a large pharmacy program which afaik is impossible to do without the degree). All the science programs have substantial drop out rates because the requirements to get in apparently don't correlate to the actual work so you end up with people wasting 2 or 3 years.

And in a similar vein as pielstick people with terrible grades are allowed into universities, and the degrees that those people go for are either "mickey mouse" degrees or unobtainable. It's very over emphasized, in my school district there was a choice to go to a vocational oriented high school instead of mine which was very college oriented. The only problem was that you had to make a choice in 8th grade, when pretty much no one knew what they were actually going to do with their lives (i picked my major 3 years after that). I think what makes it worse is I've had friends who want to do basic engineering be mechanics etc, but as taught in a college it is very conceptual with math and physics which drives them away, and I feel like if they learned it through experience instead of in a class room they'd be fine.

Sounds very familiar.

In the UK if you are from an even vaguely middle class family the pressure to go to university is tremendous - even if you leave school with crap grades and end up studying a worthless degree at a naff university. There are various factors in play creating that pressure and I think they need to be seriously looked at.

There's a brilliant Al Murray stand up routine on Youtube where he talks about immigration and how all the plumbers in the UK are Polish, the electricians are Lithuanian, etc... all doing the jobs we can't do because we've all got useless degrees in media studies.

The thing about courses being too heavy on number crunching theory ring true with me as well. In my own vocational/academic training, most of the time I spent at nautical college involved university level mechanics, thermodynamics, static structures, electrical theory, naval architecture.... all very maths heavy and I've used absolutely none of it in the real world. I know lots of guys at work (engine room ratings) who are bright enough and capable of learning to do my job (engineer officer) and would like to do it but are totally put off by having to do all the classroom number crunching.

Where students and their money are assets

This I think is perhaps the crux of the problem in the UK. Universities and colleges market themselves and their courses to attract students so they can get bums on seats, which translates to more government money flowing into that university or college.

Running useful courses that turn out graduates with useful skills that the job market needs and wants... and getting the right students on those courses is apparently no longer the priority.



One other thing I will also say with regards to the UK education system, and it was something my English teacher at secondary school pointed out.... getting kids to sit formal public exams at the age of 16 which will be the foundation and potentially make or break the rest of their education is just stupid.

[Adar]

I remember how shocked I was when I went to a student exchange in Southern England at a sixth form level. And I am equallt shocked to hear that the A-level grades kept on rising so much after that visit considering how easy it was to get an A back then.

My view is that the British school system is suffering from a combination of rigid formalisms mixed with a deep rooted ineptitude of actually identifying what's important.

My favorite example of such ineptitude was when we were tasked to calculate the biological diversity in salt and freshwater ponds using the Simpson diversity index.

Apparently the pupils in Sixth form are able to read Biology (and chemistry which was even worse) without studying maths to an sufficient level. But to calculate the diversity every student was handed a paper with this formula and a very short explanation:



After each group had gotten a private lesson on what that S-like thingy mean we could calculate the formula and ended up with hugely counter intuitive responses as ponds with many animal ended up having the lowest diversity as there was a huge amount of tiny shrimp like creatures in all those ponds.

So the end result of a days work was hugely frustrated students whom for their life couldn't understand why the maths showed them something that was the exact reverse of what they observed and only learn that "this is the definition of diversity".

I also agree about the whole college pressure thing which seems to be getting out of hand in many western countries. Personally I am a firm believer in adult education and that a secondary education system should be maintained for people who wish to prepare themselves for university later in life. This way teenagers who has lost their interest in theoretical subjects can work for 10, 20 or even 30 years and then take up a higher education which reduces the pressure to go to university among pupils who lack motivation (or intelligence) in their teens.

[Gatsby]

I wonder how Scotland fares comparatively in terms of grade inflation. I think this year our Higher pass rate was 77.1%, which is 0.3 points down from last year. Apparently that is the first drop in 8 years, but we have just introduced a vast reform and I'm struggling to find the results from those years.

I have to say, personally I haven't found exams to be getting easier, in several subjects I did just about every past paper going back to 2003 in some cases and in some cases I have found my exams to be noticeably harder than some 10 years before. I don't know how much talk there is of "exams getting easier" in England, but as far as I've ever heard its pretty much a year-by-year thing - the 2011 maths exam was perfectly reasonable, the 2012 exam sent people running out of my school in tears, and the 2013 was average again.

[Shaun]

I think one of the key problems, and something that's rarely touched on, is that there are multiple exam boards offering A-levels. How do they compete with each other? In a world where schools are pushed to deliver higher grades, is it by continually gradually making the content and exams easier? In Scotland, we only have one exam board offering Highers (last time I checked anyway), and we don't seem to have been quite as badly affected by grade inflation.

Another thing to consider, and this applies to both A-levels and Highers, is that students might simply be getting better at sitting and passing the exams. Is the teaching of the course material being more closely aligned with what's required to pass the exams?

[Bobz]

I think one of the key problems, and something that's rarely touched on, is that there are multiple exam boards offering A-levels. How do they compete with each other? In a world where schools are pushed to deliver higher grades, is it by continually gradually making the content and exams easier? In Scotland, we only have one exam board offering Highers (last time I checked anyway), and we don't seem to have been quite as badly affected by grade inflation.

Another thing to consider, and this applies to both A-levels and Highers, is that students might simply be getting better at sitting and passing the exams. Is the teaching of the course material being more closely aligned with what's required to pass the exams?

You're bang on the answer there Shaun. The idea that over the last decade the exams themselves have become easier is a red herring.* What has really changed is a focus on teaching to the exam, instead of simply teaching the subject at hand before the students receive an external examination. In addition, I am sure that many here are familiar with spending the weeks before the exam period doing every past paper in existence, which essentially gives you knowledge of the exams likely content, as well as teaching you how to structure your answers to ensure maximum marks. That is the root cause of not only grade inflation, but the lack of utility of many of today's qualifications. If all the students are being taught is how to pass exams, there is no confidence that they actually know the subject they supposedly have an A-Level in.

The multiple exam boards aren't helping either. While they may not be making the course material easier, competition has meant exam boards have created courses which have increasingly become modular or more coursework based instead of the traditional two years of education followed by long exams. While I actually believe that is a far better system than focusing it all on one single day, by spreading assessment throughout the year and allowing multiple retakes of failed modules, the courses do become easier to teach and take.

As long as exams exist and the results continue to be published nationally, grade inflation will exist. Tinkering with the system will only hold things back for a few years before the schools adapt and find how to push the grades up again.


*While writing this, I realised that while the question may not be easier, the format of the exams may well be. I don't know if things have changed in recent years, but I recall that compared to older exams my ones were comprised of things like multiple choice questions in science exams (which helps to jog the memory, or sheer dumb luck) and breaking down multiple mark maths questions into several sub-questions (which walks you through the process).