[makomk]

It looks to me like Ireland was planning on using literally the exact same process, but after it caused such a political problem for the UK government they announced that data on how schools had previously performed wouldn't be used in the standardisation process: https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/education/state_examin... (Notice how the linked explaination document from May 2020 says this would be the basis for the calculated results.) How that's meant to work I'm not sure. The results aren't out yet.

[smcl]

Additionally Scotland had an similar issue - algorithmically adjusted grade estimates were discovered to have punished kids from poorer schools. This happened a few weeks earlier than the English A-Level results, which is interesting because the ruling party in the rest of the UK:

1. took a GREAT deal of pleasure in loudly trashing the Scottish government in the press ...

2. knew they faced the EXACT same issue themselves ...

3. did absolutely nothing about it ...

4. then did a frantic cleanup of the attacks (deleting tweets and such) after the English debacle unfolded

At this point I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s to be expected - they’re politicians playing their little game. But this debacle was avoidable - they could have faced the music earlier and started coming up with an alternative, but they chose instead to gloat, score a cheap win and kick the metaphorical can down the road.