Excellent breakdown. Couple of thoughts. We do of course assess schools by progress - that measure exists for individual students too. But it is never individualised. And I think there is an interesting possibility around thinking about precision and imprecision in assessments. One of the problems with relative assessment is it often implies an objectivity to the ranking that is unjustifiable. But there are ways of assessing - by descriptor or threshold, for example - where the result is deliberately lacking in the fine grained precision that allows comparison and ranking.
Thanks for the comment. I’m going to write about measuring/describing progress in a week or two. And about less fine grained descriptors and why we use them!
Excellent breakdown. Couple of thoughts. We do of course assess schools by progress - that measure exists for individual students too. But it is never individualised. And I think there is an interesting possibility around thinking about precision and imprecision in assessments. One of the problems with relative assessment is it often implies an objectivity to the ranking that is unjustifiable. But there are ways of assessing - by descriptor or threshold, for example - where the result is deliberately lacking in the fine grained precision that allows comparison and ranking.
Thanks for the comment. I’m going to write about measuring/describing progress in a week or two. And about less fine grained descriptors and why we use them!
Look forward to it!
This is why what schools were asked to do to generate CAGs (choose a grade, rank within grade) was fundamentally flawed.