Any Updates As To When PSLE T-Scores Will Be Scrapped?
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grimm:
These are all statements about managing my emotions and expectations... Thanks, grimm. But if it is from the gov, I don't want to hear it just because I don't think it's their place to tell me how to feel. They can somewhat manipulate it ... but I'm digressing.
But it's that not bad if one considers:
1) Just because you are balloting, it doesn't mean you wouldn't get what they want. So those who don't get their first choice will be less than 10%.
2) While you might ballot for your first choice, you probably wouldn't ballot for your latter choices unless you put schools with the same / similar COP for all of them). It should not really be end of the world if you don't get first choice.
3) You can avoid balloting by choosing schools that your child will comfortably get in as opposed to getting by the skin of their teeth every time.
\"Once it was decided that we didn't want to rank every child of a chort from #1 to #XX,XXX and use that rank to decide whether one can enter a school or not, it will not be \"fair\".\"
Banding is gentler. That I agree. But why is balloting okay to implement. That I don't agree but maybe I'm in a minority camp. And I'm starting to feel that way. Why can't I get more answers? Like those scenarios you pointed out, what are their respective likelihoods?grimm:
I actually want the MOE to show me the relative merits of what they had considered.... e.g. narrower banding versus balloting, expanding school capacities vs balloting, how do parents learn about school choices to avoid balloting, even a simple case study detailing the concordance between cut-off points of first choice schools and how the placement of choices could avoid balloting. It's part of stocking up a parent's toolkit... if we want to get this new system (the whole sales pitch of moving away from a \"narrow-minded academic-focus\") right, answers have to be more forthcoming. Information has to be less costly. Arbitrariness has to be minimal.The balloting is to address what we comes when we have more kids with same performance wanting to go to same school. And unfortunately, luck of the draw is the \"fairest\" tie-breaker. I struggle to think of an alternative as any other additional criteria will result in more stress for our kids (raw score, CCA, interviews, cage fight(jk))
Be gentler to the parents. If I believe in the law of large numbers, the poll here would suggest higher stress for parents on average... then again, we shouldn't just take numbers as given, the sample here may or may not represent the population. MOE, please give answers. Parents can be smart too, you know? -
grimm:
Well said grimm!
The balloting is to address what we comes when we have more kids with same performance wanting to go to same school. And unfortunately, luck of the draw is the \"fairest\" tie-breaker. I struggle to think of an alternative as any other additional criteria will result in more stress for our kids (raw score, CCA, interviews, cage fight(jk))
The idea of AL points is to remove granularity. But we still have people talking what if my 4 points is better than your 4 points. The concept that the 4 pointers are in same band of performances is hard to digest. -
pirate:
Interesting idea
But even if a way can be found to expand enrollment until there is no cut-off, those same parents will no longer want their kids there anymore. The desirability comes from difficulty in getting in.Zappy:
Fundamentally, it all boils down to a single equation.
There is a limited number of slots at highly-desired schools, (be it top tier, 2nd tier or whatever you want to categorize them into )with a much larger number of students that want to get into those schools.
So unless you have a situation where anyone can get into any school and they will expand the enrollment in an unlimited way, there has to be a cut-off somewhere.
In fact, I think if MOE were to set up an 'elite' secondary school and restrict enrollment to the top 100 students of any batch (say 3 classes tops), but staff it with the laziest, most undedicated teachers available who only teach the bare minimum and tell all the students to go get tuition, these parents will still fight hand, tooth and nail to get their kids in. Even if the teachers throw markers at the students in class, and say to them every other day that they suck, are an embarrassment and do not deserve to be in such an elite school... :razz:
.
But I can tell you, your idea won't last a year, not even a term! Today's parents are highly savy lots hor; you just need to try this a couple of times only, soon it'll be made known all over our social media (including, of course, kiasuparents forum :evil: ), even our reporters would chip in and report it on our national papers! The teacher will then be swiftly removed from class, or worse, sacked. And which teacher would still dare to \"say\" these students? :scared: -
From what I have seen is if students who got 4 Astars, the T score has been more than 260 .
does anyone have information to the contrary? Anyone you know of who has 4 A stars but Tscore is less than 260? If so which year? -
Sun_2010:
I don't think the issue is with 'what if my 4 points is better than your 4 points', but more with 'I work as hard as you to get that 4 points, why should I be denied of that dream school while you got in just because your are luckier than me?'
Well said grimm!grimm:
The balloting is to address what we comes when we have more kids with same performance wanting to go to same school. And unfortunately, luck of the draw is the \"fairest\" tie-breaker. I struggle to think of an alternative as any other additional criteria will result in more stress for our kids (raw score, CCA, interviews, cage fight(jk))
The idea of AL points is to remove granularity. But we still have people talking what if my 4 points is better than your 4 points. The concept that the 4 pointers are in same band of performances is hard to digest. -
Sun_2010:
not possible to get below 260 if there are 4A*...a friend's son has 4A*s and the t score was 268 while her friend's daughter has 4A*s and 270.From what I have seen is if students who got 4 Astars, the T score has been more than 260 .
does anyone have information to the contrary? Anyone you know of who has 4 A stars but Tscore is less than 260? If so which year? -
Sun_2010:
2013 PSLE T Score was quite low....seen a few 4A*s barely above 260 but not below......From what I have seen is if students who got 4 Astars, the T score has been more than 260 .
does anyone have information to the contrary? Anyone you know of who has 4 A stars but Tscore is less than 260? If so which year? -
Minister says: less than 10% of kids will face the ballot.
Since not all schools are created equal, not all schools require balloting. Imagine if just 20% of the schools (almost certainly the popular ones) require balloting, does than imply that 50% of all those applying for such schools would face balloting? Life become just a gamble?
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Irrelevant:
not all Secondary schools, will ballotMinister says: less than 10% of kids will face the ballot.
Since not all schools are created equal, not all schools require balloting. Imagine if just 20% of the schools (almost certainly the popular ones) require balloting, does than imply that 50% of all those applying for such schools would face balloting? Life become just a gamble?
those un-popular schools, with lots of vacancies left, nobody want to enroll : no balloting
only those very popular, hot-in-demand schools, will ballot -
From hearsay, it seems that 4 A* is always above 260. So 4 pointers will not have to worry about balloting. I would go on to think that cutoff points for any school will be not less than 5.
Granularity is very misleading in primary school level where content is quite narrow. For instance, if a child is given 5 prelim papers of different schools one each day, the chance of his/her score being the same for all papers is extremely narrow. However, the range ( Ā±5) he/she gets is highly likely to be the same. How can it be said that the score obtained is an exact reflection of merit when there is a variation?
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