Bell Curve - To remove or not to remove?
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kamom:
Feeder School System is not a fair system. No matter how one might argue about preserving culture or parents' contribution to the school as most parents and students who benefit will proposition.The T-score for feeder schools is always lower for their own kind but higher for 'outsiders'. I always wonder if it is fair.
A child with a T-score of 200 can get into their feeder school.
A child wth a T-score of 220 can't get in cos' no \"connection\".
If a T-score of 220 cannot thrive in the school, how can a T-score of 200 survive???
It is not fair because it is not available as an option to the entire cohort no matter the background. Take those born to poorer families for example.
Likewise for DSA. Although my child benefitted from it. I will say without hesitation that it is not fair as it is not an option for those whose parents lack the means, knowledge and resources to go through the exercise.
I am disappointed with last week's talking point on whether DSA is fair. An MP whose child successfully DSAed into a top school went on to contend that it is fair and good because it takes away the stress for his child who may fumble in PSLE. I cannot see how the fact that there is a majority out there for whom DSA is not an option could be ignored. -
SAHM_TAN:
Dunno if can survive but will affect the O level results. Maybe that's why there seem to be a trend of increasing COP for affiliated students bah.[/quote]I dont agree that admitting a 220 will necessarily pull down the '0' levels score.I was in RI thirty years ago when everyone has to take '0'. The bottom 10% or more could not make it to top tier JCs losing out to neighbourhood school students despite the fact that all of us are top 1,2,3 from our primary schools.kamom:
[quote=\"SAHM_TAN\"]Will a student who score 220 be able to thrive in RI? Assuming that 220 is consistent with the child's academic performance in school.
A child with a T-score of 200 can get into their feeder school.
A child wth a T-score of 220 can't get in cos' no \"connection\".
If a T-score of 220 cannot thrive in the school, how can a T-score of 200 survive???
Even then at University, I saw some of my cohort from the top 10% in RI crash and burn while some neighbourhood school graduates flourish.
The problem is that somehow our education system is too 'stratified\" nowadays with GEP, PSLE/DSA, IP so that it does not give late bloomers and those from slightly less supportive family background the chance to level up. It is a \"long, long flanking exercise\" to level up from normal academic, ite, polytechnic then university not to mention the fact that doors to prestigious scholarship and entrance to medicine, law etc will be shut to you unless you are extremely brilliant and managed to overcome all the obstacles and the negative branding and perception. -
I didn’t clarify. I meant COP between 200 to 220 and the PSLE result is not becos the child is fumbling but it’s consistent with the child’s normal academic primary school performance.
Now it’s a bit different than 30 yrs ago. Whether it’s a good change or not, I don’t know yet.
I do agree that it’s more difficult to catch-up. -
SAHM_TAN:
The difference is nowadays, the children are competing not on their own but with the resources from tuition centers and tutors and parental guidance making the playing field extremely uneven. Especially in the light of the type of testing from MOE that require you to master exam taking techniques and out of syllabus content. Add that to DSA preparatory workshops and GEP preparation.
Now it's a bit different than 30 yrs ago. Whether it's a good change or not, I don't know yet.
I do agree that it's more difficult to catch-up.
It does not take much to make a judgement. -
My kid is only in P1 going to P2.
I know tuition do give an edge for kids whose family can afford it. It's still a choice that parents make.
My kid has tuition for maths but not languages so I manage my expectation. Of course there are parents who will say that becos I'm SAHM, so my kids have an edge too. But hor, I'm not capable like other SAHMs who helped their kids to score 250 and above :evil:
My kid has tuition for maths and no tuition for the languages, based on her results, I think the school is still doing an ok job, no complain. As for testing out of content, so far, it's within syllabus. She's a normal kid.
I might change my tune when she's in P3 or I might not. I can't really say now.
I do agree the playing field is not level. All I request is that all teachers teach kids like they don't have tuition. I'm fine if the school set 1 to 3 questions to differentiate the clever ones, by nature or nurture. But teachers need to do their jobs to teach. So far, I find the school that dd1 is in is helping the kids. Maybe it's becos my dd1 does not have tuition for the languages so I can see the efforts of her Eng and Chi teacher.
I seems to have gone off-topic :oops:
Taking out the bell-curve will not solve the uneven playing field. -
Agree with SAHM-Tan and AWSP.
When I was temporarily putting up at a friend’s place which was a residential area for lower income group. Kids were studying outdoor. There were no void decks as there were houses on the ground floor. Parents were out working. I wonder if they will know what DSA, IP, IB are about. Do they have the information? These kids are dependent solely on their teachers. No matter what is said, only the rich will have access to the extra help and extra resources. -
It’s too sweeping to say that "only the rich will have access to the extra help and extra resources". You don’t have to be rich to be resourceful. I don’t think all the kiasu parents on this forum are rich, but they are all keen to acquire knowledge to help their kids make the best of their abilities.
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I think trs are important. A good tr will make sure tt the kids are adequately prepared for psle. A good tr will ensure tt the dsa process is made known to the students, ESP those with the potential to get CO from the various schools.
I do not believe that all schools are equally good but I sincerely believe that all schools have some good teachers. Good trs will make the battlefield more even.
We can do our part too, especially the sahm. When we pick or send our kids to school, we can make friendly conversation with other parents and share what we know with them. Mathizzfun and tian zhu have been providing free solutions and helping out in all the maths threads for at least 2 years or more. I really salute and thank them for their time and patience in helping out in these threads. :thankyou:
Perhaps, we need more good trs and smaller class size to start with, so that, all pupils are placed more fairly on the bell curve. -
Well said.
At home, parents play a big part. In school the teachers should too. -
AWSP:
The Bell Curve's evil is in the distortion in weighting. Mother Tongue becomes the heaviest weighted apparently because of the 'profile' of the cohort. A very apparent symptom from past years observation is that is that the top scorers have typically very strong command of second language. You do not see top scorers who demonstrate strong maths or science or english skills over the rest of the subjects. You may also try to guess the profile of last years top scorers which coincidentally has a \"significant\" number of Malay students. The distribution in Mother tongue is most logically not a bell curve but a hump shaped curve or a very left skewed distribution. A skewed distribution will create a lot of distortion. I think this part is totally unforeseen by the folks in MOE and they are not willing to admit the problem.
Based on immigration trend, I would place a bet that this years top 10 scorers will have a good representation by Tamil students. (Another skewing effect).
To the more statistically trained people, I am saying that 3rd moment effect is quite logically present given our children's profile in mother tongue. The disortionary effect is worse and more drastic than the 2nd moment effect(standard deviation).
The pressure in PSLE is not due to T-score but the competitive entry into the top IP school with limited placing. It doesnt matter which way you design your scoring as long as demand exceed supply by a huge mile.
my gal used to be top 6 in her std even though her MT was not very strong. and for psle she was the 15 th top in her sch and students who took Malay as MT got better T-score than her even though in sch exams these students used to be 20+ in std. I don't understand how and why. I assume it's because for MT as there are several sub-populations and the mean score and std deviation differ, this has an advantage for 1 or 2 sub- population over the rest. as for MT shouldn't MOE use raw score?
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