The latest Made-in-Britain Tory political scandal is the "fuck the algorithm" A-level grades omnishambles, in which the Conservative party deployed a black-box algorithm to give rich students higher grades and poor students lower ones.
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This has resulted in many students who'd been offered places in universities having those offers rescinded based on their "disappointing" final grades.
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Among the students who lost their places is Jessica Johnson, a young writer whose literary achievements include winning coveted Orwell youth prize for dystopian tales, for a story called "A Band Apart"
orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-you…
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The story is a chilling dystopian tale of students whose class disadvantages are magnified by an unaccountable algorithm that empiricism-launders the privilege of the wealthy by claiming that its judgments are "meritocratic."
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Johnson had been offered a place at St Andrew’s University, but that offer was withdrawn after the Tories' algorithm lowered her grade.
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She told The @Guardian that she hopes that the Tories' U-turn on algorithmic grade-adjusments means she'll get to go to university after all.
theguardian.com/education/2020…
You cannot make this shit up.
Image: Jessica Johnson
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theguardian.com/education/2020…
You cannot make this shit up.
Image: Jessica Johnson
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ETA: Johnson reports that the university rang her after the publicity storm and told her they were reversing her reversal and her place has been confirmed.
