The LC Opportunity Cost Conundrum

I'm the Principal of an urban DEIS school, preparing my staff and my students to go into online-battle again next Monday. In many ways, I hope that this article is short-lived. I'm hoping that the DES will provide clarity with regard to the State examinations before too long. On another level, I hope that the by-product of the current situation we find ourselves in leads to in-depth discussion concerning the relevance of the Leaving Certificate in post-Covid Ireland; and our collective fixation on it.

Whatever decision is taken by DES will have opportunity costs.

I recently asked a question on my Twitter account: "Who do we serve?" For me, the answer is clear. We serve the learners. All stakeholders must negotiate an equitable LC pathway this year. As of Friday, 17th April 2020, Minister McHugh's plan is the only game in town - the Leaving Certificate will be held from late July to early September. And I applaud the TUI for issuing such a comprehensive FAQ on the Department's decision. For now, from a practical and equity perspective, I think the current DES plan is the most likely, barring any major shifts in medical advice - and we are duty-bound to follow this plan. However, in order to make the DES plan in its current guise more equitable and less stressful, I think that:

• 5 subjects should be counted towards course entry
• The LC fee of €116 should be waived (both advocated by Aodhán ó Ríordáin TD)
• Prof. áine Hyland's suggestion of more spaces for disadvantaged students should materialise itself in the doubling of the number of HEAR and DARE places, as advocated by Senator Marie Sherlock
• practicals should now be awarded 100%
• social distancing and a whole-school approach should be observed during exams. In that regard, the statements of support from both the ASTI and the TUI are to be welcomed
• the Junior Cycle “exams” planned in September should be scrapped; these will create unnecessary administrative and wellbeing concerns for schools & pupils
• the ASTI’s idea of awarding a ‘State Certificate’ to JC students is interesting. To refine that, I would suggest that schools should populate a tweaked Junior Cycle Profile of Achievement showing CBAs, Other Areas of Learning and include attendance, participation and formative feedback from their Year Head and/or Principal.

But wouldn't predictive grading solve our problems?

In theory, yes. Seán Twomey wrote articulately in the Irish Examiner last Wednesday. He's right; the LC is not the sole purpose of schools and he rightly outlines the importance of teacher-student inter-relationships. He also rightly outlines that there may be union opposition to teachers marking their own students; crossing the rubicon of teachers being advocates to being their Pontius Pilate. But we already assess, therefore is it that big a deal?

So if we trust our teachers, what's the big deal with predictive grading?

Predictive grading is inequitable and statistically suspect, in the sense that it often uses “last year’s” results - or a series of results - to fit into a bell curve. It doesn’t take unexpected student progress (i.e. those who kick themselves into action after the mocks!) into account. Predictive grading places teachers into an invidious position of being students' Pontius Pilate for a high-stakes assessment, unlike the JC, which is a low-stakes assessment. Our neighbours in the UK and NI are unique in their use of predicted grades, and they are fraught with shortcomings.

1. They work against the poorest and most disadvantaged (link)
2. In the UK, only 16% of predicted grades were accurate in 2016 (link)
3. A paper by Gill Wyness found that 75% of applicants' grades were over-predicted

Whilst true that Irish teachers already predict hundreds of grades for LC candidates wishing to study in the UK, the students actually have to achieve them. Also, whilst true that schools that use the International Baccalaureate have a predicted grade system, they also have a 282-page guidebook for Assessment, including 5 pages concerning the important topic of moderation. SLARs eat your heart out!

Unless events preclude schools from safely running the exams, and unless proper mitigation factors against inaccuracy and bias are adopted (meaning stringent moderation), I’m against predictive grading for now.

And of the other options?

1. Cancel the Leaving Certificate? Yes, easy. I read with interest Ruairí Quinn's article today. But what of those students whose only piece of paper is the Leaving Cert? What would a piece of paper with a harp on it tell a future employer? Ruairí's idea, I felt, was short on detail - "an alternative set of documents...outlining their coming of age (which) could include house exam and mock exam results and other material." Yes, indeed that could be possible, but I think it would be exceptionally unfair to use mock (pre-) exam results. Many candidates would have seen those papers online or via social media (gaming the mocks is widespread). Corrections can be substandard, with many teachers re-correcting returned sets. What about students who, for whatever reason, didn't sit their mocks? What about those who study an extra subject outside school and may not have sat a mock in that subject?
2. Matriculation? I initially favoured this approach, but is the timeframe is too tight? Would 3rd level institutes be able to run a set of exams for all those applicants? It's not the early 1990s anymore, when far fewer students attended. (One could write another article on that topic alone!)
3. A hybrid LC/matriculation? Maybe. Current LC candidates could sit 3 core subjects, 2 chosen subjects and then, in October, sit 1-3 exams undertaken by 3rd level institutes or perhaps a CAT4 at uni?
4. A CAT4 instead of the Leaving Certificate? Highly inequitable for a slew of reasons: no accommodations; inequitable to students with SEN, CAT4s are blind to resilience and work ethic and they also give predicted grades, which could potentially pigeonhole students.

Each option; the current DES plan, predictive grading, cancelling the LC, matriculation, a hybrid model or a CAT4 has an opportunity cost associated with it. What price are we willing to pay? And why?

After Covid-19, to paraphrase the film title, "We Need to Talk About the Leaving Certificate".

To start, Brian Donnellan's suggestions as to how the Leaving Certificate could be organised are interesting and worth consideration.

We could look to Belgium, Austria and others who have direct entry to 3rd level and operate matriculation exams for medicine etc. If we instructed 3rd level institutes to increase the number of places in 1st year, they could run a series of exams in November to ascertain students' suitability for courses.

Some may deride me for this suggestion, but I think we should insist that the NCCA slow down its Senior Cycle reform and in tandem with that, I think we should establish a Citizens' Assembly to examine the purpose of the Leaving Certificate and how best to ensure equity with regard to 3rd level progression whilst looking at the value of the Leaving Certificate as a stand-alone entity for those who simply want a state certificate. It should also look at divorcing these exams from 3rd level matriculation.

This is not to denigrate the good work of the NCCA. They have learned their lessons (as have we all) from the Junior Cycle. I say this because whether we educationalists like it or not, the Leaving Cert is engrained into the Irish psyche. A cursory look at our newspapers and media outlets in June and August confirms this. The Leaving Certificate, frankly, is bigger than the DES, SEC and the NCCA combined. It is part of 'us' as a nation. We place so much value on education in Ireland, that a national conversation, run over 18 months in parallel with the NCCA's consultative process (which has been excellent), would ensure a further measure of confidence in necessary curricular reforms. People initially scoffed at the previous assemblies, and look what happened. We (usually) like arriving at evidence-based, agreed positions in this country. Education should be no different, and the irony of that statement should be lost on no-one!

Stop hedging and tell me what you think, Frank!

Well as it stands, the Minister’s approach is the one that’s happening. I'm not over the moon about it, but I will carry out my instructions to the letter. I offered opinions to soften that, should it go ahead. Time and clinical advice may change that approach (none of us have real control over that) and it may well be that we’re left with the other options I flagged above, including predictive grading. I stand against them for now for the reasons outlined (remember the context of my school), but if we have to do it, then we have to look at international practice and try to avoid those pitfalls. It’s not a ‘total no’ to predicted grades; we need to mitigate for minorities and the disadvantaged and we need a solid method of moderation we can have trust in. We also need to trust our teachers, which I do.

All of the options before us have an opportunity cost. Above all else, any decision needs to be made quickly, protect the most vulnerable and ensure that equity (in a fraught world) be maximised, not just for this year's cohort, but for subsequent cohorts too.

Then, let's talk about the Leaving Cert.