What a mess this turned out to be in the UK: grading students who didn't do work due to the government and schools shutting things down for students even though few young people even died due to an alleged COVID-19 death when no autopsies were even done. Instead of doing exams and getting graded that way, teachers did assessment of students and algorithms calculated grades.
Previous performance was used to project future performance in some scenarios. In others, the government of England created a system of appeals where students chose grades from teacher assessments, mock exam results (huh?), or an exam in the fall.
Fears of teachers being biased towards their own students and inflating their grades was taken into consideration for predicting student success. Teacher assessments were modified. School historical performance were factored in, which has little to do with an individuals abilities. 60% of students got As this year as a result.
The result was a good student in a poorly performing school would get a lower grade than they would have actually obtained. While poorer performing students would get a higher grade in a school that was more performing.
Many students were understandably not happy with the unfair evaluations. Some protested, with the need for a U-turn back to teach assessments.
As a result of this big mess, the UK government has reversed their school grading. The grading will now be done using only the Centre Assessed Grades submitted by teachers in order to aware exam results.
The government says the CAGs will be used to grade students, unless the previous Ofqual grading system grade is higher. So even if your teacher evaluated you properly, if your schools average is more performing than you, you will get bumped up to a better grade. I guess everyone "wins" this way? Even those who shouldn't get that grade will be happy.
Sources:
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/results-day-exams-bias
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/uk-government-reverses-exam-results-decision-amid-algorithm-anomalies
