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Houshalter comments on Problems in Education - Less Wrong Discussion

65 Post author: ThinkOfTheChildren 08 April 2013 09:29PM

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Comment author: private_messaging 09 April 2013 04:35:09AM 6 points [-]

If you are a decision maker in education in your area, please, please, please look into the various Bayesian predictive models used for math placement;

Bayesian methods still can (and in practice, will) use race and the like as evidence, meaning, if you're black you need higher test scores and grades to qualify - they just don't entirely stone-wall you from qualifying, which is a step forward I guess.

The fair approach is to have an entrance exam for better math classes, blind to the race.

Comment author: Houshalter 13 April 2013 05:41:22PM 1 point [-]

I'm confused as to why race would matter if you already have the grades and test scores information. Race might be helpful in predicting what their previous grades and test scores were, but I doubt it would improve the accuracy much over a model that excluded it.

And if it really was true that race matters in who will benefit the most from the program, then so be it. Why would you not want to help those that benefited the most first, regardless what information was used to predict it?