[HN Gopher] Ofsted inspectors 'make up evidence' about a school'...
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Ofsted inspectors 'make up evidence' about a school's performance
when IT fails
Author : YeGoblynQueenne
Score : 116 points
Date : 2024-02-03 11:25 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| DicIfTEx wrote:
| For context, Ofsted is the much-maligned government inspectorate
| of schools in England. They are currently under increased
| scrutiny following an inquest into the suicide of a headteacher
| following an inspection that concluded at the end of last year:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-67639942 and
| https://www.bbc.com/news/education-67639943
| oogali wrote:
| I hope people think more about cases like this and the Post
| Office when they go to say "it's not like we're curing cancer"
| or "my bad code isn't a matter of life or death".
|
| You might be far removed from the implications of doing a poor
| job but that doesn't mean everyone else is.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| While I do agree in principle, I think it's also the case
| that "the software" has been used as a convenient scapegoat
| and cover for what were incredibly poor practices and
| dishonest, irresponsible conduct.
|
| The fact that software is involved is in some ways a side
| issue - and while I do agree we as techies do need to
| consider the responsibility that we have, I'm equally
| frustrated how the narrative in the Post Office case has been
| deliberately shifted towards "it was because the software had
| bugs" as opposed to "multiple people in charge were
| deliberately deceitful and behaved completely reprehensibly".
|
| This is borne out by the UK government's attempted shift of
| all the responsibility on to Fujitsu in the Post Office case
| (who are absolutely not blameless) while trying to push
| attention away from the Post Office's - and by extension the
| government's - own considerable culpability.
|
| I'm sure they'll seek to do the same in this Ofsted
| situation.
| adroniser wrote:
| Absolutely. As far as I know both Fujitsu and the Post
| Office were aware of the bugs in the system, and
| deliberately covered them up.
| graemep wrote:
| and the government were told the system was likely to be
| unreliable before they even bought it:
|
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/26/sir-geoff-
| mu...
|
| The whole thing was a shambles and there was no scrutiny
| from the start.
| gambiting wrote:
| Postmasters were literally calling Fujitsu support and
| telling them that they can see the software is literally
| wrong(giving explicit examples of depositing PS100 and
| the software showing that there should be PS200 in the
| till) and literally nothing was done about it.
| oogali wrote:
| The scapegoating happens because the software is the one
| "tangible" thing in the chain of blame. It's the one thing
| that can't be queried and reply with "if I had known...".
|
| I do agree with you that Ofsted will likely use the same
| deflection tactics.
|
| It is a failure of all of the humans involved. Whether it
| is inadequate acceptance testing, prematurely closed bug
| reports, optimizing for [unreasonable] timelines, or lack
| of oversight (and to be clear, I am not advocating for
| micromanagement).
|
| I feel both of these statements are true: 1) certain people
| bear more fault than others _and_ 2) developers aren 't
| blameless.
|
| I would like us to reduce our "blame surface area" with a
| reasonable amount of effort over what we _can_ control.
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| I get it, but I have to disagree on two ground.
|
| Firstly, in UK law there is an implicit assumption that
| computers are "reliable". This means that the burden of
| proof is on the accused proving the software has bugs,
| rather than them being presumed innocent until proven
| guilty.
|
| That means in the Post Office example, people were
| convicted because they couldn't prove the software had
| bugs, they were just saying "you have to prove I'm guilty,
| because I'm not", and the court said "no, we don't,
| computers are reliable and that proves you are lying and
| therefore guilty".
|
| In the Ofsted case, given that schools can be put into
| special measures, teachers and headteachers fired, and in
| one case a headteacher killed herself because of the data
| collected and decision made on it, if those systems are not
| reliable they are not fit for purpose, because it turns the
| innocent into victims in terms of criminal, and civil
| employment law.
|
| There have been calls for this assumption to be changed
| [1], but right now: if you are innocent but a piece of
| software says you are guilty, in the UK the burden of proof
| falls to you, regardless of how awful the people, their
| processes and conduct are on the other side.
|
| Secondly, there's a deeper moral issue here. Engineers are
| arguably aiding and abetting. It is almost certainly the
| case that engineers working on Horizon and Ofsted systems
| did not tell all the truth all the time at the bequest of
| their managers and other colleagues throughout all this.
|
| "Just doing my job", is the excuse of the scoundrel. I do
| not buy it. If you're complicit with despicable people,
| you're complicit. End of.
|
| Yes, UK HMG has answers to give, culpability and
| responsibility, but let's not pretend that engineers built
| terrible systems, didn't have to face any consequences, and
| were enabled by arse covering exercises further up the
| chain.
|
| We can - and must - do better than this.
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/12/update-
| law-o...
| dazc wrote:
| 'That means in the Post Office example, people were
| convicted because they couldn't prove the software had
| bugs, they were just saying "you have to prove I'm
| guilty, because I'm not", and the court said "no, we
| don't, computers are reliable and that proves you are
| lying and therefore guilty".'
|
| Not sure this is true, people were mainly convicted
| because they pleaded guilty to avoid going to jail.
|
| There may be instances where you are correct but I'm not
| aware of any? The general rule of being innocent unless
| proven guilty does, generally, hold. The issue with these
| cases is that many people convicted early on had no
| proper legal representation.
|
| Alan Bates, for instance, refused to accept the charges
| and was never convicted because no evidence of his guilt
| was ever presented. He stood his ground and was an
| outlier case.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| In this case, one of the main issues seems to be that
| assigning a grade of "unknown/uncertain" wasn't an
| option, regardless of what issues could have happened
| during the field work ?
|
| I'm also annoyed at how the Guardian is parroting the
| "made up" term, which is a terrible misrepresentation of
| "relying on your memory of the events".
|
| Speaking of decision-helping tools, there has been a
| French law for some years now : for any administrative
| use of them, the target citizen can request the algorithm
| to be explained to them in clear language.
|
| (I already have my popcorn ready for the inevitable clash
| with the fiscal inspection, which not only tends to
| operate as if laws didn't apply to them, but also I hear
| started using neural networks, which have basically no
| way to conform to this requirement.)
| jevoten wrote:
| > "Just doing my job", is the excuse of the scoundrel. I
| do not buy it. If you're complicit with despicable
| people, you're complicit. End of.
|
| There's a world of difference between human fallibility,
| and knowingly doing evil as part of one's job. I won't
| call the bricklayer evil if someone builds a 10-story
| skyscraper [1] atop his humble garden shed foundation,
| that ends up collapsing and killing everyone inside.
|
| [1] To make the analogy perfectly clear - the skyscraper
| is not the software, but the persecution based on
| assuming the software is infallible.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Your comment brings up an old memory. Lady mentioned once
| when she was a regional manager at a department store
| chain. They started having the till go short every so often
| at one store. Usually it's one person stealing. But looking
| at the video's they couldn't tell who. And there wasn't a
| pattern. Then it started happening at two other stores. And
| then another. The head of security had a hunch, took her to
| one of the stores after hours and pulled the register apart
| and they found two hundred dollars inside the machine.
|
| The first store had been the first to get a new model
| register. And the new model tended to slurp bills out of
| the till if you closed it too hard.
|
| So this isn't a new software thing. It's a problem with a
| management culture that shifts blame rather than get to the
| root of the problem.
| IshKebab wrote:
| While it's obviously better for bugs to not happen, the issue
| here is that both Ofsted and the Post Office covered up the
| existence of the bugs, lied about it and didn't fix them.
|
| If they'd been like "oh, a bug. We'll fix it" then there
| would be no issue.
| pjc50 wrote:
| In this case, Ofsted are playing the role of the Post Office
| prosecutors making career-limiting decisions based on
| inadequate or forged evidence.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| The code is usually a reflection of the organisation, not the
| individual. So while we should all try to write as few bugs
| as possible a poorly run team can cause at least as many
| software defects as poor individuals.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| budgets are a value statement.
|
| just cause you're an ant here doesn't make you ethically
| culpable.
| iovrthoughtthis wrote:
| this isn't individual devs fault
|
| this is bad practice by service integrators
| vdaea wrote:
| What is that first link saying? That teachers need LESS
| oversight? This must be a joke.
|
| Also what does software have to do with that case?
| lkdfjlkdfjlg wrote:
| > What is that first link saying? That teachers need LESS
| oversight? This must be a joke.
|
| Are you suggesting this is a binary decision, where the only
| options is choosing "more oversight" or "less oversight"?
| vdaea wrote:
| The status quo is "the same amount of oversight". And this
| article seems to say that since a teacher killed herself
| for getting "bad grades" then we should have less
| oversight.
| edstock wrote:
| How about "better oversight", "constructive oversight" or
| "beneficial oversight"? Let's not fall into a trap by
| restricting the space to a single dimension of quantity.
| cqqxo4zV46cp wrote:
| This is such a simplistic conclusion to draw that I can't
| help but see it as intentionally dishonest.
|
| Oversight is not a knob that you turn up or down. I speak
| as someone with experience in this field when I say that
| education like a lot of other things is complex enough
| that "overnight", especially with output suitable for
| public consumption, is far from trivial to deliver.
|
| Again, I don't think that you're arguing in good faith.
| concordDance wrote:
| I believe the point the parent was making is that this
| isn't a single axes. There are a variety of different
| types of oversight that can be done on different aspects
| of schooling.
| ck425 wrote:
| It's not saying that. It's saying that the current
| oversight is highly flawed and urgently needs changed.
| You're falsely equating qualitative change to quantitive
| change.
| krisoft wrote:
| There are many problems with the current oversight
| system. Neither "less oversight" nor "more oversight"
| correctly describes the changes one can wish for.
|
| The fundamental goal is not to punish teachers and
| headmasters/headmistreses. The goal is to ensure good
| quality and safe education for the students.
|
| If the school is inadequate or even close to it that
| should never be a surprise to the people working in it.
| The expectations should have been clear enough that
| anyone can self-asses themselves. There should be no big
| surprises during the inspection. That is neither "less"
| nor "more" oversight, but more predictable oversight.
|
| Furthermore the headteacher was in her position for 13
| years. If the problems found were indeed so outrageous to
| rate the whole school inadequate then shouldn't she have
| been inspected earlier and more often? During those 13
| years multiple cohorts of students entered the school,
| studied and then graduated from it. The oversight report
| alleges during the whole time they attended a school with
| serious safeguarding issues. Isn't that really bad? How
| did the oversight system let that happen? This is in fact
| asking for not less oversight but for more frequent one.
|
| On the other hand the school managed to turn around in a
| few short months and become rated "good" from
| "inadequate". It is alleged the problems actually were
| not deep and they were rectified within weeks after the
| inspection. There were some discrepancies with record
| keeping and a few protocols needed tightening up. The
| common understanding is that Ruth would have lost her job
| when the "inadequate" inspection report is published. Is
| that the best way to achieve our goal of high quality and
| safe education system? Wouldn't it be better if the
| oversight system gave them an advance warning and time to
| improve? Absolutely no feedback for 13 years and then
| suddenly feedback with the most severe consequences is
| not a way to ensure good outcomes.
| strken wrote:
| It's probably suggesting that oversight which is made public
| as a one word rating like "inadequate" is not a good way to
| fix problems in a school, since the exact same experienced
| teachers and principals you'd need to turn a school around
| are the most likely to avoid an "inadequate" school.
|
| Presumably this feels even more unfair if the computer eats
| the inspectors' homework.
| rcxdude wrote:
| Could well be that the kind of oversight that teachers are
| getting in the current system is counterproductive to the
| stated goals of said oversight.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| > What is that first link saying? That teachers need LESS
| oversight? This must be a joke.
|
| Here's what it's saying, literally:
|
| > An Ofsted inspection "contributed" to the death of head
| teacher Ruth Perry, an inquest has ruled.
|
| > The inspection "lacked fairness, respect and sensitivity"
| and was at times "rude and intimidating", senior coroner
| Heidi Connor said.
|
| > Mrs Perry, 53, took her own life in January while waiting
| for an Ofsted report to be published.
|
| Seems entirely uncontroversial for them to review their
| practices and nowhere in there is it saying that teachers
| need less oversight.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > teachers need LESS oversight?
|
| They absolutely do. In fact they're going on strike in the UK
| over intolerable working conditions, and while the MSM report
| this as ostensibly about "pay" the deeper reason is that they
| are micro-managed to hell.
| bemusedthrow75 wrote:
| Yes. They need less oversight, more training (particularly
| in tech and tech-adjacent issues) and more power over
| curriculum.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > more training (particularly in tech and tech-adjacent
| issues) and more power over curriculum.
|
| Yes yes!
|
| They are crying out for this too. I was involved in an
| international conference a few weeks ago on attachment
| theory and education and all the UK and US teachers said
| that they want more training to become more self-
| sufficient in IT. They want more autonomy over elements
| of the curriculum that use tech.
|
| They are also uncomfortable with using Big-Tech products
| in schools and concerned for the children over privacy.
|
| Unfortunately I can't post the video b/c
| rights/confidentiality but if I am ever able I will do
| so.
| gadders wrote:
| They're state employees. That's not how things work in the
| public sector.
|
| I mean we all get OKRs, objectives etc but government
| employees are a special case.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| Most UK teachers aren't state employees any more: they're
| employed by academy trusts.
| gadders wrote:
| Semantics. All the funding comes from the state.
| obernard wrote:
| It is really not semantics, because of the amount of
| control that academies have over the work the teachers
| do, and because of their freedom to hire and fire
| teachers.
| gadders wrote:
| Do they have freedom over how much they pay the teachers?
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Both the Post-Office/Horizon and OFSTED scandals involve blind
| deference to unfit technology that have led to deaths. We have
| been covering these on cybershow.uk with three hour long
| episodes in the pipeline for release soon. If any HN readers
| are in the UK and worked for Post Office, OFSTED or at a school
| and want to contribute insights do please get in touch.
| gadders wrote:
| >>much maligned
|
| Yes, by teachers and their unions. Parents generally like it
| and choose schools based on its ratings which are generally
| credible.
| blowski wrote:
| Liked by parents before their kids get into the school, often
| detested after publishing a report that doesn't match their
| own experience. I've personally seen them make weird
| recommendations that damaged the school.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Until it hits close to home and people know better.
|
| For instance, in the case of that headteacher, I personally
| know that her school was one of the most highly regarded,
| with the best results, in town. The headteacher even acted as
| a consultant to other schools and had been at that school for
| about 15 years.
|
| Then one day, and one day only, Ofsted comes and decrees that
| the school is OK but that the "leadership" is poor, with
| tragic consequences. The outpouring of support from parents
| was huge and anger towards Ofsted very real.
| nottorp wrote:
| Parents on their first kid have no idea what dealing with a
| school system really is like. They do on the second kid, but
| who goes there these days. And even on the second, you may
| want to use the same school as the first's because you can't
| afford to drive kids to 2 different schools every morning.
|
| Edit: to make it more clear, parents may seem to like this
| ofsted thing at a point when they don't have any other source
| and they don't know better.
| afandian wrote:
| Do they? As a parent I consider OFSTED a low quality signal.
| If you're reducing a school to a single word, I don't think
| you're taking the job very seriously. I wonder how others
| feel.
| gadders wrote:
| You'd chose an "inadequate" school over an "outstanding"
| one?
|
| Do carry on putting your politics over your children's
| future.
| afandian wrote:
| When choosing a school we talked to the headmaster,
| pupils, teachers, and current parents. That's far more
| rich than an inspector's rushed visit.
|
| Not sure what you mean by politics.
| bemusedthrow75 wrote:
| I am not a parent.
|
| If I were a parent, I would assume Ofsted scores to be
| useless. Why? Because I know teachers and what they
| experience about the Ofsted process, which is Kafkaesque and
| officious.
|
| It is much easier to look at the exam results, visit the
| school, ask people in an area what the kids are like at the
| bus stop --- are they well-behaved or are they scary? --- and
| ask young adults who recently left school what the teachers
| are like.
| gadders wrote:
| Haha. "Hi kids. Are your teachers nice to you?" That's a
| good way to get put on a register.
|
| But assuming the kids were nice, yet the school was rated
| "inadequate" - you would choose that over a school rated
| "outstanding"? I can tell you're not a parent.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| > The coroner said even when she attended hospital feeling
| suicidal, Mrs Perry felt she couldn't discuss the report with
| mental health professionals.
|
| Holy shit, how did THAT happen ?!?
| afandian wrote:
| > Two key sources of stress for Ruth Perry, according to the
| evidence, were the long wait for the report to be published,
| and the strict confidentiality warning that came with the
| draft report.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-67639943
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Yes, I did read that, but what happened to patient-doctor
| confidentiality, it's not like her name was Edward Snowden
| ?!?
|
| I really wonder what was in that handbook...
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > Holy shit, how did THAT happen ?!?
|
| Because OFSTED have been hounding critics, compiling
| blacklists, sabotaging careers and attempting to have
| conference speakers critical of them deplatformed.
|
| I'll have a dig and see if I can come back with some
| reference on that.
|
| best I can find for now [0]
|
| EDIT: added link
|
| [0] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/30/reveale
| d-u...
| akasakahakada wrote:
| > sometimes crashing unexpectedly and losing all notes from
| interviews, or even whole days of evidence, so that inspectors
| have to replace those notes from memory without telling the
| school
|
| Let me dig out those comments said software bug is OK something
| like that.
| guilhas wrote:
| I think what most comments try to point out, is that the
| problem is not the bug, but the institutions taking action
| knowing the software is buggy
|
| For example the Post Office, both them and Fujitsu knew the bug
| for 20 years, they did not request it to be fixed, and in court
| denied the software could have any problem, while prosecuting
| people and closing branches. Looks more like a feature than a
| bug
| dazc wrote:
| 'Replacing notes from memory' is not ideal but it's far removed
| from 'make up evidence' used in the headline.
| fabian2k wrote:
| Depends probably on how extensive and detailed the notes are.
| And the big problem seems to be that they are hiding the fact
| that those notes were from memory.
| cowpig wrote:
| Take a look at this figure[0] from "The Neuroscience of Memory:
| Implications for the Courtroom"
|
| [0]
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/core/lw/2.0/html/tileshop_pmc/t...
| 6c696e7578 wrote:
| Indeed, but memory is fine, then why take notes at all?
|
| I think the point is that if the inspector only finds out by
| chance that the notes were not committed then they might have
| to make it up from memory in a day or week, it just isn't
| reliable.
|
| Why not double account, why not have a separate (software?)
| dictaphone and write notes? If one is lost, there's the other.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Primary notes or journals should always be hand-written on
| paper or perhaps recorded, then entered into a more
| structured database system. This is why lab notebooks are
| still used in science and engineering. This is why doctors
| dictate their chart entries. You can always reconstruct from
| those.
| fabian2k wrote:
| Lab notebooks are often digital today. Of course they
| shouldn't get lost and all changes need to be logged. The
| software described here would be entirely unacceptable as a
| lab notebook.
| oxfordmale wrote:
| How often does their IT fail? Outsourced to Crapita or Fooljitsu
| by any chance?
|
| With Google Docs/Office 365 the last time I lost a full document
| is years ago now.
|
| I am old enough to have stored my laptop in the fridge when
| writing my PhD thesis, to keep the fault rate down. However, that
| is when hard drives where still mechanical, and online backups
| not a common thing.
| 6c696e7578 wrote:
| I don't know, but offstead things might contain "incidents"
| with child names and whatnot. Google Docs may not comply with
| the standards needed. I think the bigger clouds have the
| security levels, but there may be costs involved. Don't know
| basically but it might be a deal breaker.
| oxfordmale wrote:
| Yes, it is very likely Fooljitsu and Crapita consultants
| manage to convince them that existing systems do not comply
| with the relevant laws, and propose an in-house system. I
| have worked in software consultancy myself. The problem is
| that the project often starts with senior Engineers, who then
| gradually get moved to impress new clients, with the final
| product being delivered by overworked junior Engineers.
|
| Until the government gets better at overseeing such large
| projects, this will keep on happening. However, as
| governments not spending their own money, but tax payers
| money instead, there is little incentive.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| This is where the law needs to confront with actual reality.
|
| The reality is that data leakage, incorrect access, etc. are
| all much more likely with a bespoke in-house product than
| with google docs, even if they haven't bothered getting the
| cert needed.
| graemep wrote:
| I do not know about education, but there are rules for medical
| data. For example, with the NHS you have to use approved cloud
| providers and the medical data has to be stored in the UK.
|
| There is also might be functionality that is not part of Google
| Docs in terms of metadata on notes, who information is
| searchable etc.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Here is how I would inspect schools:
|
| * Collect together a bunch of metrics of each school. Eg. student
| test scores, parent satisfaction scores, number of police
| callouts to the school, number of leaks in the school roof. Also
| include metrics that aren't obviously good/bad: Number of acres
| of playgrounds, average tenure of staff, etc.
|
| * Gather data of the success of past students, 30-50 years on.
| For example, employment rate, total earnings, percentage
| convicted, percentage in good health.
|
| * Build a model to predict success metrics from the school
| metrics.
|
| * To rate a school, go collect the school metrics, then run
| through the model to predict future success metrics. That is your
| rating.
|
| Sure, such an approach has the correlation/causation problem. But
| this is self-correcting if schools try to optimize their scores
| as the models are rebuilt each year.
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| All these metrics are easily manipulated. Test scores can be
| manipulated by giving easier tests. Measuring number of police
| call-outs just encourages not calling police on emergencies.
| oogali wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law#Generalizatio.
| ..
| londons_explore wrote:
| Sure, but assuming everyone puts similar amounts of efforts
| into manipulating the metrics, the model will come to reflect
| the fact that those metrics are no longer predictive, and
| there will no longer be a benefit to manipulating them.
|
| Thats the benefit of this scheme - it isn't statistically
| sound, but all the statistical shortcomings eliminate
| themselves as people try to exploit them.
| wharvle wrote:
| You've just made a map of rich and poor areas with extra steps.
|
| Which is effective. If you're a parent trying to decide which
| schools you want your kids in, maps of where the money is and
| maps of school rankings are damn near interchangeable (mostly
| _not_ for funding-related reasons, though). You could use
| either and come to similar conclusions.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| The OFSTED electronic evidence gathering system seems to have
| been developed by (or in collaboration with) an outfit called
| Rainmaker Solutions. They seem to target government agencies.
|
| I wanted to see if they are in any way related to Fujitsu; so I
| visited their "website". But it's not a proper website; instead,
| it's a demo page for their gee-whizz designers. The navigation is
| at best excentric. For no good reason, they've replaced the mouse
| cursor with a blob and a caret. They've tinkered with the
| scrollbars. There's no About page, which might have told me who
| owns them, or who their partners are. It's pure puff, an
| information-free zone.
|
| https://rainmaker.solutions/
|
| If I wanted a useable, practical solution, I'd run a mile from
| the designers of that website.
| u32480932048 wrote:
| Pretty sure "England making up evidence" is behind half of
| America's constitution.
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