Ed. Dept.'s 'Soviet Judges' Review of Race to Top Scores
There's been a lot of talk about how fair the scoring was in the first round of Race to the Top. Did reviewers follow the guidance and always award the correct number of points? Did a few outliers skew the results? Did some states get the luck of the draw and benefit from a bunch of easy graders, or did others draw the short end of stick and get all of the hard graders?
The Education Department, as part of its technical assistance seminar in Minneapolis yesterday for state applicants, said it did its own statistical analysis to examine these issues. Joanne Weiss, the department's Race to the Top guru, called it the "Soviet judges" review (in a nod to notorious figure-skating scoring scandals of years past). UPDATE: For a summary of their review, fast forward to slide 15 of this PowerPoint presentation the department did yesterday.
In any competition that involves judgment calls, there will be easy graders and hard graders. The department checked to see if all of the easy graders were concentrated on one panel (e.g. the winning ones) or vice versa.
The Education Department, as part of its technical assistance seminar in Minneapolis yesterday for state applicants, said it did its own statistical analysis to examine these issues. Joanne Weiss, the department's Race to the Top guru, called it the "Soviet judges" review (in a nod to notorious figure-skating scoring scandals of years past). UPDATE: For a summary of their review, fast forward to slide 15 of this PowerPoint presentation the department did yesterday.
In any competition that involves judgment calls, there will be easy graders and hard graders. The department checked to see if all of the easy graders were concentrated on one panel (e.g. the winning ones) or vice versa.
