Variables are unpredictable when using a computer’s intelligence to determine them. The use of computer intelligence to determine value in a person’s success at their job is an example of a larger problem. When computer-generated mathematical equations replace human intelligence, the variables end up being dangerously incorrect. Within schools, the use of value-added systems risks getting an educator fired for their job, no matter how unfair the termination is. This type of situation was the case back in 2012 when Sarah Wysocki was unfairly fired after her second year at MacFarland Middle School. The way that 206 teachers were fired because of the math of a computer system is alarming. Cathy O’Neil’s Weapons of Math Destruction gives us a good name for this type of phenomenon with her research’s title. I find it ironic how school systems want to measure the percentage of successful students by using value-added variables, yet they allow their own artificial systems to incorrectly deem teachers to be inefficient at their jobs.
The use of this kind of variable determining system in an educational should ring alarm bells in the community. The lack of tact in using digital scoring tactics without proper human comprehension of the actual scores is what causes issues such as these. Data scientists crunch out the details of the math and fail to preview their errors. This results in superficial variables that don’t reflect the proper reality they want to measure. Therefore, they end up with failures such as the 2012 MacFarland Middle School firings.
It also feels ironic how we are taught the importance of math yet it’s the math that ends up perpetuating the problem of this digital redlining. These data measurements are used for more than just measuring a teacher’s educational success. They’re used for medical profits, social division, political gains, system imperialism, and capitalism.
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