Danny
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Post by Danny on Nov 5, 2024 7:23:36 GMT
So many polls came out in the last couple of days, indeed in the last couple of hours thar it's hard to see the full picture I'm concentrating on Pennsylvania, I think if Harris wins that she'll also win Michigan and Wisconsin and so win the Presidency Pennsylvania is very, very tight in the polls, so have looked at early voting to help At the moment Democrat registered voters are leading Republican ones 57% to 33% Female voters (more likely to vote Democrat) are leading males 56% to 43% My tuppence is on Harris to win Similar thing but I'd put it the other way around - if there is a big polling miss and Harris wins comfortably, I think this will turn out to have been the story. Just about the only way I can rationalise a systematic error towards the scale implied by the Selzer poll would be if there's a huge turnout differential between women and men, amplified by both the expansion of early voting provision and a post-COVID shift in behaviours. Essentially a lot of semi-engaged women who sometimes vote, sometimes don't, over the last couple of weeks having passed an early voting polling place with no queue and spontaneously gone in. Whilst the equivalent semi-engaged men stay home on election day because they're not motivated enough to go and queue up for either candidate. It's still a pretty big stretch, but it would at least explain how something that large could slip by pretty much the whole industry, if groups that would end up with large differential turnout consistently looked the same as each other in their LTV responses and thus either both got included by turnout filters or both excluded. And there's no way to get from the current data to that outcome without seeing the election day turnouts first - the kind of thing I'm describing could look identical to a post-COVID reversion to the more familiar pattern of Democrats and women just being more likely to vote early, and it balancing back out in the election day turnout. I havnt studied these polls myself so only judging by others reporting, there seems to be some suggestion of a last minute swing to Harris. Traditionally polls become more accurate at the last minute because more people are certain how they will vote (or already have), whereas earlier polls had to rely more on predicting who uncertain voters would go for. Plus of course the respondents are more certain as the deadline approaches and there is less chance of any 'events' influencing them. This sort of effect makes last minute polling more accurate.
On the other hand there are always systemic problems with the polling which remain to the last moment. Currently the obvious example would be the Roe v Wade supreme court reversal. Early elections after this decision showed significant polling mistakes which were attributed to the decision where dems came out unexpectedly well. These effects cannot be allowed for in polling until there are some past results to judge from. And the effect may fade over time, or stabilise, and may be different in different states depending on their background views on the issue, and on local laws which may mean either RvW doesnt really make any difference, or makes a big difference. I'd imagine RvW makes most difference in republican states than in dem states, because dems are more likely to have liberal abortion laws anyway.
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steve
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Post by steve on Nov 5, 2024 7:24:51 GMT
Trump just concluded hopefully his last ever travelling fascist clownshow.
After arriving two hours late and airing his full range of complete cobblers and gratuitous insults as his audience leave eatly the criminal rapist dreg danced off stage to the sound of YMCA!
Wtf!
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Nov 5, 2024 7:30:11 GMT
Left-wing politicians prefer to have an ill-educated population because they are easier to control. If the right thought there was any benefit to them from a well educated population then education spending would have shot up in the last 15 years. Instead they cut it. Blair and labour significantly increased education spending, which suggests they thought it was a benefit to the left. Something we have seen recently is a campaign to prevent kids having access to smart phones, which is a way to prevent them having access to public debate and uncensored information. This has taken place under a right wing government. |
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steve
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Post by steve on Nov 5, 2024 7:30:35 GMT
Shouldn't he be doing the job he was elected to do? Clacton is 3614 miles to your East!  |
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Post by mark61 on Nov 5, 2024 7:55:07 GMT
graham The sole function of ‘relative’ marking was to allocate people to different grades and ranks, a highly expensive selection process. Actual learning and development was incidental. The absurdity of this was unsustainable and in the eighties it gave way to criterion-refenced marking. If you could do what was asked of you, you got the mark. This move had begun in higher education a couple of decades before, with the advent of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA). It was pioneered in the polytechnics, but the universities soon followed suit. The point is that the assessment rules changed in a very significant way. I accept that there is a debate to be had as to which was the superior system , but it is ludicrous to compare grades awarded under one system with those awarded by another on a like for like basis. A few years back quite a pew commentators poked fun at Corbyn for only having manage 2 E grades in 1967 - whilst totally failing to point out that on the basis of current criteria he would almost certainly have managed 2 C grades at A Level. 2 C grades aren't a great improvement on 2 Es to be honest! |
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Post by jimjam on Nov 5, 2024 8:19:23 GMT
Courses have to develop to meet developments.
When I did Maths O Level in 1979 we did logarithms but didn't do vectors until A levels.
When my kids did Maths in the 2010s they did them the other way around.
With the advent of calculators Logs lost there usefulness as a method for calculations but are important to do at A level for anyone wishing to possibly take STEM at higher education.
Whether Vectors are more beneficial for 14-16 years olds to cover than logs I don't know but I am happy to leave to experts.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Nov 5, 2024 8:30:31 GMT
A few years back quite a pew commentators poked fun at Corbyn for only having manage 2 E grades in 1967 - whilst totally failing to point out that on the basis of current criteria he would almost certainly have managed 2 C grades at A Level. he was doing better than 85% of his classmates in getting any! |
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Post by johntel on Nov 5, 2024 8:46:17 GMT
First results in! New Hampshire - Dixville Notch Presidential Results: Harris: 3 Trump: 3 (PS those aren't electoral college votes they are single person votes, the total electorate is 6!) So the opinion polls were right, it's too close to call  |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Nov 5, 2024 8:48:47 GMT
Interviewee on the US election observing there is an educational divide where those with degrees are more likely democrats. Superficially this might suggest education turns you leftwards, but the reality may well be education is simply a marker the person is likely to have a better job and those with better jobs are turning dem. whereas the left behind, just as first time round, old post industrial areas, falling real wages for manual workers, are those disaffected by the system who therefore go trump. A voter interviewed earlier said they were for Trump because he was the only one who would help them.
This is exactly the same as in the UK where Farage has stolen traditional manual working class labour voters. The interviewee said the democrats desperately need to address how they have lost this blok of voters and do something about it. Its pretty obvious labour needs to do the same, but little sign it is. They have hiked the minimum wage, which is an important step, but it really needs to come up fast to being a realistic living wage. The evidence since minimum wage was reintroduced has been that it has not caused unemployment, merely boosted wages for those previously poorest paid. Obvious advantages in making work more attractive compared to benefits, and the serious problem that benefits have to be set at a minimum living wage level...which makes working insane if it pays worse than benefits.
But behind all that, the greatest single problem faced by society is the shortage of housing, which has massively pushed up prices to the extent it dominates everyones thinking and budgeting. It massively disadvantages the UK in terms of creating a high wage society.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Nov 5, 2024 8:53:45 GMT
We need to revert to the system of finance which operated when Starmer was himself a student in the early 1980s. Which was that only half as many people went to university, so they could be better funded on less money. Though its very arguable too many people are currently going to univeristy, so the money is being wasted. There also seems to be a problem that teaching standards in universities have fallen considerably. Far less contact time with staff. Students told to go off and watch or research stuff online, which makes you wonder why they need to be at an expensive university at all. The whole education system seems to have moved awy from education being a presentation of established knowledge, to one where students are expected to discover stuff for themselves. |
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 5, 2024 9:00:54 GMT
Shouldn't he be doing the job he was elected to do? Clacton is 3614 miles to your East! View Attachmentmaybe he is forging much-needed links between Clacton and the US. So that Americans will come and holiday… in Clacton! (Keep an eye on tourism stats 👍) Wow did you miss the bungs Starmer and some of his cabinet received Yes, I did. Or at least, there is no evidence they have done anything different to all the politicians before them, or anything against the rules. Rather, what they actually seem to have done is draw this to the attention of the relevant registers for the first time. And are being attacked for doing so. An irony they are being criticised for being honest, but I guess the tories will be upset they can no longer get similar traitional perks. The bungs are quite conspicuous though, so they kind of have to declare it. You can’t really hide it if you keep going to VIP settings at gigs and footie matches, and are sporting all these expensive new threads. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Nov 5, 2024 9:08:28 GMT
Shouldn't he be doing the job he was elected to do? Clacton is 3614 miles to your East! View Attachmentmaybe he is forging much-needed links between Clacton and the US. So that Americans will come and holiday… in Clacton! (Keep an eye on tourism stats 👍) What job was he elected to do? Presumably further the policies of reform and do whatever is most likely to get them enacted. If that means obtaining influence with the next US president, who will then give orders to Starmer, that makes sense to me. |
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 5, 2024 9:09:49 GMT
maybe he is forging much-needed links between Clacton and the US. So that Americans will come and holiday… in Clacton! (Keep an eye on tourism stats 👍) What job was he elected to do? Presumably further the policies of reform and do whatever is most likely to get them enacted. If that means obtaining influence with the next US president, who will then give orders to Starmer, that makes sense to me. it could also mean more people from Clacton holiday in America! |
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Post by jib on Nov 5, 2024 9:26:23 GMT
Nate Silver's model Percentage winning chance Harris 50.015% Trump 49.985%) Squeaky bum. This is going to take a long while to become clear if it's that close. |
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Nov 5, 2024 9:40:36 GMT
Nate Silver's model Percentage winning chance Harris 50.015% Trump 49.985%) Squeaky bum. This is going to take a long while to become clear if it's that close. Agree, although if the polls are wrong and it's not close we will have a very good indication of this tomorrow, either in favour of Harris or Trump |
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Nov 5, 2024 10:02:58 GMT
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Nov 5, 2024 10:20:20 GMT
Squeaky bum. This is going to take a long while to become clear if it's that close. Agree, although if the polls are wrong and it's not close we will have a very good indication of this tomorrow, either in favour of Harris or Trump well, polls are usually wrong. So if they are saying equally matched, that is unlikely to be the exact result. |
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Post by Rafwan on Nov 5, 2024 10:34:47 GMT
A Level grades are now massively inflated compared with those awarded until the end of the 1980s under the former Relative Marking system Many students awarded A grades today would have struggled to obtain C grades in the past, whilst those now receiving D and E grades would not have passed the exam at all. Until the late 80s 30% of A Level students failed even to gain a grade E - now the figure is under 2%. Yet these students are still invited on to 'degree' courses - though many are of the Mickey Mouse kind. Indeed. I read an article probably 20 years ago which showed an A-level maths question which had been an O-level 20 years before that. It concerns me that although youngsters have and need other skills today, a reduction in basic maths and literacy will mean a greater reliance on AI and conventional internet skills in the future. Without sufficient education to question or analyse the computer's analysis we will end up being effectively controlled by algorithms, which ultimately means being controlled by mega-corporations. Your first sentence is nonsense. You never read any such article and it was never written. The rest I broadly agree with, though I am much less pessimistic than you. I was thrilled to see that in the playgrounds of my granddaughters’ new school they have painted in large 12 by 12 boxes with all the times tables and these are used for latter day forms of hopscotch. Integrated learning and play; excellent. Danny. As so often, your post helps get to the nub of the matter. The purpose of the Olympics/Paralympics is to find the finest athletes in the world. A noble exercise and a spectacle. The purpose of education is to get individuals to achieve their capabilities to the highest level possible. To be clear, this is my opinion, based upon my values, which may or may not be shared by others. To identify the finest brains in the world, we have different spectacles, such as University Challenge and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. |
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 5, 2024 10:40:22 GMT
Carfrew (quoting book blurb): Vassal State lays bare the extent to which US corporations own and control Britain's economy: how American business chiefs decide what we're paid, what we buy, and how we buy it. US companies have carved up Britain between them, siphoning off enormous profits, buying up our most lucrative firms and assets, and extracting huge rents from UK PLC – all while paying little or no tax. Meanwhile, policymakers, from Whitehall mandarins to NHS chiefs, shape their decisions to suit the whims of our American corporate overlords.It always struck me as weird that brexiteers fretted mightily about the perceived threat of vassaldom to a collaborative, democratically-controlled, transparent organisation like the EU, but completely ignored the far greater and more insidious loss of control to US finance and big business. Likewise with increasing cultural hegemony. First MacDonalds came to get us, then Amazon. The policy seems to be to accept the inevitable, lie back and enjoy it. As long as our bosses are English-speaking (sort of). Yes, just as we poach doctors from less well-off countries, we get our people poached by richer nations. For a while maybe it looked like some of our politicians wanted us to be a vassal of China? Interesting times etc. barbara The current Labour cabinet is the most " ordinary" ever. Of the 25 core members only 2 were privately educated, which is about in line with the wider population percentage. It stands in stark contrast to the 23 per cent of current parliamentarians overall who attended private schools, and the over 30 per cent seen in every single previous post-war cabinet to date. The overall figure is skewed as around 50% of Tory mps were privately educated , with just 15% of Labour and 30% of lib dems. The overall percentage is significantly lower for this parliament because of the collapse in Tory representation and because Labour's third of the vote share win them two thirds of the seats. A few stats on private schools that show why it is a huge entrenchment of social privilege for those that get it and a massive waste of human potential for everyone else: - About 5.9% of school-age children in the UK attend private schools, which is about 620,000 children in over 2,500 schools. It is lower in Scotland (4%), Wales (2%) and Northern Ireland (1%) and highest in London (13%). - However, 15% of UK spend on education occurs in private schools. - One in every 16 pupils goes to a private school but one in every seven teachers works at a private school - Over 50% of GCSE entries from independent schools are awarded a grade A/A*, compared to the national average of about 20%. - In 2023 31.4% of Oxford University students came from private schools, meaning they are over represented by 5 times. Private schools are a massive scam to ensure the perpetuation of a self-selecting financial elite. If we really wanted social mobility in this country we would get rid of them completely. That is not a realistic option, so removing their pretend charitable status for VAT purposes to help finance the under-resourced state schools 94% of children attend was a modest but useful start. If anything those figures understate the difference in money spent per pupil. But if you get rid of private schools, the scam won’t necessarily end - you may just have even more better-off people using property wealth to skew catchments, paying for more resources and private tutors themselves (instead of paying the private school to do it for them) etc. |
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 5, 2024 11:04:22 GMT
Nate Silver's model Percentage winning chance Harris 50.015% Trump 49.985%) That’s some epic fence-sitting right there. Great career polling, innit. |
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Post by alec on Nov 5, 2024 11:14:18 GMT
c-a-r-f-r-e-w - "That’s some epic fence-sitting right there. Great career polling, innit." I think it does also show some significant late movements towards Harris in a number of polls.
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 5, 2024 11:16:11 GMT
c-a-r-f-r-e-w - "That’s some epic fence-sitting right there. Great career polling, innit." I think it does also show some significant late movements towards Harris in a number of polls. It also shows some late movement towards the fence |
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 5, 2024 11:30:21 GMT
... And then, just who would benefit from abolishing the 6% best schools in the country? The answer of course is no one. Obviously the current private kids aould have to make do with state education. But they would redistribute to the very best of the state schools. Displacing poorer kids to worse schools. The net result would be state kids getting a worse education too. Not least because the budget would have to be stretched to include those 6% extra kids to be educated...less money for everyone. Which all seems to me cutting off your own nose to spite your face. ... You forget that it doesn't have to make sense to lefties. It's a bit like the MAGA cult - if someone is seen to be doing better than you, you must attack them and try to tear them down. This is preferable to trying to level things up in their view. Left-wing politicians prefer to have an ill-educated population because they are easier to control. Orwell was on the money in '1984'. The way things can be tweeted and then be deleted is reminiscent of Winston's job of editing old newspapers. The way certain words change their meaning or are not allowed to be used is reminiscent of the ever-changing Newspeak dictionary. I seem to remember Winston saying "The only hope is the proles". They have spoken once on Brexit. They may yet speak again. Danny has a point that it might not benefit most pupils much, but it isn’t necessarily the case that no one at all would benefit. It might not benefit the less well-off pupils much, but the better-off pupils - whose parents used property wealth to secure places in the better state schools - wouldn’t have the even more advantaged pupils at private school to compete with. Unless of course those better-off parents - formerly using private schools, but now in the state sector - out-spend other parents on resources and private tuition etc. (They might even push up property prices near the best state schools, pricing out some of the current middle-class beneficiaries of the catchment area scam). Private schools don’t simply buy advantage. Better-off people at state schools can buy advantage. Private schools let you outsource securing the advantage, so you can spend more time on other things. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Nov 5, 2024 11:41:12 GMT
Danny . As so often, your post helps get to the nub of the matter. The purpose of the Olympics/Paralympics is to find the finest athletes in the world. A noble exercise and a spectacle. The purpose of education is to get individuals to achieve their capabilities to the highest level possible. To be clear, this is my opinion, based upon my values, which may or may not be shared by others. To identify the finest brains in the world, we have different spectacles, such as University Challenge and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Well no, it very often is not. Aside from basics like being able to write and count, just how many people really use knowledge they get at A level or degree? Sure, some specialise but most do not, and its getting worse. Last time I brought this up the response was, but universities teach people to think not just learn knowledge. Well, why on earth dont secondary schools do that anyway? (and some very much do, its totally possible) The specific job of A levels was to identify the brightest to go on to university. But it did the same job for any employer looking for clever people. Today a job advert is likely to say degree required, often regardless of subject. Heck, even teachers get drafted to teach other than the subject they did a degree in, it has just become a licence to apply for the job. This task of finding the most able candidates used to be done by A levels without everyone needing to waste three years going to university. GCSE exams are almost pointless nowadays, no one is going to be interested if you then go on to A and degree.
Athletics events do indeed sometimes give awards to people eg for just completing a marathon. But we are all interested in the winner, and employers are interested in the most capable candidates. Why do you think they were forced to creat the A* grade above A?
Having said that, I am not disagreeing that education should get the best out of everyone, but I disagree you will not do that in a competition against your peers. If something like covid happens, it affected everyone and so while exam results might show a relative drop you will still get the best at the top.
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Post by guymonde on Nov 5, 2024 11:53:45 GMT
Private schools don’t simply buy advantage. Better-off people at state schools can buy advantage. Private schools let you outsource securing the advantage, so you can spend more time on other things. If I remember you like me were privately-educated. Unlike you, I don't swallow the propaganda put about by the private school industry. More equal funding will bring about a more equal outcome. Of course some will have more committed, better funded, more righteous parents no matter what the education system is. When my daughter and her pals were moving on to secondary school the game was to pretend to be church goers, because the church secondary schools were supposed to be better. |
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patrickbrian
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Post by patrickbrian on Nov 5, 2024 12:02:48 GMT
I've been coming on here to check on the USA elections - thanks EOR in particular! - but nobody seems to know much beyond that the polls are probably wrong. I was struck though by the empty seats at a Trump rally . Maybe he isn't energising his base this time. Logic tells me that, like Corbyn ( who he resembles in no other way!) he must be really energising the opposition though. So my head tells me he should lose (that's a bit different from Harris winning). But i've had too many nasty shocks - Brexit, Cameron beating Milliband, Boris... to not have that sinking feeling about waking up tomorrow morning to what looks like a ghastly mistake. 18 million Germans voted for Hitler, and at the time Germany seemed like one of the most sophisticated European cultures. It can happen... Still, fingers crossed for Karmala!
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 5, 2024 12:04:32 GMT
Private schools don’t simply buy advantage. Better-off people at state schools can buy advantage. Private schools let you outsource securing the advantage, so you can spend more time on other things. If I remember you like me were privately-educated. Unlike you, I don't swallow the propaganda put about by the private school industry. More equal funding will bring about a more equal outcome. Of course some will have more committed, better funded, more righteous parents no matter what the education system is. When my daughter and her pals were moving on to secondary school the game was to pretend to be church goers, because the church secondary schools were supposed to be better. Thanks for your rather presumptuous reply: Be interesting to see what likes that gets. Because I didn’t put forward an argument for retaining private schools, and I’ve probably complained about them as much as anyone on here. I just pointed out that it wouldn’t get rid of privilege, it might even exacerbate it in some ways in the state sector (and so, if one is concerned about privilege, why stop at private schools?) |
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Post by shevii on Nov 5, 2024 12:06:04 GMT
c-a-r-f-r-e-w - "That’s some epic fence-sitting right there. Great career polling, innit." I think it does also show some significant late movements towards Harris in a number of polls. Yes- I've been feeling the same to be honest and better to be trending in the right direction with things being this close. |
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Post by mark61 on Nov 5, 2024 12:07:38 GMT
Not exactly a Shadow Cabinet for the Ages is it? I suppose it isn't easy to fill the posts when the electorate has repudiated the Party to the extent of only returning 121 MP's. It is odd that we should have a Shadow justice Minister who according to the Tory Leader has a 'Whiff of impropriety about him' and a Shadow Foreign Secretary who resigned before being sacked as a result of launching her own Foreign Policy operation off the Books when International Development Secretary. Mel Stride although a decent choice to Shadow Racheal Reeves is hardly Box Office.
No Tugendhat, Cleverly or Hunt prepared to serve in the Shadow Cabinet, leaving some notable mis matches across the floor of the House notably Chris Philp shadowing Yvette Cooper. It is evident the Conservative Talent Pool has become a Puddle.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Nov 5, 2024 12:27:47 GMT
I don't swallow the propaganda put about by the private school industry. More equal funding will bring about a more equal outcome. What propaganda? Private sector says exactly that if you spend more you get better results. Its pretty much their reason for existing. And you seem to agree its correct. |
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