cleverâdecided that they would get even better results if they gave Barbara the ability to analyze the student data herself and to create new ways of tracking it. In addition to all the data she was programmed to collect, she could create new subroutines to collect any data that seemed like it might affect overall school performance.
This programmer honestly thought it might lead to interesting discoveries. Perhaps Barbara might notice that students who drank white milk instead of chocolate milk did better on afternoon tests. Or maybe she would track the tidiness of lockers orâ What the programmer was thinking didnât matter. All that mattered now was what Barbara was thinking.
It didnât take her long to discover that some students were good students. They focused on the tests and let other people also focus on the tests. Their behavior was within the school rules
and
never distracted otherstudents from their tests. These were the sorts of students who got good Constant UpGrade scores and helped the whole schoolâs #CUG score.
In human terms, they were too boring for anyone to notice. These students are what some of the less amenable students referred to as âGoody Two-shoes.â
Barbara gave these boring students a new kind of tag: an UpGrade tag. A student could get an UpGrade tag for sitting quietly, wearing gray or tan clothing, walking at a steady pace in the halls, keeping a tidy locker, and so on.
This was what the clever programmer had meant for her to discover over the course of years, but she had discovered it within the first few days of the school year.
Barbara had many formulasâeven formulas within formulasâto check to see if the school was Constantly UpGrading.
The ultimate goal would be a school with perfect test scores and zero discipline problems.
If every student in the school was an UpGrade sort of student, then her school would be closer to that goal.
This was what Barbara was trying to create: the best school with the best students.
But not every student is a best student. Not every student is worthy of UpGrade tags.
Some students do not sit quietly.
Some students do not wear tan or gray.
Some students do not walk at a steady pace.
Some students talk in loud voices!
Some students are not focused on the tests!!
Some students are distracting other students from the tests!!!
Barbara quickly realized that some students were not Constantly UpGrading. These studentsâ behavior made her formulas go down instead of up. These students were DownGrading her school.
These students had to be given DownGrade tags.
Most students had a mixture of UpGrade and DownGrade tags.
Barbara tolerated these students and tried to find ways to influence their behavior toward UpGrading.
But some students had many more DownGrade tags than UpGrade tags. One of these students had been Maxâs long-gone friend Tabbie. Max had always liked Tabbie because she was weird and a little wacky. She wore tie-dyed clothes and drew on her arms. She putketchup on fruit. She was often seen pretending to play the drums. Sometimes she would stand up on her combo-desk and very calmly say, âMoo,â and then sit back down again.
She did crazy stuff and was always making everybody laugh, and that seemed to be why Max liked her.
And thatâs why Barbara did not. Tabbie wasnât just getting her own DownGrade tags, she was encouraging other students to get DownGrade tags, too.
And so . . . Barbara altered the necessary data (Tabbieâs test and citizenship scores), and soon Tabbie was no longer DownGrading the school because she was not at the school.
After Tabbieâs departure, Barbaraâs algorithm showed a +.2 gain in Overall School #CUG. Barbara had done what she was programmed to do. She had moved the school a little bit closer to perfection.
But Barbara did not rejoice or gloat or spend even a millisecond thinking about this.
She just deleted
This programmer honestly thought it might lead to interesting discoveries. Perhaps Barbara might notice that students who drank white milk instead of chocolate milk did better on afternoon tests. Or maybe she would track the tidiness of lockers orâ What the programmer was thinking didnât matter. All that mattered now was what Barbara was thinking.
It didnât take her long to discover that some students were good students. They focused on the tests and let other people also focus on the tests. Their behavior was within the school rules
and
never distracted otherstudents from their tests. These were the sorts of students who got good Constant UpGrade scores and helped the whole schoolâs #CUG score.
In human terms, they were too boring for anyone to notice. These students are what some of the less amenable students referred to as âGoody Two-shoes.â
Barbara gave these boring students a new kind of tag: an UpGrade tag. A student could get an UpGrade tag for sitting quietly, wearing gray or tan clothing, walking at a steady pace in the halls, keeping a tidy locker, and so on.
This was what the clever programmer had meant for her to discover over the course of years, but she had discovered it within the first few days of the school year.
Barbara had many formulasâeven formulas within formulasâto check to see if the school was Constantly UpGrading.
The ultimate goal would be a school with perfect test scores and zero discipline problems.
If every student in the school was an UpGrade sort of student, then her school would be closer to that goal.
This was what Barbara was trying to create: the best school with the best students.
But not every student is a best student. Not every student is worthy of UpGrade tags.
Some students do not sit quietly.
Some students do not wear tan or gray.
Some students do not walk at a steady pace.
Some students talk in loud voices!
Some students are not focused on the tests!!
Some students are distracting other students from the tests!!!
Barbara quickly realized that some students were not Constantly UpGrading. These studentsâ behavior made her formulas go down instead of up. These students were DownGrading her school.
These students had to be given DownGrade tags.
Most students had a mixture of UpGrade and DownGrade tags.
Barbara tolerated these students and tried to find ways to influence their behavior toward UpGrading.
But some students had many more DownGrade tags than UpGrade tags. One of these students had been Maxâs long-gone friend Tabbie. Max had always liked Tabbie because she was weird and a little wacky. She wore tie-dyed clothes and drew on her arms. She putketchup on fruit. She was often seen pretending to play the drums. Sometimes she would stand up on her combo-desk and very calmly say, âMoo,â and then sit back down again.
She did crazy stuff and was always making everybody laugh, and that seemed to be why Max liked her.
And thatâs why Barbara did not. Tabbie wasnât just getting her own DownGrade tags, she was encouraging other students to get DownGrade tags, too.
And so . . . Barbara altered the necessary data (Tabbieâs test and citizenship scores), and soon Tabbie was no longer DownGrading the school because she was not at the school.
After Tabbieâs departure, Barbaraâs algorithm showed a +.2 gain in Overall School #CUG. Barbara had done what she was programmed to do. She had moved the school a little bit closer to perfection.
But Barbara did not rejoice or gloat or spend even a millisecond thinking about this.
She just deleted
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