> Granted, these are obviously exaggerated and hypothetical stereotypes, which I don't really want to contribute to perpetuating, but they illustrate a point. You don't exactly have to be some kind of bleeding heart social justice activist to see how unfair it is to Z to be "objectively graded" as lacking "performance" when compared to X.
I don't think that it follows from this that it's unfair for Y/Z to have a lower grade. They did worse. The grade can reflect that. That doesn't mean they're a worse person / student. It means they demonstrated worse performance in the class. How you interpret that later on is a different question, and interpreting Y's lower performance in the context of the environment that caused it is fair.
Trying to change the scale leads to the measurement being meaningless, and worse, can lead to bringing back biases that were tried to be balanced for: in evaluating a student for a job who looked like Y and another who looked like X and got the same GPA, which one is the better student? If you believe that the grades were more lenient toward Y, picking applicant X as an employer just makes sense.
In another context: we report the times of runners running the 100m dash in seconds and hundredths of seconds, regardless of if they're in the 100M final of the Olympics or at a local high school track meet. Is 10.8 seconds a good time? In the Olympic 100m mens final? no. In the US collegiate championships for women? definitely.
> I don't think that it follows from this that it's unfair for Y/Z to have a lower grade
The unfairness is pretty obvious, if you don't see it I don't know what to tell you.
> That doesn't mean they're a worse person / student
> How you interpret that later on is a different question
This is pointless semantics - we all know exactly how it will be interpreted and what it will mean for Y's prospects to have the worse grades.
> Trying to change the scale leads to the measurement being meaningless
This is literally the exact point I preemptively addressed at the end of my reply.
Your analogy with athletes is nonsensical. We're not talking about comparing the best of the best who are consensually opting into competing against each other. We're talking about disadvantaged people who are subjected to (whether they want to be in it or not) an unjust "grading" system that only highlights and perpetuates their "underperformance"... But sure, we can use your analogy:
Take the top 10 100m dash competitors,
put some of them in all inclusive athletic villages with access to world class facilities, coaches, nutrition etc and let them focus all their time and energy on training
put others in a low income country shantytown with no access to any facilities, coaches, with poor nutrition and no time or energy to train because they have to engage in subsistence agriculture to just survive
then, let them race! It's fair because tHe tiMeKeEpiNg is oBjEcTiVe
I think you missed the point of my post. I am fine with accounting for the challenges that someone has due to their background and circumstances. I just don't think it should be done by changing how we measure things. I feel that we should measure objectively, even if that is "unfair". What we do with the raw data, and how we weight the circumstances around that is a separate question, and I agree with you that it would be unfair to judge someone purely based on a grade without taking their circumstances and the challenges that held them back into account.
I don't think that it follows from this that it's unfair for Y/Z to have a lower grade. They did worse. The grade can reflect that. That doesn't mean they're a worse person / student. It means they demonstrated worse performance in the class. How you interpret that later on is a different question, and interpreting Y's lower performance in the context of the environment that caused it is fair.
Trying to change the scale leads to the measurement being meaningless, and worse, can lead to bringing back biases that were tried to be balanced for: in evaluating a student for a job who looked like Y and another who looked like X and got the same GPA, which one is the better student? If you believe that the grades were more lenient toward Y, picking applicant X as an employer just makes sense.
In another context: we report the times of runners running the 100m dash in seconds and hundredths of seconds, regardless of if they're in the 100M final of the Olympics or at a local high school track meet. Is 10.8 seconds a good time? In the Olympic 100m mens final? no. In the US collegiate championships for women? definitely.