What an excellent story. I love it when fiction can evoke that kind of emotion from people. It doesn't happen often. The people in the story reacted in very realistic ways. From the elected officials giving their own families immunity to Frobisher's actions after being "selected". You could sympathize with every single one of them (with the possible exception of the Prime Minister), though you hated to admit it.
I was glad to see Gwen's monologue in Day 5. Throughout the series I kept thinking, "Where is the Doctor?"
As for the 10%, it looked to me like they were taking children based on their schools, not individual test grades.
There was a significant subtext to the bottom 10% issue, which they never spelled out but was a really large elephant in the room: Test scores are directly correlated with race and income. Far more than with grades (though those metrics have the same problems), far more than anything else. If you go by which schools are underperforming, even more so.
Saying "Take the bottom 10%" is actually saying "Take the kids with learning disabilities, the kids from public housing,* and the brown kids." (One of my only complaints is that the Beeb didn't bother to collect appropriate visual demographics when they cast the kids.)
I thought the show kicked ass. But I also think everyone in the board room knew those statistics as they nodded along.
* Ianto's family is from the public housing group.
However, they only had the one car. Which I do find realistic in a low income area. And besides, it's not like Ianto couldn't have helped them buy it. He hands the kids money as a form of hello. I'm sure he'd do the same for his sister.
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What an excellent story. I love it when fiction can evoke that kind of emotion from people. It doesn't happen often. The people in the story reacted in very realistic ways. From the elected officials giving their own families immunity to Frobisher's actions after being "selected". You could sympathize with every single one of them (with the possible exception of the Prime Minister), though you hated to admit it.
I was glad to see Gwen's monologue in Day 5. Throughout the series I kept thinking, "Where is the Doctor?"
As for the 10%, it looked to me like they were taking children based on their schools, not individual test grades.
I just love quality television!
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Saying "Take the bottom 10%" is actually saying "Take the kids with learning disabilities, the kids from public housing,* and the brown kids." (One of my only complaints is that the Beeb didn't bother to collect appropriate visual demographics when they cast the kids.)
I thought the show kicked ass. But I also think everyone in the board room knew those statistics as they nodded along.
* Ianto's family is from the public housing group.
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That was an awfully nice car for a family on a council estate, though.
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