Fun with Excel: Average vs. Attainable I

I have been playing around with Excel spreadsheets in an attempt to explain my views on equality. Like other topics I have discussed, my views are entirely contradictory to those of our schools. Instead of repeating too much, let me summarize. We all have a unique set of strengths and weaknesses. These differences are insufficient to put one person above another. By contrast, the schools believe in treating everybody as though they are the same.


While a lot of people insist that schools aim for average, I have countered that they actually aim for attainable. I can use the base argument about individualism, the heart of my beliefs on equality, and adapt the concept to better explain why I have repeatedly stated that the schools aim for attainable rather than average.

I'm going to start with something simple. I have run random numbers for 1,000 imaginary individuals. Each one of these people has values representing six subjects. Many schools require success in more than that, but I would rather err on the side of the schools for this one.

This spreadsheet can be found at: Average vs. Attainable I.xlsx

Unlike my series on equality, I have decided to keep all formulas in place. If you download this spreadsheet, you can easily recalculate the random numbers and resulting calculations.

In this spreadsheet, about half will be above average for each time you recalculate. This is based on an each individuals average of the six subjects compared against averages of these averages.

I have also added a count of people who exceed 0.5, the expected long-term average and median for this example, for all six subjects. Using 0.5 instead of a calculated average or median was intended to streamline calculations. Again, I am being too kind since the average should exceed the median in the real world.

Although the number fluctuates, the results will typically show around 1.56% of all people being capable of meeting all expectations. This is easy to calculate since this is the equivalent of 0.5^6. What this means is that if the schools demanded successfully reaching the possibility for the median student in six different subjects, only one out of every 64 would graduate.

One thing that you might notice is that performance levels in this spreadsheet are more variable than we typically see in school. Someone who gets an A in math is not likely to fail in English. This is primarily because there are additional factors to succeeding in school. I will explain this part further in a later post.