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#Post#: 46943--------------------------------------------------
Is One Plan Really More "Fair" Than the Other?
By: ZekailleTasker Date: February 7, 2020, 3:41 pm
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I'm going to try and jettison all extraneous nonsense and go
straight to the heart.
A library with seven branches is preparing for summer reading.
In years past, it has been traditional to offer a REALLY good
prize at EACH branch to encourage teens to read. Each time a
teen reads a book, they get a chance (up to five chances) to
toss their name into a raffle for Something Really Good.
A year before budget constraints dictated that there was only
ONE prize to be raffled off to teens city wide. Kids at the
smaller branches and the urban branches stopped reading because
they figured there was no point in trying for the big prize.
Attendance dipped.
This year it was suggested that the programming committee
consider returning to the old practice of having Really
Wonderful Item as a prize at each branch. Everyone agreed that
this would be an expensive but good idea...then...
Two people insisted, that to be fair, we would offer the seven
Wonderful Things as What You Might Win at Each Br7
anch.....BUT...instead of having a drawing for each branch and
each branch's teens, all the tickets would be pooled at the end
of summer and the winners selected from the pool to "make it
more fair".
Why is this more fair? It's the odds. By pooling the tickets,
we are making the odds fair. So there is a potential that the 6
kids from tiny branch A in impoverished neighborhood might read
and each get the allowed five chances...to win, but they will be
up against the 275 kids from bigger Branch B and the 689 kids at
the Main Library each of whom also has five chances. And it is
very likely therefore that none of the 6 kids at branch A have a
hope in heck of winning anything but disappointment.
"This is much more fair," Coworker A said. "The six kids from
Tiny Impoverished Branch have 5 chances in 35 of winning
something, but the kids from MY branch have 5 chances in 2500 of
winning and that isn't fair."
Coworker A was asked if it wold be fair when, no doubt, the kids
from the biggest library with the most teens and therefore the
most chances in the pot all win again and the kids from the tiny
branches don't. She insisted that yes, it was fare as then they
would each have just five chances against the rest of the kids.
While the odds argument makes some sense, it just seems like the
kids in the crappy neighborhoods are getting ignored again. Of
course, there is a chance that one of them might win, but it's
highly unlikely. And it is very annoying when prizes for other
age groups are going to be drawn locally. Only the teens and
adults are getting this kind of treatment.
Fair? Unfair? QUIT GIVING PRIZES FOR READING YOU YUTZES? wE
ARE ITCHING TO KNOW WHAT OTHERS THINK.
#Post#: 46944--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is One Plan Really More "Fair" Than the Other?
By: jpcher Date: February 7, 2020, 3:53 pm
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Not quite sure I understand fully . . . one prize for all the
combined branches, correct?
I think a possible solution would be for each branch to draw one
(or maybe two?) winners from their own branch. Then put all the
sub-winners from each branch into a drawing of it's own. That
way you have equal representation from each branch for the final
drawing.
True, one branch has 2500 and another only 250 but in the end
all branches have a fair and equal chance of being the Big
Winner.
#Post#: 46947--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is One Plan Really More "Fair" Than the Other?
By: TootsNYC Date: February 7, 2020, 4:39 pm
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It just depends on what the goal is.
If you pool all the kids, then yes, there is a greater chance
that larger branches might have more winners; but every kid in
the city has the same chance, no matter which branch they go to.
I know attendance dropped when there was only one prize, but
that was based on a fallacious perception--every individual kid
absolutely had the same exact chance to win that prize. It's
just the branch that had lower odds. And the kids from the
smaller branches MAY have thought, "my neighborhood won't win,
so that means I won't."
BUT they also may have thought, "there's only one prize for the
entire city--everybody's odds are low, and since mine are low,
it's not worth my time."
Perhaps the incentive of winning the prize is the only thing
that made the kids from those neighborhoods read a book, and the
kids from the neighborhoods with high participation would have
read those 5 books anyway.
I was going to say that since the goal is to get kids to read,
you should go back to the prize structure that worked, and not
worry whether the kids at the larger libraries had a lesser
chance to win, since you're still getting them into the contest.
But, since there was only one prize, you don't know whether that
would have worked.
The cool thing would be to pick the smallest library (let's say
Library A=500 kids; Library B=1,000; Library C=2,300) and come
up with a Decent Prize that you can do multiples of, and then
you have one prize for every 500 kids in each library, rounding
off (Library a = 1 prize; Library B=2 prizes; Library C=5
prizes).
Then every kid has a roughly even chance, but the kids in the
smaller neighborhoods are less likely to think, "Oh, we're
outnumbered by all those wealthier suburban neighborhoods, so
I'll never win."
EDITED TO ADD: In order to achieve your goal--to make kids feel
like they'll get something good if they read--I think you do
need to have a plan that means there IS a winner at every
branch. Kids at Library A aren't going to feel all that invested
if the winners list doesn't include someone from their branch.
But the same could be for Library C.
in the pursuit of "fair," you shouldn't lose sight of the idea
that your aim is to get kids to read.
#Post#: 46948--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is One Plan Really More "Fair" Than the Other?
By: LurkingGurl Date: February 7, 2020, 4:46 pm
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Is the goal to be "fair" or is the goal to have the highest
possible participation in reading?
Life is already unfair to the 6 kids from tiny impoverished
branch's neighborhood.
Maybe more kids from that area would participate if they thought
they had a better chance at REALLY GREAT PRIZE.
If there are branches that are disadvantaged, then they need
MORE resources, MORE encouragement, not the SAME as areas that
are relatively affluent. Because in those areas, "same" is
actually LESS.
TLDR: I agree with Toots! :D
#Post#: 46958--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is One Plan Really More "Fair" Than the Other?
By: baritone108 Date: February 7, 2020, 9:17 pm
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The participation in reading would increase greatly if the teens
were competing against themselves rather than each other. For
example, the library system in my city give a pair of tickets to
a professional baseball game to each child/teen who reads 20
books over the summer.
#Post#: 46962--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is One Plan Really More "Fair" Than the Other?
By: Pattycake Date: February 7, 2020, 10:18 pm
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There is a saying that people's perception is their reality. The
kids thought they stood less of a chance when the competition
was city wide, so they quit participating. If the goal is to get
more kids reading, then the prizes need to be awarded in a way
that the kids think they stand a chance of winning one.
#Post#: 46972--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is One Plan Really More "Fair" Than the Other?
By: Winterlight Date: February 8, 2020, 9:13 am
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[quote author=Mary Sunshine Rain
link=topic=1624.msg46948#msg46948 date=1581115564]
Is the goal to be "fair" or is the goal to have the highest
possible participation in reading?
Life is already unfair to the 6 kids from tiny impoverished
branch's neighborhood.
Maybe more kids from that area would participate if they thought
they had a better chance at REALLY GREAT PRIZE.
If there are branches that are disadvantaged, then they need
MORE resources, MORE encouragement, not the SAME as areas that
are relatively affluent. Because in those areas, "same" is
actually LESS.
TLDR: I agree with Toots! :D
[/quote]
THIS. Let's encourage more teens from this area to read, not
squish down any chance they think they've got to win something.
In my library system, any kid/teen signing up for the summer
reading program gets two tickets to the local minors baseball
team, with three different games they can go to as options. Then
there are more prizes that they get automatically as they
advance- pass to the local kid's science museum, free books,
etc. Then they get entered into a drawing at the end for a Big
Prize. This is across the board, so they're basically competing
against themselves to do well. It doesn't matter which branch
they go to, we can check their stats online and see what prize
they're entitled to.
#Post#: 46973--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is One Plan Really More "Fair" Than the Other?
By: pierrotlunaire0 Date: February 8, 2020, 10:16 am
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I absolutely agree with Mary Sunshine. What is the ultimate
goal? To be perfectly fair? Or to get kids to read more books?
Yes, the combined pool might be just as fair, if not in fact,
MORE fair. But if you are trying to get kids to read, the first
system was more effective.
At the smaller branches, kids might reason that the odds are
skewed so that each individual teen has a better chance of
winning, and if they get discouraged, I think you might need to
encourage them.
#Post#: 46981--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is One Plan Really More "Fair" Than the Other?
By: Contrarian Date: February 8, 2020, 1:04 pm
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Life isn’t fair. It can’t possibly be. One child is born
healthy, another with bone cancer. There just isn’t anything any
government organization can do to make this fair, even if they
offer treatment, to be born healthy is the only thing that would
make the second child have a fair chance in life.
Really, we need to stop expecting problems to be fixed by
others. One of my favourite quotes is from Lily Tomlin “I used
to think someone should do something, and then I realized I was
someone.”
This is where community comes in. The library or the government
won’t support prizes for the kids in the under privileged
communities. Fine. The community itself or neighbouring
communities need to be approached with, our kids would benefit,
and therefore our communities would benefit and therefore our
neighbouring communities would benefit from donations to this
reading encouragement program.
Go out there and ask for donations, start a go fund me for that
particular library. Think outside the box because fair never has
and never will be.
#Post#: 46990--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is One Plan Really More "Fair" Than the Other?
By: RubyCat Date: February 8, 2020, 4:39 pm
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I have to agree with Toots, that the goal is to get kids in the
habit of reading. I suppose giving all the children an equal
chance to win a prize might be the most "fair," but I think the
kids at the local library need to be competing against each
other. Centralizing the prize makes it seem too distant and
unattainable.
However, Contrarian has me thinking... If you did solicit
donations to award prizes at your local branch, #1, would that
be allowed? and #2, would your branch be allowed to keep them
and distribute them to your library's kids or would you have to
share with the other branches? Would it be possible to collect
enough to have smaller prizes awarded to kids who've read a
certain number of books and still allow them to participate in a
city-wide drawing for the big prizes?
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