The cruel exams algorithm has laid bare the unfairness at the heart of our schools | Kenan Malik

Don't be misled. It is political judgments, not obscure equations, which are doing so much to damage our children's futures

What children know and too many politicians seem not to: a few years ago, the psychologists Alex Shaw and Kristina Olson ran an experiment in which they told young children about two boys, Dan and Mark, who had cleaned up their room and were to be rewarded with rubbers (why rubbers should be seen as a reward I don't know). However, there were five rubbers, so they could not be divided equally between the two boys. What should they do? The vast majority of children thought that one eraser should be thrown away, so there could be an even split between Dan and Mark. However, when the children heard that Dan did more work than Mark", they were quite comfortable giving three to Dan and two to Mark.

The children, in other words, had a deep commitment to fairness - anyone who has children will know that their favourite cry is but that's not fair!" - but they also recognised that the meaning of fairness could change depending on context. If Dan worked harder than Mark, it was only fair that he received more of the goodies, rather than fairness always requiring an equal division of the rewards.