

Record-low SAT scores a wake-up call - bconway
http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/21/opinion/bennett-education/index.html

======
jonnathanson
This article reveals a shaky grasp of statistics and demographics. For
instance:

> _Since when has diversity and more students taking the test become a
> legitimate excuse for bad scores?_

Actually, diversity is a _very_ big factor. Especially language diversity.
Bilingual households have proliferated dramatically in the last few decades,
and bilingual students have placed enormous strains on already resource-poor
public schools trying to push standardized curricula on increasingly large
classes of students. And you'd fully expect to see English test scores
declining, on average, as more English-as-a-second-language students start
entering the test-taking population.

> _A conservative certainly could not get away with blaming falling test
> scores on diversity. Imagine the outcry._

Ugh. Here he's conflating "diversity" the political buzzword with diversity
the demographic measurement.

No one is "blaming" diversity for declining performance, or claiming that we
don't want diverse students to succeed. Diversity is a great thing. But it can
have a very real, though hopefully corrigible, effect on test metrics. You're
going to see some lower median scores as we wait for ESL/bilingual populations
to acculturate over a generation or two. That's a fact of our demography, not
a value judgment on said demography.

> _As the United States increases education spending, our students' scores
> should not be getting worse._

Perhaps, but this begs for further analytical consideration. First of all,
_is_ educational spending actually increasing year over year, accounting for
inflation? If so, where is it being allocated? Bear in mind that population is
also increasing, and as it increases (and as its demography shifts), it's
going to place increasing strains on the public schooling system. Has the
school system grown in accordance with population growth? I would find that
very hard to believe, especially with all the budget cuts at the national,
state, and local level over the last five or six years.

> _"The solution, Brill says, is to overhaul the public school education
> system in order to motivate and inspire better teachers."_

That's a fine and dandy solution on a case-by-case basis, but is it scalable?
Do we have the resources, and will the demographics support, a scaling up of
the Harlem Success I story? Do we even _have_ enough great teachers to ensure
that every student in a growing population is served by great teachers? The
school system needs thorough reconsideration, and perhaps even an "overhaul."
But what's the rollout plan? Theory is great, but what about implementation?
What's the halfway point between naively idealistic and depressingly
pragmatic?

~~~
Vivtek
_This article reveals a very questionable grasp of statistics and
demographics._

This article reveals a great deal of skill exploiting the _reader's_
questionable grasp of statistics and demographics - indeed, it's a masterful
work.

Your point on increasing education spending is very well-taken! I hadn't even
noticed how he slipped that in there.

Honestly, a point-by-point analysis of the rhetoric in this piece would be
really informative.

~~~
jonnathanson
_"This article reveals a great deal of skill exploiting the reader's
questionable grasp of statistics and demographics - indeed, it's a masterful
work."_

Perhaps, but I'm not sure if that's intentional. From the tone of the writing,
it sounds like the author simply consulted a bunch of subject-matter experts,
then regurgitated their talking points. I'm not convinced he is fully aware of
what he's doing.

EDIT: Interesting point, and well taken.

~~~
Vivtek
This is where he works: <http://www.claremont.org/> \- he's fully aware of
what he's doing.

------
streptomycin
> The results, they say, "reflect the record size and diversity of the pool of
> test-takers. As more students aim for college and take the exam, it tends to
> drag down average scores."

> Since when has diversity and more students taking the test become a
> legitimate excuse for bad scores?

Um... if the top 20% of students took the test in 1995, and now the top 40% of
students take the test, then we've made incredibly good progress if the
average score in 2011 is the same as it was in 1995. (Note: I made up the
percentages, as I don't know the real numbers, but undoubtedly it's
increased.)

The author of the article is either an idiot or pushing an agenda. Probably
the latter.

~~~
Vivtek
Probably? The editor's note tells you straight up: _William J. Bennett is the
Washington fellow of the Claremont Institute. He was U.S. secretary of
education from 1985 to 1988 and was director of the Office of National Drug
Control Policy under President George H.W. Bush._

His _job_ is to push an agenda.

~~~
Vivtek
Oh, the Claremont Institute are real winners, too. "The Benefits of Giving
Wisely": _Did you know you can support the Claremont Institute with gifts
other than cash that will allow you to increase discretionary income,
eliminate estate and capital gains taxes, and redirect tax dollars to the
Claremont Institute?_

You can use your wealth to dodge taxes, give guys like Bill Bennett cushy
Washington jobs, _and_ make sure the deficit will bring the government down,
all at the same time!

From their About page: _To recover the founding principles in our political
life means recovering a limited and accountable government that respects
private property, promotes stable family life, and maintains a strong national
defense._

So: pro-property, anti-gay, and pro-war. Those are the founding principles
they most fervently like; the rest are inconsequential.

Also, they have two other sites; Victory Over Terror (avot.org, which seems to
be down at the DNS level) and Missile Threat. So all in all, these guys are
pretty much responsible for everything that's worst in American politics right
now, and it really, really pisses me off that CNN publishes this screed as
written by a "CNN Contributor" instead of "paid political shill for the
oligarchy", which would be a lot more honest.

Grar!

------
Vivtek
Oh, good God, I have never read a more slanted article in my life. No mention
whatsoever is made of the catastrophic No Child Left Behind Act, which
eviscerates any attempt to teach children anything substantial. The fact that
their reading comprehension scores are falling is no surprise at all - if
they're left to simply read and learn to love reading (which is the only way
to read well) their school is put on academic probation and federal funding is
cut off.

The author - who was a drug czar, which hardly makes him an expert on anything
education-oriented [ _edit_ \- whoops, he was the sec'y of education, my bad -
I just saw "Drug" and freaked] - complains that conservatives couldn't say
that diversity is at fault. As though the College Board were made up of
flaming liberals, apparently; the entire piece is full of righteous
indignation at the vast sums of money Americans are forced to spend on liberal
teacher's unions, which are clearly at fault.

This is the other half of the one-two punch. NCLB makes it impossible for
schools to function, then assholes like this one say, "See? Public schools are
a waste of our hard-earned money!" This is no different from drowning any
other part of government in the bathtub, and it's truly dismaying not only to
see CNN print it as though this guy were qualified or in any way
disinterested, but for it to appear here on HNN where it can raise my blood
pressure.

------
Jun8
I think neither the ruthless testing culture glorifying route learning (as in
Turkey, China, Japan) nor the, anything goes, "every child is special",
"education is more than scores" approach is the correct or complete answer (I
suffered through the first, entered a life-determining exam when I was 12, and
experienced the second for 9 years in the US, while TAing during my PhD). If
you haven't, please watch _Waiting for Superman_ , the parts about the inner
city schools is the main point, but there's a small section on how even
suburban schools are falling behind.

Unfortunately, due to globalization US kids, whatever their thoughts about
education are, are up against Indian and Chinese competition, who went through
the testing machine.

~~~
briandear
No danger from the Chinese kids. I tutor rich Chinese students in SAT and they
routinely get hammered by the SAT Critical Reading and the Writing sections.
They'll ace the math, but until their language and critical thinking skills
improve, there isn't much danger there. The testing machine culture of China
(and Korea, Japan) doesn't reward critical thinking, so as a result, those
students are far behind their American counterparts once they get out of the
memorization paradigm. Only 1 of my students scored a perfect 2400 on the SAT
and she spent years in the US and didn't go through the Chinese educational
system. Most of my Chinese students tend to score around 1800-1900 total, with
scores in the 700s for math and the 500s for critical reading and writing. I
don't have any data on the Indian students..

~~~
Jun8
Good point, although I meant, perhaps a little tangentially to the post, kids
getting schooled in China and India (i.e. 0'the generation, those coming to
teh US for higher eductaion). In the tech sector, they are gobbling up jobs,
as we all know. Yet in higher ranking positions, especially the number of
Chinese fall off dramatically, most probably due to the factors you cite.

------
byoung2
I think the economy could be in part to blame for the drop in test scores.
When the economy is good, parents tend to pay for SAT prep classes. Since
2008, with the downturn in the economy, fewer parents have been willing/able
to shell out $1000 or more on SAT classes. Granted, this would only have a
small effect on the overall test-taking population, but then again, we're only
talking about a 13 point drop

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seagaia
I really wish there would be some way that schools would stop having to worry
about these stupid test scores. Hearing "Education" and "SAT" together makes
me cringe.

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mchusma
There is also the increasing tendency for children to take the SAT a few times
a practice. While this may help maximize one score, it may push the average
down. Speculation on my part, though.

~~~
mquander
That doesn't make much sense to me. If you assume that their score tends to
improve when taking the test more than once, which seems reasonable, then
taking it more would push the average higher.

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vessenes
Along with the handwaving around what broadening a pool of applicants does to
the mean, (and surely around here we would understand that -- consider more
homepage viewers lowering conversion rates), there is no mention of the change
in scoring systems for SAT II; maybe these are accounted for (well not the
first), there's just no way to know.

It's unfortunate, because some really great data about how well students in
the US are doing, adjusted for measures that would allow longitudinal
comparison would be, you know, useful.

As it is, all we learned is that this guy hates teacher's unions, and liked
"waiting for superman", but I could have guessed that from his Bio.

------
briandear
When you increase the test taking pool and there is an increasing number of
ESL students taking the exam, average scores are going to drop. The problem
isn't legislation like the Ted Kenney/GW Bush No Child Left Behind, it's that
the important critical thinking and higher level reading skills required are
being ignored in lieu of an increased focus on just getting kids to pass
minimum standards. As a result, the majority of educational initiatives are
aimed at the lower end of the educational achievement bell curve at the
expense of the true "college bound" student.

There's also a push that "every child could/should go to college" as opposed
to the old days when vocational and trade programs were more prominent. As a
result more kids that have no interest or ability to succeed in college are
taking the SAT. It's simple -- with a larger sample size, you'll have more low
scores. However, one critical area that is being ignored is that the College
Board routinely re-centers scores. The real question isn't what the reported
scores are -- it's the difference in the raw test scores that are the key. I
would argue that the raw scores are probably just the same as they've always
been -- however if more people score "above average" then of course, the
College Board will have to make the "average" score more average. One might be
able to make the case that scores are actually higher now than they were in
1995 and as a result the scaled scores have been adjusted to reflect this new
average.

I am a high school teacher in Shanghai and do private SAT tutoring and have
been studying and dealing with SAT scoring and preparation for many years --
I'm not noticing a decline in students as much as I'm noticing an increased
reliance upon test prep -- which would skew the averages to be higher and
result in the College Board adjusting the reported score/raw score in order
for the test to maintain validity in the eyes of the colleges.

In reality, the SAT is not a valid test of anything other than the ability to
take the SAT. I could teach almost anyone to "beat" the test. It really isn't
a function of intelligence as much as strategy. But the College Board is in
the business of selling tests and so they must create some score distribution
as a means for universities to short-cut their admissions process. It's much
easier to compare 20000 applications on basis of SAT/GPA than it would be to
consider GPA and the full range of other indicators. While universities do
consider those indicators -- it's usually only after making their private cuts
based on some numeric rubric. That's the real tragedy -- not that the SAT
scores are going down, but that the SAT scores are still being used at all. It
would make much more sense to use Advanced Placement results since those are
actual college level courses. The SAT II is also more valid since those tests
are actually subject matter exams rather than some arbitrary gauge of critical
thinking skills. However, the SAT has been adapting someone with more emphasis
on real academic skills, but it's still a very beatable, very trainable test.
It would be much more difficult to coach someone on beating the AP exam, since
those test actual knowledge and application rather than just simple strategy.
An increase of the AP program would cost hundreds of millions for schools and
there's no way they'll do it because they're too busy teaching 10th graders
how to read and making sure that kids learn plenty of political correctness.

~~~
Vivtek
Why do you think NCLB isn't a problem, when it's specifically the cutoff of
federal funding mandated by NCLB that causes that increased focus on getting
kids to pass minimum standards in the first place? NCLB doesn't care about -
or measure - critical thinking or higher level reading skills.

Not that I'm disagreeing with you on your larger point, by any means.

Incidentally, could you get in touch by email, if you have a moment? My wife
is a physics instructor and has seriously been considering teaching/SAT prep
in China or elsewhere abroad, and I'd be interested in finding out how you got
into it.

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coreyo
So they significantly change the scoring scheme in 2004/2005 and scores are
different now! WOW!

