This was a good panel discussion on Chris Hayes’ show on MSNBC about the redesign of the SAT.
What came through clearly is that the SAT–like all standardized tests–favors those who are the haves of society, those who have family income and family education.
Chris refers to a recent study (which I will say more about on Monday) showing that the kids who took the SAT or ACT did no better in college than those who were admitted without taking those tests.
High school grades actually predict college success better than the college entry exams.
The most surprising panelist was from Kaplan Test Prep, who seems incredibly happy about the redesign of the SAT, as it offers new worlds to conquer. He defended the SAT on grounds that admission to college is basically an elitist activity, and everyone wants to get whatever edge they can while competing for coveted slots in selective colleges or programs.
Everyone agreed that the SAT is graded on a curve, and those who have the most will end up on the right side of the curve.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Onion, In The Know: Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don’t Give A Shit?
Very funny! (Not safe for work, on account of some obscenities)
Try that link again: In The Know: Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don’t Give A Shit?
Well, there you have it. If tests only predict family income, then it is obvious why rich private schools don’t feel the need to test. They are already assured that they are superior since their income is higher. Case closed.
I’m no big fan of the SAT, but a lot of this stuff leaves me with more questions than answers:
1) If the SAT is so useless why do so many colleges use it?
2) Do grades + SAT predict college success better than grades alone? That seems to be the much more apt comparison than grades *or* SAT score, since nobody is advocating that colleges look at SAT scores alone.
2) Does family income predict college success even more strongly than SATs or grades? If so, would Ravitch have a problem with accredited private colleges (say NYU for instance) that just offered admission based on family income?
My institution uses the ACT, and it is helpful in predicting success for students. One reason is that our ACT scores range from 16 to 36 (combined 790 to 1600 for the SAT folks out there) while our GPA range is 3-4. My institution is not nearly as selective as NYU.
TE, GPA is a better predictor of college success than SAT or ACT
When you say GPA, do you mean weighted or unweighted?
Oh, I should also be interested in knowing which grades count and which do not for which students. For my middle son, none of the grades from the college courses he took count towards his high school GPA. It seems likely that they would count if he we lived in Minneapolis. How does the research control for these differences?
What’s stunning is that Ralph Nader exposed all of this back in 1979, and the SAT lives—even thrives—on. In fact, I had a very hard time even finding a copy of Nader’s report.
The truth is out there, but it’s been well covered up.
Maybe I’m being overly optimistic, but Common Core may be unraveling as its developers may have overplayed their hand.
They could be satisfied with offering to the states a modest
initiative, more an aid than a mandate. But, no, they had to
go “all in” (as Obamacare did) and let THEIR ambitions exceed
the educational needs of the public school students.
Its nice to see parents and teachers taking the lead, challenging the out of sync testing, incompatible instruction, outrageous costs, and ‘education complex” which will be the greatest beneficiaries of Common Core and all that comes with it.
Teachers across the country fighting this exploitation of public education should be thanks for not sitting quiet in the “back of the classroom”.
Talked with 7 teachers this week. Same Story.
This CC$$ is costing our children in this country their right to an education.
All agreed they teach a test or to a test and nothing more.
The word that keeps popping up is I HATE IT!!
The ones who have children teach the math from the old school .
Well, Hold Your Horses! Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. I, like many other educators, despise the spike in high stakes testing and how it exploits our students while lining the pockets of profiteers. BUT not all tests are created equally and the SAT is the sole behemoth test that measures both ability and achievement. It measures to some extent the BIG WHITE ELEPHANT that seems very apolitical to talk about these days—IQ.
But just like the world really is round, students really do have different levels of ability as well as kinds of ability. Different IQs shall we say. I am so weary of Professional Development meetings where our staff is told about brain “plasticity” and how IQ scores can change by the “right circumstances”—namely effective teachers and instruction. While, of course, students can advance under certain circumstances, I find that “logic” yet another manipulative ploy that benefits profiteers who create narrow-focused materials that put acquiring a certain set of skills, or knowledge of a subject over an innate ability to master a subject. That way they can peddle their product and monopolize learning through their own set of tests.
If I were to open a Painting School, I would want to select those students with the most “talent.” Maybe there is an argument that a strong art portfolio reflects strong teaching of the necessary skills, but very few of us would argue that all people are born with the same talent for art. It simply isn’t true.
A genetic art talent is no different from a genetic talent for higher order critical thinking. And students who are labeled as Gifted, tend to score higher on the SAT, all other factors notwithstanding.
Does that mean that students who “bomb” the SAT are stupid? No. It just means that there is a correlation between ability and achievement on that one test. Practice can make a difference and it should. Yet, it can’t make a tremendous difference because innate ability is a part—and I would argue—a necessary part of the SAT testing equation.
Why? Because just like an art school wants to admit the most artistically talented people, universities likewise want to admit the smartest. As well as the highest achievers.
And what’s so wrong about that?
Everything, according to the profiteers, for the simple reason that a student’s IQ can’t be as easily manipulated as other factors. If I were a profiteer, I too, would discredit the current SAT with vehemence and lean toward more “achievement” oriented tests that I would closely align with my own narrow set of standards that I could “sell” to enable students to “raise their scores.” If we as a nation want to stop the high-stakes testing industry throttling the throats of our public educational system, then we need to be aware that the current SAT is a one of those standardized test babies we need to keep.
Outofthecave: I disagree about the SAT. As study after study shows, high school grades say more about students’ ability and interests and persistence than the SAT.
I don’t know the full range of these studies, but the last one you posted was not convincing.
FLERP
We don’t need no stinkin studies.
HS grades reflect the full range of skills needed for independent success in college: self discipline, compliance, time management, intelligence, seriousness, work ethic.
SATs are on tiny slice of the rainbow.
I look forward to the posting on Monday. I am especially interested in how the selection process of university admissions is handled, and if the GPA is unweighted or weighted.
My child had a GPA and a QPA.
However, when applying for scholarships, some asked for the GPA when they actually wanted the QPA….
We found it differed from State to State..
It does differ from state to state which makes this research difficult.
Even if GPAs are recalculated to be comparable, there must be a sufficiently wide range of both GPA, standardized test scores, and university grades to do the analysis. If incoming students all have a 4.0, high school grades will not predict university grades. If all incoming students have a 36 ACT, ACT scores will not predict university grades. If all university grades are A, neither ACT or high school grades will do a good job predicting university grades. No schools are in this position, but some are close.
Even more of an issue in these studies is that students were admitted based on the things we are looking at. A student with a low standardized test score might be admitted BECAUSE the admissions people had evidence that the standardized test score did not accurately represent the students potential. Other students with the same score were rejected because the admission people thought that the score did accurately represent the students potential. We do not get to see the grades of the students that were rejected. The same goes for GPA. My middle son, for example had a long conversation with an admissions officer at Harvey Mudd College when he was looking at schools. Almost all of the students admitted to that college are in the top ten percent of the graduating class and my middle son was not. This turned out not to be an issue because Harvey Mudd College placed less weight on class standing with unweighted GPA and there were other independent indicators of academic ability like grades in university classes and standardized test scores that indicated class standing (and a relatively low GPA of 3.85 out of 4.00) was not a good measure of academic ability. Students where class rank was seen as an accurate measure of academic ability were rejected.
Finally there are concerns about what happens in the university. Athletes, for example, are admitted in large part because of their athletic ability and in institutions like mine receive a great deal of help with their academics (most of which is legal, but as we have seen from UNC Chapel Hill, some university grades of low achieving athletes are fraudulent) making grades of athletes problematic in these types of studies. The problem will be the same for any group that has low scores and or low high school GPAs and extra resources not available to the average student.
One of the problems with SAT is that those with money can game it with test prep. My suggestion is to require that test prep be reported and attached so admissions could fairly judge results. Many kids take it without the benefit of training and test taking tricks.
Probably a good idea, but very difficult to enforce.
With modern technology TE I really don’t think it would be that difficult. The real problem would be the advent of an underground test prep market. But hey, probably worth a shot.
It is the “underground” market that I was worried about. Why would a tutoring company want to cooperate with this effort, especially a small one.
Underground markets thrive on a fast buck not on what really matters. This is not news.
I am not sure I understand this comment. Are you saying that companies and individuals would comply with a new requirement that all specialized training for the exam be noted on the exam score?
No
Perhaps you could elaborate on your comment so I could understand what you had in mind.
Underground. Opportunists. Off the books. Out for quick money not longevity. Some good. Some not.
Include harsh penalties if caught not reporting the test prep. Most would be in compliance. Do you think test prep companies would go for this? Ha.
In the long run the only people who want a level playing field are the disadvantaged.
I think that test prep companies would find it to their advantage to not report who their students are to the SAT and ACT companies or the colleges and universities that use those tests. I think there are also some practical difficulties in defining what is considered test prep and what might be considered academic tutoring. In the end it will be the honest student that will end up feeling like a chump.
A lot more complex activities are regulated than this.
I don’t mean to suggest that I think it is impossible, just that it will be difficult to write a regulation that successfully distinguishes between preparation for standardized tests and tutoring that is of a more general nature and that enforcement will require a substantial amount of resources.
Any thoughts about enforcing this internationally?
SAT is something subjective if with money you can make some changes…so is irrelevant.
I agree that grades say more about students’ ability and interests and persistence than the SAT. But as we educators are forced to teach scripted and overly “dry” lessons with the Common Core and VAM takeover, we are losing the interest of many of our best and brightest. Those with persistence keep their grades up, but often the most creative and innovative learners are falling behind. And those already labeled as “Failures” are going right over a cliff.
If we shift the focus to emphasize grades over SAT scores, then we must return to teaching practices that embrace all three learning systems: linear-sequential, spatial, and kinesthetic. This means putting the Arts, Music, and PE back into schools. Otherwise, without the SAT score (old-style) to show a greater student profile, we will play right into the hands of the profiteers who will “sell” grades to the highest bidder. This might trigger a greater divide between the Haves and the Have Nots than we already have as well as create the “need” for even more Federal intrusion to make grades consistent throughout all schools. .
Look, if the SAT is so closely related to family income, why not correct for it? It is a simple mathematical procedure one can program a computer to do. The wealth correlation is a matter of preparation, not of the intellectual qualities of the students, so the colleges would not be getting students any less capable.
Hmm. Do you really think that certain colleges/universities actually want things to be different? Do you think that prestige doesn’t matter? Do you think that it isn’t related to “class” and then legacy students, and donors? Do you think it is a means if segregating the “haves” from the “have nots”? Do you think it might create racial segregation…intentionally? Many things are ingrained in our society. Many do not acknowledge the truth.
Actually it’s nowhere near that simple since the change in family income correlates 1 to 1 to the change in scores. All you would end up with is a line that is either flat or depicts a change that is nothing more than a function of the adjustment.
Here is an interesting article with even more interesting comments that follow that discusses the linear relationship of income and SAT scores. http://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/the-odd-correlation-between-ses-and-achievement-why-havent-more-critical-questions-been-asked-a-call-to-action/