This finding has been reported time and again. The best approach to college admissions testing is to make it optional, as nearly 1,000 colleges and universities already do. Or eliminate it.
Contact: Allyson Hagen, allyson.hagen@educationnorthwest.org, 503.275.9189
Study Finds High School Grades are a Strong Predictor of College Readiness for Recent Graduates from Both Urban and Rural Areas
Portland, OR – A new study by Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Northwest has found that high school GPA was better than college entrance exam scores at predicting college course grades for recent Alaska high school graduates from both urban and rural areas.
The study focused on nearly 18,000 first-time University of Alaska students who enrolled between fall 2008 and spring 2012, and it examined how well high school GPA predicted readiness for college by timing of college entry and whether students came from rural or urban hometowns.
“A common concern around using high school GPA for placement is it might not be comparable across high schools,” said lead researcher Michelle Hodara. “So, we looked at how its predictive power might vary based on whether high school graduates came from rural or urban hometowns in Alaska. While these students attended very different high schools with potentially different rigor, high school GPA remained a strong predictor of college success.”
The study also found that high school GPA was more predictive of college course grades for students who directly entered college from high school compared with those who delayed entry.
The findings of the study may have impacts in Alaska and beyond. Colleges typically use standardized exam scores to place students in developmental education. However, research suggests this practice may result misplacing students who could have succeeded in college-level coursework. To address the misplacement of students in developmental education, community colleges are redesigning the way they assess incoming students’ college readiness. Specifically, many are using multiple measures to assign students to the highest level of coursework in which they are likely to succeed.
”Developmental education is a huge barrier to completion for many college students,” Hodara said. “Using high school GPA in the placement process is an opportunity to potentially increase access to college-level coursework to students who are actually prepared to do well in those courses.”
This study builds on a previous REL Northwest study that found high school GPA was a stronger predictor of college academic performance than scores on standardized college entrance exams among first-time students at the University of Alaska.
Video Accompanies Study Findings:
REL Northwest has developed an animated video that shares the findings of the two studies and explains the power of high school GPA to predict college readiness.
Download the report from the Institute of Education Sciences website at https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=4546
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
LikeLike
I retired from teaching in 2006 and this was common knowledge way before then, so your title seemed a bit strange. Even in this era of “fake news” I guess we have to restate the obvious over and over again.
LikeLike
Right, Steve. High school is a four year track record. College admissions tests are a four hour window. High school grades represent the compilation of a variety of skills rather than simply cognitive ability.
In my school, we’ve discussed this for years as well.
LikeLike
Well, it is a new study.
How many voucher studies will it take to persuade their advocates that they waste money?
LikeLike
They don’t “waste” money, Diane. You will never convince adherents of that. They get the money out of the gubmint’s hands and into private hands where it belongs. Preferably white, “Christian” hands. That’s all that matters to supporters.
LikeLike
They have their minds made up, Diane, they will not be persuaded.
As long as they can destroy public schools, and somebody is making money on the backs of the children, and those children can be brainwashed into becoming perfect little, unthinking worker bees, plus with the religious indoctrination they get in parochial schools, they will not listen to studies or statistics.
LikeLike
Zorba said: “. . . plus with the religious indoctrination they get in parochial schools. . . ”
But one can break free of that indoctrination, I knew by about 6-7th grade that the Catholic doctrine being shoved down my throat was a load. Not that I didn’t get a decent book learning but I certainly missed out on the many social aspects, i.e., mainly interacting with the opposite gender, by having attended an all male Catholic High School. I’m sure you would recognize the name, Zorba.
LikeLike
I thought that this was pretty well known even way back in the Pleistocene, when I went to high school and college.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
LikeLike
Great study, robust findings, efficacious suggestions. We’ve always known that “transfer of knowledge” is weak across subjects and even weaker when comparing standardized test grades to future success. So, a student crams for the SAT or ACT and does well on it. Yet, that only means they did well on that one “snapshot measurement” of cognitive output, not that they will necessarily do well in college classes. Doing well in classes takes discipline, perseverance and overall good “work output”, not just having “proof” that one did well on a small snapshot of their ability and capacity based on a test score.
As Charlie the Tuna learned, “Colleges don’t want students that test well, but students that think, work and produce well” (unless one believes the lie that learning, testing and producing have a 1 to 1 correlation).
LikeLike
To teachers, this is common knowledge. But in today’s “reform” climate, it is good to have actual data to back up that which we all knew via common sense.
LikeLike
This is off topic, but would love to hear about 2017 opt-out/refusal to participate efforts. Testing is starting!
LikeLike
Opt out! Send a message to Washington and your governor!
LikeLike
Lists of more than 925 accredited bachelor-degree granting institutions that do not require all or many applicants to submit ACT/SAT scores before admissions decisions are made is available free online at: http://fairtest.org/university/optional
LikeLike
The study matters only because these facts have been ignored, drowned out by claims that ACT/SAT scores matter more and also a one-size fits all curriculum–one that limits or marginalizes studies in the arts and humanities in favor of ELA, math, science, or STEM adding technology and engineering.
That curriculum was a project of the American Diploma Project from Achieve, Inc. and it migrated into the Common Core where studies in the arts are dubbed “technical subjects” tolerated, noticed, acknowledged, but only if oriented to getting a job, having a career. The Common Core was intended to make learning in all other subjects subordinate to ELA and math, a variant of the 3R’s.
LikeLike
If the colleges/universities had to pay for the test results, rather than the students paying to take the tests, they would have disappeared years ago because the colleges would have eliminated the budgetary inefficiency of them. Since the students pay for them, then the colleges get the benefit of the data, the tests are still with us — who would turn down free information, even if it’s only semi-predictive?
LikeLike
when “free information” is code for eugenics
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Terri Goldson and commented:
Read, learn, explore and form your own opinion because … Knowledge IS Power! T.Goldson
LikeLike
Well, considering the ACT/SAT are standardized tests that suffer all the inherent foundational conceptual (onto-epistemological) errors and falsehoods and psychometric fudgings identified by Noel Wilson that render any results and interpretation of results COMPLETELY INVALID, it should come a no surprise to anyone that high school grades more accurately predict (and even that correlation isn’t that great) college success than those college entrance exams.
To understand that COMPLETE INVALIDITY I urge all read his never rebutted nor refuted treatise “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine.
A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other words all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity
.
Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)”
Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
LikeLike
Duane, I always love rereading your thoughts on error and lack of validity, and how test do nothing but establish categories to perpetuate the status quo. I too read Foucault and Derride? in graduate classes, and the French deconstructionists do a fine job dismantling our subjective “grading” of individuals by small and petty measures. Yet, how do you yourself assign grades on the work done in your class? Do you believe an “A” students is really just somebody with decent competency who puts forth a diligent effort? And, is not this quality useful in the adult world of work and leisure? You hint at the idea that tests “inhibit” the development of free and independent thinkers, and such thinkers are a “threat” to our current socio-economic systems (maybe that is why Jesus, Plato and many other martyrs to freedom died?). Yet, how does one develop “free and independent thinkers”, by letting pick their own Montessori curriculum, by making read from divergent viewpoints (ie. Christian theology and French existential “Nausea”), by fitting them into Common Core???? IMO, only free thinkers are those that are fully, or decently, read and educated across divergent spectra of thought (ex. comparative studies using the “multiple working hypothesis” method, asking Dialectical questions of thesis versus antithesis). And, much of our American “think the norm” curriculum doesn’t even begin to do a good job in this vital issue. Do we just make “widgets” to fit into our capitalistic, materialistic and hedonistic culture?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Rick,
To answer your questions, and they are thoughtful ones:
As far as my classroom grades, on the the first days when going through all the beginning of the year stuff, I had the students fill out a brief survey-
I am a(n)______student.
A
B
C
D
E (none of these)
F
I would then have a student tally the responses on the board. Needless to say (I say that because I taught Spanish and to get into level 1 they had to have a C or better average in English) the vast majority answered A with some Bs, hardly any Cs, and never Ds/Fs. Every now and then we’d have an E.
We’d then discuss what grades mean and how a grade cannot be used to describe someone because it is a description of their work and effort in X class. Almost all students understood and had already figured that out but hadn’t been able to vocalize it. Usually the ones who disagreed the most and claimed to be “A students” were those with the most A’s on their record, as it was seen to be a badge of honor by them “to be an A student” (not to mention that is usually what their parents demanded of them and so they had internalized that falsehood already)
I would explain to them that if I didn’t have to assign a grade to their work I wouldn’t but since I had to I told them I would make it as easy as possible to get an A. If the student did all the work that I assigned and studied the vocabulary in the fashion I suggested they were guaranteed an A-and all who did so received A’s. Some of those who did all the assigned work but skimped on the vocabulary study got A’s also, but many ended up with Bs because vocabulary acquisition in learning a second language is of utmost importance. I never allowed extra credit to raise a grade, but had activities in which a student could earn extra credit. So grades in my classes were more an indication of work and effort, and, in doing the work and putting in the effort they would begin to learn Spanish. (Yes, only begin as learning a second language takes a lot more than studying in class.)
As far as “Do you believe an a student is. . . ?” Yes. And to the next question-Yes!
“Yet how does one develop. . . ” First, I never felt it was my place to “develop anyone”. That concept doesn’t sit right with me. I tried to give them the best opportunity I could to learn Spanish if they chose, and that was the main thrust/focus of my teaching. But, Yes it does include what you have written and much, much more, especially broadly reading any and everything one can get their hands on (but not too much truncated common core reading as I understand what it is-although that would also be a small part).
I agree with your last thoughts “IMO, free thinkers. . . this vital issue.”
As far as your last question: I hope to hell we are not doing that but it sure seems like it at times.
Other than our disagreement on metaphysical issues, it appears that we probably have a lot more in common about the teaching and learning process and pedagogical beliefs than not.
Thanks for the discussion!!
If you would like to get a draft copy of my forthcoming book “Infidelity to Truth: Educational Malpractice in American Public Education” feel free to email me at: dswacker@centurytel.net and I’ll send you a draft.
LikeLike
“Colleges typically use standardized exam scores to place students in developmental education.”
The article is somewhat misleading. Most colleges use placements tests–tests specifically written for math, sentence skills, and reading comprehension–not SAT OR ACT tests for developmental courses. The placement tests are standardized though.
I teach in a small liberal arts college. We don’t require SAT or ACT tests. What do you say about a student that has a 3.0 GPA but is reading on a third grade level? I know it is anecdotal, but we have LOTS of these students. And we gotta keep the doors open…at least until I retire!
LikeLike
“What do you say about a student that has a 3.0 GPA but is reading on a third grade level? I know it is anecdotal, but we have LOTS of these students.”
I’d say your college does a poor job of vetting candidates (unless they are catering to dyslexic students). I can’t think of any valid reason for a college to have lots of students who are unprepared for college level work unless they are getting extra support because of learning disabilities or the college is desperate for $$$.
LikeLike
Really? Seventy percent of CUNY students require remedial work. The percentage is the same at the community college where I adjunct in New Jersey.
LikeLike
Disaggregate your CUNY data. I am unfamiliar with the system, but I assume there are different types of schools(?). You did not say you worked for a community college. I mistakenly assumed that a small liberal arts college meant a 4-year program. The mission of the community college is far different or includes a broader range of candidates (and programs), from those who need to save money before transferring to a 4-year institution to those seeking certification in a variety of shorter certificate programs. We often encouraged students to attend community college if they were serious and were ready to work. Many did not take advantage of the opportunities offered in high school nor even appreciate what they were. Reality hit when they realized the limited future they had.
Then again there is the research indicating that students identified as needing remediation who took the normal courses frequently had better outcomes than those who took the remedial courses.
LikeLike
Here in Miami (with possibly higher levels of variables that create, or correlate to, “cognitive dysfunction”, ex. higher divorce levels, excessive distractions) the local colleges FIU and MDC give a lot of remedial classes. IMO, it is because the students don’t take high school very seriously, many of them slack their way through it, and then find out that the post-secondary world does not coddle them. In my HS chemistry classes I make test/quiz 40% of their grade, but in college it is much higher. IMO, the real problem behind the high levels of remediation is multivariate, but some of the higher correlating (or “causational”?) variables are: 1) poor family support and accountability 2) poor effort in HS 3) HS grades not being only test-derived 4) no more “mothering guidance” of teachers in post-secondary classes. In general, HS teachers put a lot of nurturing and help into their instruction, where the “bleak and cold” world of post-secondary instruction has much less assistance.
LikeLike
“IMO, it is because the students don’t take high school very seriously, many of them slack their way through it, and then find out that the post-secondary world does not coddle them.”
Yeah, leaving the nest is a rude shock that many of us accomplished with less than stellar execution. I will take a struggling student that is hungry to learn any day rather than the one who expects to be spoon fed.
LikeLike
When a student earns a grade, skill, effort, communication, knowledge, insight, tenacity, more than just the ability to figure out why the hare ate the talking pineapple, went into it.
LikeLike
It’s amazing to me that this is a “new study”. It makes sense that a letter grade from a semester’s worth of learning and working with the material would be a better indication of college readiness compared to a standardized test. A good student could flourish over the course of a semester with the grade to prove it, but what if they have test anxiety? I don’t feel that a solid GPA should be overlooked if a student does poorly on an entrance exam. If anything, a letter grade is the best indication of readiness because it shows the overall progress of the student’s effort.
LikeLike
Diane,
There are several aspects of what the study reports and what it doesn’t report that make me wonder how reliable it is.
1) The study authors use the shorthand term “standardized test,” which is commonly used for tests that have no stakes for students, but whose results are used as high stakes evaluations for teachers and entire school staffs (PARCC, SBAC, etc.), to refer to the SAT, ACT and ACCUPLACER, which are very different “standardized tests,” whose high stakes are for students, i.e. they are tests that students have a reason to do their best on. That’s a rather huge difference.
2) The students who graduated from high school between 2008 and 2012 were the subjects of the study. The study doesn’t mention two important factors that could affect GPAs: Whether credit recovery courses, which became widespread around starting in those years, were used to increase Alaska hs graduation rates; and whether there was pressure on Alaska h.s. teachers to give passing grades or make passing grades higher.
They would have an inflationary effect on GPAs – and graduation rates.
3) Lumping all Alaska high schools into a single rural group and a single urban group conceals likely differences between individual high schools. It’s hard to believe they all produced similar results that made differences not worth mentioning
4) There was no differentiation between Alaska Univ at Anchorage vs Fairbanks.
5) There is no mention of how challenging the courses are at UA. According to US News data, AU Anchorage has a 4-year graduation rate of 9%; Fairbanks, 15%.
6) The report states that the three “exam scores and h.s. GPA make up 15 to 27 per cent of the variance in college course grades.”
“The combination of student characteristics, standardized exam scores, and high school grade point average explained 15–27 percent of the variance in college course grades. The remaining variance is explained by other variables. In other words, characteristics and factors that were either unavailable in the data (such as high school attendance) or not directly observable (such as student motivation) may be more powerful predictors of college course grades than are the student characteristics included in the regression models, standardized exam scores, and high school grade point average. But of the data collected for college admission and available for analysis, high school grade point average may be the strongest predictor of college performance.
LikeLike
Didn’t we know this years and years ago?
LikeLike
Erich Martel rocks!
LikeLike
Given that the study was done in Alaska, my only question was this:
Was the study done on a representative sample of those on Alaskan college campuses?
How many grizzly bears were included in the sample?
LikeLike
I would expect standardized tests to be a better indicator of grizzly potential than high school grades, especially given their low attendance rates and the fact that when they do attend, they are being chased off school grounds with a shotgun.
LikeLike
Very Interesting. I am a current college student who came into college with a higher high school GPA. I didn’t find my freshmen class difficult, and I didn’t take a placement test. Therefore I assume my classes I was put into was based off my GPA coming into the University. I do agree with most of you however that this is common knowledge, and has been for awhile. Four years tells way more about a student then a test they take in an hour.
LikeLike