A wonderful article appeared in today’s New York Times about the SAT. While the letters columns and the talking heads were discoursing on the meaning of the redesign of the SAT, Jennifer Finney Boylan, recounted her own tortured experience taking the SAT. She offers no hope that the changes are anything more than cosmetic.
Her view:
“All in all, the changes are intended to make SAT scores more accurately mirror the grades a student gets in school.
“The thing is, though, there already is something that accurately mirrors the grades a student gets in school. Namely: the grades a student gets in school. A better way of revising the SAT, from what I can see, would be to do away with it once and for all.
“The SAT is a mind-numbing, stress-inducing ritual of torture. The College Board can change the test all it likes, but no single exam, given on a single day, should determine anyone’s fate. The fact that we have been using this test to perform exactly this function for generations now is a national scandal.
“The problems with the test are well known. It measures memorization, not intelligence. It favors the rich, who can afford preparatory crash courses. It freaks students out so completely that they cannot even think.”
Even David Coleman acknowledges that high school grades are a better predictor of college success than the SAT.
Why do colleges need the SAT? The SAT will continue to reward the kids whose parents have the most money and education, as well as those who can afford to pay the most for SAT tutors. They happen to be the same families.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
SAT Reboot 2016: “Nonsense It All Is”
http://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/sat-reboot-2016-nonsense-it-all-is/
David Coleman’s Latest Khan
http://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/david-colemans-latest-khan/
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Also an article entitled “The Story Behind the SAT Overhaul”. Interesting reading.
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This article is worth reading. It explains both why and how the SAT is changing.
It says that the SAT will be more like the AP exams which test what a student learned in a course. In the push to reduce needless testing, we should not throw out things that are high quality and which function well. The article is refreshing for its honest discussion of the pitfalls of standardized testing and a real plan to develop a better test that can be used in a better way. With all the empty rhetoric and talking points out there, I think we would be wise to give the College Board a chance to build a better test and be part of the change that is needed in education regarding standardized testing.
Here is a quote:
American education needed to be more focused and less superficial, and that it should be possible to test the success of the newly defined standards through an exam that reflected the material being taught in the classroom. This was exactly how the College Board’s Advanced Placement program worked (80 percent of teachers surveyed in a study by the Fordham Institute said that the A.P. exam was a good indication of their and their students’ work). It was also one of the main suggestions in Nacac’s 2008 report, that a college admission exam should be redesigned as an achievement-style test — like the A.P. exams — that would send a “message to students that studying their course material in high school, not taking extracurricular test-prep courses that tend to focus on test-taking skills, is the way to do well on admission tests and succeed in a rigorous college curriculum.”
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How positively Darwinian……….
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BRAVO!!!
Do away with the SAT’s. It’s just another money-making company that does nothing to help our students.
Let students be evaluated by their teachers. There’s a novel idea!
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Relying on teacher assigned grades tends to hurt boys as a group. Having an alternative measure of academic abilities, SAT or the more commonly taken ACT, subject exams like SAT 2 exams, AP exams allow students an indendent way to demonstrate their competency. Another advantage of exams like the AP exam is that it can allow a student to demonstrate competence in subjects that are not taught in the schools, an important issue in states like mine where the median high school is small (under 250).
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I’d like to see your evidence that “teacher assigned grades (tend) o hurt boys as a group.”
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Here is some (http://www.terry.uga.edu/~cornwl/research/cmvp.genderdiffs.pdf)
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He doesn’t have daughters.
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Here is a quote from another paper in case folks don’t want to follow links
While boys and girls today score roughly the same on most measures of cognitive ability,3 boys generally receive lower grades, have more disciplinary problems, are more likely to be retained in grade and placed in special education, report lower school enjoyment and attachment and believe their teachers are less likely to encourage them.
The paper can be found here: http://www.nber.org/papers/w8964
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While I usually agree with most of Diane’s posts (I am a teacher), as a mother, I have to disagree with Diane this time. The SAT or ACT is my son’s hope for getting into college. He takes learning seriously but struggles with homework yet does well on tests.
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And for my son, the testing will probably prevent him from going to college. He has a learning disability and tests horribly. There’s two sides to this.
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His special ed teachers or college counselor (do you have one?) should be able to direct you to colleges who work with LD students. National policy has at least been helpful in spreading awareness of disability issues.
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All students are unique. No doubt your son has strong grades.
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“There’s two sides to this.”
Yes, but high test scores DO correlate well with family income.
You do the math.
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Of course, we all know how our society favors females, whose most common job today is still secretary, as it was in the 1950s.
While more women in the 25-29 age range earned college degrees between 1940 and 2010, there were slightly fewer women with degrees than men in the 25 and older age range during that same time period.
Across industries, women are paid about $.77 for each dollar that males earn –a whole 16¢ increase since 1961. Less than 40% of women are in management positions, which peaked in the late 80s and has barely increased since. So much for women’s educational “advantage.”
Click to access women_workforce_slides.pdf
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I have a great deal of sympathy for this position. Generations before mine had to choose between having a career and having children. I have living female relatives who are the first to graduate from their school.
That being said, there are 56 women in public college for every 44 men. The ratio is more uneven for private colleges. Relying solely on high school grades will make this more uneven.
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“Why Secretary is Still the Top Job for Women”
http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/31/news/economy/secretary-women-jobs/index.html
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Or chancellor of a university, at least at my university, and a number of others.
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Let’s find some stats on how many women hold top academic appointments, however you would like to define it. Don’t you think that if women topped men it would be a top news item? And if they then were paid an equal or higher amount that their male peers…
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My university may be unusual, but the chancellor, senior vice provost, and various other vice provosts and deans are women, some of “color”. Have we made all the progress that should be made? No. Have we made progress? Yes, and to claim otherwise would reduce our credibility.
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Maybe this will help:
Women by the Number from the U.S. Census Bureau
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/womencensus1.html
Then there’s Explaining Trends in the Gender Wage Gap
http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/EOP/CEA/html/gendergap.html
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Louisiana Purchase, there are a number of colleges that ignore the SAT and ACT.
Also, families that can afford to pay for college have an advantage at colleges that are not “need blind”.
With enrollment drop offs due to the smaller size of this age cohort, many colleges want students that can pay, even if their test scores and GPAs aren’t high.
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GPA is not the only admissions criteria at schools that do not require the SAT or ACT. There are other considerations as well, such as letters of recommendation, student essays and work samples and involvement in extracurricular activities. If SATs and ACTs are optional, students who do well on them could still submit their results, while those who don’t test well would not have to submit them and rely on a single test score on one day of their life to determine their futures.
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At my institution GPA is one way to guarantee admission (a “C” average in some academic classes), but graduating in the top third of the class (unweighted GPA over all courses), or a minimum ATC score will do as well.
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He somehow doesn’t qualify for special education anymore. I don’t know exactly why. So we get no help at all. His grades aren’t particularly strong, so college is a long shot at best. He really wants to go though, so I guess we’ll have to make it happen somehow. No clue how–both my husband and I are teachers, so we’ve lost money the last few years.
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You should know why he doesn’t qualify for special ed. Ordinarily there should have been some sort of meeting with written documentation to which you and your son would have been invited. You would have had the right to contest any decision you didn’t agree with and you should have the IEP paperwork from that dismissal hearing. If you were not given such a document, then your district is in violation of the law. IEPs should not be lightly dismissed. In any case, what your state decides may not bar him from help at a college. You should be prepared to dispute the district’s decision with any college. Certainly an in-person meeting would be important.
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“…women now occupy nearly 18 percent of the top slots at Fortune 100 companies, according to the article, “Who’s Got Those Top Jobs,” which examined the career trajectories, education levels and diversity among the 1,000 top-tier executives in 2011. That is a notable change from 1980, when none of the Fortune 100 companies had women in the corner office and is also up from 2001, when 11 percent of the top-ranking jobs were held by women.”
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/more-women-and-foreign-educated-executives-enter-top-ranks-study-finds/
18% females in senior management over the course of 34 years. Whoopdeedoo! Women’s college degrees are gradually starting to matter.
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cx: 31 not 34 years
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Here’s more current data, published today, “Fact Sheet: The Women’s Leadership Gap, Women’s Leadership by the Numbers”
American women lag substantially behind men when it comes to their representation in leadership positions:
They are only 14.6 percent of executive officers, 8.1 percent of top earners, and 4.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs.
They hold just 16.9 percent of Fortune 500 board seats.
In the financial services industry, they make up 54.2 percent of the labor force, but are only 12.4 percent of executive officers, and 18.3 percent of board directors. None are CEOs.
For more info, see:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/report/2014/03/07/85457/fact-sheet-the-womens-leadership-gap/
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Indeed more progress needs to be made.
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The issue is complex, but I don’t think there’s any question that the SATs have been mandatory for college acceptance for decades. Just as the CCSS is becoming mandatory.
Now they’re saying it needs to more accurately reflect kid’s grades and be less about expensive tutoring. Also: it will align with the CCSS (waddya know?).
They want to continue making money. My daughter took the SATs last year and we had to PAY to see the actual results in terms of questions missed. We also payed for tutoring. It wasn’t easy because I’m a teacher and my wife is a gardener. Not a lot of money, here.
SATs became an industry. We just didn’t see it as clearly as we see things now. Much because we didn’t have the internet back then.
Why not make them optional for kids who feel they need that extra push? Have the kid’s who are confident in their school performance and their teachers and guidance counselor’s advice have the option of not taking them?
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The SAT or the ACT have never been mandatory for instate students at my university. It seems to me that no one has to buy SAT or ACT tutoring. My children have not had it.
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Poor choice of words on my part. “Necessary” is what I meant. Colleges have wanted
the SAT scores for a long time.
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Gitapik,
Nationwide more colleges use ACT. A number of states use ACT as part of mandated assessment.
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At this point, yes. Not so in the past. I think that’s why Sir Coleman is making these fabulous revisions to the SATs. They’re making less money than before.
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Yeah, women SURE are discriminated against in our society, yup yup yup.
Now I’m off to pay child support for a boy who lives with me 99% of the time. Did I mention I’ve been arrested and jailed because his mother cheated the welfare system (without my knowing or having had any way to know)? When the whole story was told, I recall a hush-hush meeting she had with the welfare agency that I was forbidden to attend. I know she didn’t do any jail time.
As I respect Diane Ravitch a great deal for pointing out some important information about our society, I also respect Judge Judy Schiendlin for doing the same in the arena of our “family” courts.
I’m not joking: http://www.ohiofamilyrights.info/docs/036.htm
As for the “70 cents to the dollar” issue, that is a very complex issue and I can only say that it is wrong to ignore women’s choices when considering it. Men earn more, but there is also a great deal more pressure on men to earn more. A woman who stays home to care for the children is still considered to be productive, but a man who does the same? He’s a failure. Something’s wrong with him.
I still remember when my son was an infant and his mother still took care of him half the time (exact same number of hours per week as I did). My own mother would point out that my son’s mother was working hard even though she didn’t have a job, because “being a mother is a full time job”. I pointed out that I had our son the same number of hours, even the same number of waking hours, and her response was — “Well, that’s just taking care of your son — you’re SUPPOSED to do that!”
She never saw the obvious prejudice in her statements. When a MOTHER takes care of a baby, it’s full time work — but when a FATHER does it, well, it’s nothing. Pfft.
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I can only hope that your son knows who he can depend on. You have a right to feel mistreated. I still deserve to be paid the same amount for the same job as the guy with the same experience. I believe the stats were developed using the same (or a similar?) job. I stayed home after the children came. I didn’t make enough in a private ed school for special ed to pay for childcare. Instead I completed my training in learning disabilities, taught Sunday school, coached sports, worked on PTA committees, supported Boy Scout and Girl Scout activities,…you get the picture. When my youngest was in school full time, I went back to work as a sub and eventually a parapro and teacher (as well as doing the household chores and mothering). I never expected to make the same amount as more experienced teachers, but I did expect to be paid according to the contract, which I was. There was no “negotiating” to see if they could get me for less than the kid straight out of college with no masters. I truly hope that your son knows someday (if not now) what his daddy has done for him. Society will not give you the credit for the care you have given him. Women still get shafted on pay.
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2old2teach, the 70% statistic often quoted was derived by looking at the average pay of a male who worked full time compared to the average pay of a female who worked full time. Many people use this data to make erroneous statements such as “a woman is only paid 70 cents for every dollar a man makes doing the same job”. That’s not what the data shows us.
See here: http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/21/commentary/everyday/sahadi/?iid=EL
There have been many, many articles written on pay inequality for women and my four kids are currently screaming and banging around the house so I just can’t focus enough to direct you to the best of them — but I would encourage you to read more, and from several sources, before falling victim to sound bite style statistics about the matter. Kind of like we’d all encourage the public to do with education, actually.
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You’re right. I should have looked further although I would hardly call your reference a resounding defense for pay equity. Since your “sound bite” comment comes from the article for which you provided a link, did you choose not to provide that link in your first comment? While I expressed an faulty opinion on wage disparity statistics, the rest of my comment really falls right in with the article you cited. Coming from a time where secretary, teacher, and nurse were the career choices available to most women, I know we have made a lot of progress. You, being a man, are naturally focused on the hypocrisy of the unfair treatment of men, which has hit you pretty hard. Think about this long and hard, though, before you answer. Under whose societal hypocrisy/restrictions would you rather function? Men’s or women’s?
As to the four kids screaming in the background…been there, done that. It’s not easy, but they are worth it. Some nights bedtime routine does not come soon enough.
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2old2teach,
In all honesty, I made the “soundbite” comment before I found the article, which just happened to have the same comment in it. Just a weird coincidence. I just linked the first article I found that addressed the matter in what looked like a halfway decent manner.
I am aware that the article also included information affirming (or at least asserting) the existence of some sort of gender based wage unfairness, and this was not a surprise to me. I just don’t like that 70% statistic — I’ve heard it misused too many times and it irks me.
I get the same way about some domestic violence stats that get misused, and I certainly wouldn’t try to claim that DV wasn’t a problem. My feelings are more or less the same in that arena.
You ask if I’d prefer to deal with the prejudices that society slings at men, or the ones it slings at women. What you are essentially asking is, would you rather be male or female, given our society and its inequalities? It’s tough to say, honestly. Both genders are given unfair privilege in different arenas, and judged differently in different arenas. It’s easy for a person to disregard those privileges and judgements that benefit them while hyperfocusing on those that do not. Furthermore, for some people (because of personal preferences, life experiences, or what have you) the typical privileges/disparities/judgements will play a lesser (or greater) role in their lives than they do in the lives of more typical members of their gender. Would you rather be paid less, or lose custody of your child to a spouse who you know to be unstable and dangerous? Would you rather be discouraged from pursuing your dream of being an astronaut, or discouraged from pursuing your dream of being a stay-at-home parent? Maybe not as easy to answer as some would think.
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I would guess that we would both answer that we are content with what we are, but it’s a bitch dealing with the preconceptions and restrictions that society puts on us because of our gender. Would I rather be paid more or lose my children to an abusive spouse is not really a common choice. (The astronaut vs. the stay-at-home parent is closer to parallel.) I have some understanding of the abusive spouse issue, but the situation is not mine to share. I also know how hard it is for a custodial parent who has no substantial work history to suddenly be trying to support a family without regular or adequate child support. Anecdotal information doesn’t really do anything to further the discussion. It just heightens our own very personal responses to unfair, or unjust situations. You have a tough row to hoe. It won’t be easy, and you may never get any thanks or affirmation. I hope you get the satisfaction of an adult child of whom you can be proud. I truly wish you nothing but the best.
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ETS report way back in 1977 ‘On Further Examination’ chaired by former Sec’y of Labor Willard Wirtz disclosed that high-school grades were a better predictor of success in the first year of college than was the SAT. 37 yrs ago we knew this. Neither Wirtz nor ETS concluded ‘eliminate the SAT.’ We’re still stuck with SAT which assembles kids according to family income, higher income, higher scores. It’s a tool of inequality against kids and families and a tool of profit and power for Coleman and the College Board and their cronies.
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Yes, and now Coleman, via Common Core, is continuing this sorting and stacking of children in grades Pre-k – 12.
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Berliner and Biddle explained the problems with the SAT in their 1996 book, Manufactured Crisis. They also addressed much of what Ms. Ravitch so eloquently covered in Reign of Error. I bet Ms. Ravitch is aware of even earlier concerns about the SAT. Must be tempting as an historian to refer to oneself as a frustrarion.
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Amen, our daughter freaked out when she took the SAT—a real nervous wreck. I tried to calm her down by telling her the SAT wouldn’t be the major factor most colleges look at and to rely on her essay, her GPA and the fact that she graduated a scholar athlete from high school along with a gold medal she’d won in Academic Decathlon.
She graduates from Sanford this year and already has a generous job offer not far from home.
:o)
And her SAT score was about average and below the average that most Stanford students score.
Really upset her. She believed she was doomed until Stanford said yes.
When she asked Stanford how her application was ranked, she was told SAT was not that important; that Stanford admissions looked at the whole person and not just the SAT score.
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Yes, Lloyd. I’ve talked with admissions officers at many colleges and universities and they say the same thing. A multi-year track record of academics, community service and school participation outweighs a snapshot of a few hours on a random day.
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Just wondering…if your daughter had been a boy….with the same academic and athletic credentials…would Stanford have accepted her?
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I have no idea. I wonder what the ratio is for undergrad boys and girls at Stanford. Interesting question but a “what if” that probably can’t be answered.
http://www.alexa.com/
Stanford Facts:
53.9% of entering freshmen are male and 46.1% female.
Even more interesting is the high schools represented
57.5% come from public high schools
30.6% from private
0.1% were home schooled
11.8% international
When you look at ethnic diversity:
White 31.7% (but 72.4% of the US population is white)
Asian 21% (4.8% of total US population)
African American 10% (12.6% of total US population)
Mexican/Chicano 7.9% (16.4% of total US population)
I wonder how many kids who grew up and were still living in poverty at the end of high school end up at Stanford?
Here’s an interesting Op Ed piece from the New York Times with this headline: No Rich Child Left Behind
Lead paragraph:
Here’s a fact that may not surprise you: the children of the rich perform better in school, on average, than children from middle-class or poor families. Students growing up in richer families have better grades and higher standardized test scores, on average, than poorer students; they also have higher rates of participation in extracurricular activities and school leadership positions, higher graduation rates and higher rates of college enrollment and completion. …
In a more recent study, my graduate students and I found that 15 percent of high-income students from the high school class of 2004 enrolled in a highly selective college or university, while fewer than 5 percent of middle-income and 2 percent of low-income students did.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/no-rich-child-left-behind/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
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Overall statistics are not very helpful in these highly selective schools. Athleates compete against athleates for admission, likely math majors compete against othe likely math majors, bassoonists against other bassoonists.
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I think you’re getting to them, Diane. They’ve rebranded the Common Core again.
Now it’s about…. citizenship:
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the-common-cores-unsung-benefit-it-teaches-kids-to-be-good-citizens/284209/
That’s from the Broad Foundation.
College, career and also…citizenship! 🙂
Three C’s. Alliteration is so important in any well-crafted marketing push.
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Yea, citizenship for a plutocracy, not a democracy—a plutocracy run by billionaires plutocrats who are the robber barons and wolves of Sesame Street—not by Congress; state legislatures or a free thinking President who honors their oath of office.
“Common core, as it is being implemented, will raise kids to be good citizens of a plutocracy ruled by a small number of elitist billionaire plutocrats.”
A response similar to the one above should be sent out to flood the Internet to reverse the meaning of their branding propaganda.
The president’s oath of office: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
How about this: The Supreme Court rarely declares laws unconstitutional for violating the Tenth Amendment. In the modern era, the Court has only done so where the federal government compels the states to enforce federal statutes.
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I wouldn’t have any problem with the Common Core if they’d scrap the testing.
I don’t buy the whole “individualized learning data points” online testing idea. I think it’s over-hyped and will be cruelly disappointing to them, but only after they’ve spent huge stacks of public ed money on it.
If they wanted public school students to read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution I can think of a lot less costly and complicated ways to do that than by putting in the Common Core. It’s just silly to say it’s “about” citizenship. That wasn’t the intent of the thing, obviously.
If I were doing something as ambitious as the Common Core I think I would have prioritized it, focused on JUST the Common Core, instead of throwing a giant wish list of “reforms” at public schools all at once.
They do everything, ed reformers, which means they do everything poorly. Why not just do one or two things really, really well? Why didn’t anyone use any discretion or self-control? They want everything, and they want it RIGHT NOW! We have to have the Common Core and teacher evaluations and charter schools and vouchers and ed tech and everything else under the sun. At the same time.
I don’t admire that kind of chaos and self-indulgence. I think they’re poor managers who can’t prioritize.
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I just resent how it’s sold. The truth is, the Common Core Assessments are a huge part of the Common Core.
Why not just tell people that? Tell people this is AS MUCH about “next generation assessments” (tests, in other words) as it is about “standards”?
The OH DOE site on the Common Core is ALL about tests.
College and Career and Citizenship and tests. Lots and lots of tests. 🙂
http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Testing/Next-Generation-Assessments
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Closing, full link:
“The high school GPA studies prove that teachers and schools already knew what to teach their students to succeed in college. And, judging from the example above, teachers know what works better than the drafters of the Common Core do.
To the extent many children are not succeeding, the absence of national standards is not the cause. One has to wonder, then, why our leaders are spending billions to “fix” the wrong problem, and why they ignored our teachers, who clearly know how to educate our children.”
Wendy Lecker is a columnist for Hearst Connecticut Media Group and is senior attorney for the Campaign for Fiscal Equity project at the Education Law Center.
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Lecker-A-crisis-of-low-standards-5298374.php
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Chiara Duggan: your opening sentence—
“I wouldn’t have any problem with the Common Core if they’d scrap the testing.”
Here is an unimpeachably insider view of the tight link between CC and high-stakes standardized testing. The following appears on deutsch29, taken directly from a fairly recent online posting by Dr. Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute:
[start quote]
In truth, the idea that the Common Core might be a “game-changer” has little to do with the Common Core standards themselves, and everything to do with stuff attached to them, especially the adoption of common tests that make it possible to readily compare schools, programs, districts, and states (of course, the announcement that one state after another is opting out of the two testing consortia is hollowing out this promise).
But the Common Core will only make a dramatic difference if those test results are used to evaluate schools or hire, pay, or fire teachers; or if the effort serves to alter teacher preparation, revamp instructional materials, or compel teachers to change what students read and do. And, of course, advocates have made clear that this is exactly what they have in mind. When they refer to the “Common Core,” they don’t just mean the words on paper–what they really have in mind is this whole complex of changes.
[end quote]
Link: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/the-american-enterprise-institute-common-core-and-good-cop/
So with all due apologies to that old Samy Cahn song made famous by Frank Sinatra:
CC and testin’
CC and testin’
Go together like locusts and infestin’
This I tell ya, brother, you can’t have one without the other.
I greatly appreciate your postings here, so please regard this as simply my take on this particular question.
😎
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@ Lloyd and Chiara and others:
The Common Core assessments ARE the Common Core. And that’s why the ACT and College Board were in from the get-go. They have “aligned” their products with the Common Core.
And perhaps that’s why prominent assessment consultants shrug, dismiss Common Core critics, call the Common Core “common sense,” and say that the “motives” of Bill Gates and David Coleman and other Common Core advocates are “pure.”
There’s some money to be made.
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KrazyTA
I love your jingles…:-) Simple and True!
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While earning my BA in journalism back in the early 1970s, and then later in sales, we were taught to keep the message simple and it stands a much better chance to spread and be understood.
We were taught that the average newspaper reader reads at a fifth grade level. Therefore, if you want more people to read what you write, keep it simple so they understand.
The same applies to the political battlefield because we are selling mostly abstract ideas.
You can’t win a political war in the US with only the top rung of literate readers (about 14% of adults). You have to reach the average reader who also may vote.
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I can’t figure out how the CC or any of the other NCLB or RTTT stuff can even claim to prepare students to be citizens, since history, geography and citizenship classes are devalued or even cut under these regimes.
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good point…but did you notice that the College Board announced that the “new” test will require some reading (and “analysis”) of primary history documents…this is the College Board’s attempt at “civics” education.
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I taught and coached seniors at an inner-city high school, and helped hundreds of them apply for college scholarships. Many of them had average or below-average SAT scores, but I was pleased to discover that most of the admissions directors I spoke with gave little importance to those scores. I suspect that the College Board is aware of this and is trying to make itself relevant which, because of its very nature, will never happen.
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More students now take the ACT, so that might also have played a role in the decision.
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Over 800 colleges do not require the SAT or the ACT for admissions:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/sat-act-not-required-colleges_n_2206391.html
And that’s just for initial entrance to college. MOST colleges don’t require those tests for transfer students, as they rely primarily on GPA.
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I can promise you that college admissions officials pay a lot of attention to ACT and SAT scores. Those scores can make their schools “look good,” and the schools use those scores as a way to leverage financial aid – and not to the advantage of needy students.
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Ahem.
I was raised in a family that qualified for food stamps, and took advantage of them.
I ranked #1 in my graduating class on the SAT, at one of the largest and most highly regarded private Catholic schools in my state.
I am HIGHLY OFFENDED at the insinuation here that high scores on the SAT are about memorization, and not intelligence.
Well, not really.
But — I don’t know that they had much to do with memorization, unless you count remembering words I’d encountered while reading (because I read a lot).
I remember chuckling a bit because I knew the answers to several SAT questions specifically because I had played Dungeons and Dragons. The Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rule books were written on a college level (or so I have heard it told).
In any event, I’m confident that my kids will do well on their own standardized tests (one of them already has), but I still don’t like all of this hyperfocus on testing because it narrows the curriculum.
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The SAT was never tied to high school curricula, though there’ve been some who believed it was. Unless, of course, a school specifically gave its students a healthy dose of test prep (and maybe yours did).
What David Colemen announced about the “new” SAT is that it WILL be more tightly “aligned” with the high school curriculum.
So they narrowing will get worse. Or “better” if you believe the Common Core supporters, who all it “common sense” and “necessary” and “transformative.”
Don’t believe it.
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With apologies to Irving Berlin:
Pests
Who push tests
Aren’t testing anymore
They’re doing Coreography
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If the SAT or any other standardized test is the sole indicator used by a college, you don’t want to go there. In the olden days, no one took test prep courses. We still believed the fantasy that it would not be of any benefit to do more than read the sample material they sent us beforehand. My children didn’t take prep courses. As a matter of fact I had great difficulty getting any of them but my daughter to read the information they sent. One of my sons learned the hard way. He had not read the scoring info and didn’t know that the SAT penalized wrong answers. That lesson was more important than the test. I agree, though, that the poor student might benefit from taking the test if they are strong test takers. We all know a student with a high score and mediocre grades. You are looking at a bright student with other issues you may want to explore further.
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“We all know a student with a high score and mediocre grades.”
I resemble that remark.
In fact, I’m walking proof that high scores on standardized tests don’t matter much. My SAT scores were very high, but I didn’t become a successful entrepreneur at all! I ended up failing to start and wasting my life on teaching high school English and ESL!
I’m clearly a failure by any standard worth consideration by the corporate education reform movement, and my standardized test scores were always very high. Ergo…
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Maybe the SAT wasn’t needed to get into college in 1968, because after getting out of the Marines, I never took the SAT and after I earned my AS degree from a community college, I was accepted to CSU Cal Poly, Pomona two years later without having to take the SAT. A year later, I transferred to CSU Fresno without taking the SAT and graduated with a BA from there in 1973.
I just looked up if a SAT was necessary to get into a community college and after earning an AA or AS degree, if it was possible to move on to a 4 year college without a SAT and the answer is yes in some instances. Click on the link below for more details and then call all the state community and 4-year colleges in your area.
“If you plan to transfer to a 4-year college, it’s possible that some of your target schools will need SAT results (or ACT results, which are also accepted wherever the SAT is required). BUT … many 4-year colleges do NOT require test scores from transfers, especially those who have earned an Associate’s degree. And even if you do submit scores, your community college course selection and grades will play the starring role in your admission verdicts, not your test results (unless they are so bad … or so good … that they wave a big red flag).”
http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/archives/sat-for-community-college-student.htm
There’s another benefit to start out in a two year community college. It costs a lot less and if the student transfers to a 4 year state college in the same state after earning an AA or AS, the units are transferable. That means the student starts in their third year in the 4-year state college. I didn’t need the SAT for my MFA program either.
Conclusion: it’s possible to go to college and never take the SAT.
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My university automatically admits instate students based on a variety of criteria. A “C” average on a set of academic classes gets a student automatic admission to a Carnegie Research 1 institution.
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I’m puzzled by what you are saying, and I perceive the irony perfectly well. Are you actually saying that people differ in intelligence? That some people are smarter than others?
Or are you saying that a person with high SAT scores, and who is therefore assumed to be very smart, can still be ignorant enough to reject capitalism?
I wonder what Marx’s SAT scores were. Or Obama’s.
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Gee Harlan, I wonder what GW Bush’s IQ and scores were like? . . . .
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Good point, Robert. One needn’t be all that bright to pray to the almighty dollar.
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“Good point, Robert. One needn’t be all that bright to pray to the almighty dollar.”
I agree, Cosmic Tinker. That, and one needn’t be too bright to become president of the United States . . . .
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It’s probably preferred that a puppet POTUS is not too bright, so the VP who prays to the almighty dollar can call all the shots with impunity.
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“All in all, the changes are intended to make SAT scores more accurately mirror the grades a student gets in school. The thing is, though, there already is something that accurately mirrors the grades a student gets in school. Namely: the grades a student gets in school.”
Beautiful!
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deutsch29: as a numbers/stats person, what is the probability that the edufraud ideologues and accountabully underlings of the leading charterites/privatizers would come up with the cage busting achievement gap crushing twenty first century equivalent of reinventing the wheel as a square rather than round object?
And proclaim far and wide that they’ve improved on the original design?
I know this is a trick question, but even as innumerate as I am, I would bet money that there is a better than 98% “satisfactory” [thank you, Bill Gates!] certainty that we don’t have to wait ten years [thanks again, Bill Gates!] to know that they got this wrong too.
Always keeping in mind, of course, what someone a lot less innumerate than me said many years ago:
“The only difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.” [Albert Einstein]
BTW, know what happened to the Einstein fella? Did he ever do anything notable?
😎
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Hi, KrazyTA. So much obscenely-financed numeric abuse cannot go on for another ten years. We will need a federal bailout of public education. And I wonder what will become of the generation raised on bubble tests. Talk about a national security issue. We will have to somehow provide for them in their twenties the education they missed in their earlier years. Imagine– the birth of an entirely new education industry– re-education for those who fell victim to profit-driven, empty-shell education.
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While I generally oppose the CCSS as vague, and utterly oppose the testing and data collection regimen which seems to be an intrinsic component of them, I don’t suppose it would do a kid any harm to read the actual Declaration of Independence, and the actual Constitution, and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural address.
Perhaps civic virtue would no longer be seen as completely statist, but might recover some of its constitutionally intended individualistic and capitalistic freedom.
Maybe the young might then be able to see without a major course of reeducation the extent to which the previous Bush administration and the current Obama administration are engaging in unconstitutional assaults on freedom with general warrants for phone data, with use of the IRS to suppress political advocacy, with efforts to censor the press using the FCC, with efforts to eliminate 2nd amendment rights, and by other corruptions.
Maybe even their teachers might learn a thing or two about constitutional government.
Maybe then SOME good could come out of the CCSS——-Nah! I dream.
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Harlan, I teach World History and European History. I can assure you that every Government / Civics teacher I know in a multi-high school district includes a reading and analysis of founding documents (though not the unusual inclusion of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural address).
Even in my AP European History class we examine excerpts of AMerican speeches and traditions that intertwine with modern European History. (Things like Washington Farewell Address, Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech and Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” speech.
I even have students in early World History compare LIncoln’s Gettysburg Address to excerpts from Pericles’ Funeral Oration.
It’s a fantasy that such basics as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution do not receive a ton of coverage in high school social studies classes.
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In my state, students cannot graduate high school OR 8th grade without passing tests on US history and the Constitution. And, of course, key documents are critical components of study. In fact, even in state colleges here, students must either take a course in US history and the Constitution or pass a test on that. This is not new. These were requirements when I was in elementary and secondary ed in the 60s as well. Personally, I think we over do it here though, because I burned out on US history, while I grabbed every chance I could get to take courses on the history of other countries and cultures.
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According to the NY Times piece, “Mr. Coleman admits — that high school grades are a better predictor of college success than standardized test scores.”
This is truly a seminal moment which should be underscored and shouted from the rooftops, because it’s a very rare occurrence when anyone involved in corporate “reform” acknowledges that teachers are competent and truly know what they are doing, as evidenced by the fact that they measure student achievement and predict college success better than standardized test scores.
Of course, Coleman had to acknowledge that, too, because of the much ballyhooed independent research published last month which confirmed the College Board’s own research in 2008 on the revamped SAT: http://articles.courant.com/2014-02-18/news/hc-sat-research-0219-20140218_1_fair-open-testing-scores-hiss Back then though, the College Board was stilling clinging to the notion that “The SAT continues to be an excellent predictor of how students will perform.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/education/18sat.html
It’s really just a PR ploy now. The College Board can’t continue to live in denial when aligning the SAT to the Common Core is likely to be such a lucrative enterprise for so many corporate cronies. Still, remember this moment and refer to whenever corporate “reformers” claim that teachers are incompetent and standardized testing is more valuable than instruction and teacher evaluations of student learning.
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Great post. Entirely agree.
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Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
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HS grades are the best single predictor. HS grades and SAT are better.
The problem, of course, is that there are HSs and HSs, so how does a university figure out the difference between two students from different HSs?
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And high schools that use weighted grades and those that do not?
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We probably could use a few people from admissions committees speaking up here. Depending on the college or university there would be different criteria beyond grades and test scores, and it is really not that hard to identify the quality of a student’s high school.
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For highly selective schools students are put into groups. If your school wants a competitive __________ team (you fill in the blank), those candidates compete against each other. The same is true for other specialized skills.
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“The thing is, though, there already is something that accurately mirrors the grades a student gets in school. Namely: the grades a student gets in school.”
So if the above rings true, wouldn’t grades be affected by CCS curriculum (i.e., engageNY), interim and final tests all related to CCS? If true, why would students need to take PARCC or SBA, if we are already giving CCS-made formative/summative tests?
My point is that it’s bad enough that we have to put up and give those engageNY mid-module and final tests to only torture our students with the same kind of related test as PARCC/SBA. It’s redundant.
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“…why would students need to take PARCC or SBA, if we are already giving CCS-made formative/summative tests?”
Why to find out if the students are retaining your teaching and thereby determining if you are a good teacher!
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…and money.
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Although I shouldn’t be, I’m surprised by some of the head-in-the-sand comments posted here regarding the SAT.
I’ve been writing about the College Board’s best-known products (PSAT, SAT, AP) on this blog for quite some time. Pure and simple, they constitute one of the great hoaxes perpetrated on public education. The ACT, by the way, is only marginally better.
As many know, both the ACT and the College Board were major players in the development of the Common Core. Both tout the fact that their products are “aligned” with it. The public announcement of the SAT reconfiguration is not only an attempt to play catch-up to the ACT (which has surpassed the SAT in number of tests given), but also it’s a doubling-down by David Coleman and the College Board on the Common Core.
I’ve said repeatedly on this blog – and I’ll mention it again – that unless and until educators (and that includes teachers, administrators, and college officials) and parents and students divorce themselves from these mostly worthless tests, the Common Core will NOT be – cannot be – stopped. Testing might possibly be delayed, but that’s it, and any delay will be relatively brief.
The very sad thing is that this is not “new” news. We’ve know this for quite some time…and done nothing. The number of ACT and SAT tests given continues to grow. AP courses too. But there just isn’t any credible research to show that they live up to the (bogus) claims made about them.
College enrollment specialists say that their research finds the SAT predicts between 3 and 15 percent of freshman-year college grades, and after that nothing. As one commented, “I might as well measure their shoe size.” Matthew Quirk reported this in “The Best Class Money Can Buy:”
“The ACT and the College Board don’t just sell hundreds of thousands of student profiles to schools; they also offer software and consulting services that can be used to set crude wealth and test-score cutoffs, to target or eliminate students before they apply…That students are rejected on the basis of income is one of the most closely held secrets in admissions; enrollment managers say the practice is far more prevalent than most schools let on.”
Princeton Review test-prep founder John Katzman said that “The SAT is a scam…It has never measured anything.” The “new” improved model won’t be any different.
Students, parents, teachers, and school leaders –– not to mention admissions officials, reporters, and politicians…and tutors –– would do well to heed the research and to stop perpetuating the myths about the ACT and SAT, and AP courses and tests.
Rather than redeveloping worthless products, maybe the College Board (and the ACT) should just stop making them.
But don’t hold your breath. Mythological beliefs often die hard, especially when there’s big money at stake. And there is some real moola at stake here. College presidents get hefty bonuses when their schools advance in the college rankings, based often on test scores of incoming freshmen and their “selectivity,” the percentage of students they reject (based on test scores). Alumni give more when their alma maters “look good.”
The people and groups that support the Common Core often refer to it as “transformative reform.” They recite the same jargon. They say that public schools hold the key to restoring American “economic competitiveness” (the foundational rationale for the Common Core). But it’s not true.
And education reporters? Take your pick (at The Washington Post, or The Atlantic, for example); they don’t do a very good job of reporting issues honestly and accurately. Prominent assessment consultants say the Common Core is “common sense,” and call the motives of Common Core developers and funders “pure.” Go figure.
There’s a reason that groups like the US Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable are “all-in” on the Common Core.
But it doesn’t have anything to do with education.
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The Common States of America
and One Coleman to Rule them All
Your point about the new, CC aligned SATs and ACTs (and GEDs)
bears repeating. Once these college placement tests become the new normal, CCSS P-12 will be locked in place for a long time to come.
How was this ever allowed to happen?
Time to change your name to “Plutocracy”
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Obviously NY teacher, I took the name “democracy” for a purpose….
And yes, the linkage between ACT and SAT tests (and AP too) means they and the Common Core are the “new normal.”
But honestly, no one can really say that there was no warning.
This has been coming for a while.
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This PK + K-12 + C scam involves the force feeding of well over 100 million Americans. It is institutionalized corruption on a scale previously unimagined.
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@democracy.. ah but the head of the snake can be cut off if more colleges and universities around the country do not make the SAT or the ACT a requirement in their admissions process. This will have decisive results!
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800 colleges already make SATs optional. Has this significantly affected the number of test takers?
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artsegal:
You say that ” the head of the snake can be cut off if more colleges and universities around the country do not make the SAT or the ACT a requirement in their admissions process.”
That’s part of it. But that means US News & World Report has to stop issuing its phony college rankings.
And teachers and guidance counselors and principals and superintendents and School Board members have to educate themselves. That’s surely doable, but frankly, from what Ive observed not many do so.
Moreover, education “reporters” have to start reporting honestly and accurately. I am not encouraged by what I read.
Finally, those who call themselves education “leaders” – and I’m talking quite specifically about those who call themselves “consultants” and “experts” and those who “lead” the AFT and NEA, have to start leading. Again, I am not encouraged by what I see and read.
But you’re right….that would be a nice start.
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I believe 3rd graders take a modified form of the SATs. If we want school grades to matter more, we should make sure the content isn’t centered around mandated standardized tests.
If we get rid of the SATs, I hope we consider that young children are taking similar tests.
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Why in the world would we – do we – subject kids to such nonsense?
And why do people who call themselves “educators” allow it to happen?
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Teachers tend to be compliant; we’re rule followers after all. Reformers took clear advantage of this, knowing full well that not enough of us would fight back to make a difference. Could you imagine lawyers sitting back and letting some no-nothing, know-it-all outside group effectively take over and ruin their profession? Not in a million years.
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As I’ve pointed out before, too many administrators, superintendents and principals alike, have gone along – some quite eagerly – with the nonsense.
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Just look at the endorsements of Common Core by the National School Boards Association, National Association of Elementary School Principals, National Association of Secondary School Principles, and the American Association of School Administrators….
You know the saying. “With friends like these…..”
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Time to change that name; democracy is a foreign concept in the Common States of America where One Coleman Rules them All.
I Pledge allegiance, to the Core, of the Common States of America.
And to reform, and to its profits, one nation under Coleman,
college and career ready, with testing and standards for all.
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People who call themselves “educators” are told that their APPR (Annual Professional Performance Review) is tied to their students’ scores on tests based upon Common Core. If our students don’t make sufficient progress, then we are rated “Ineffective”. Two years in a row of being rated “Ineffective” and we are automatically brought up for a 3012 hearing (i.e. hearing to determine whether or not we get to keep our jobs). In addition, we are told, in the public school district in which I teach in NYS, that we are NOT to engage parents in, nor should we respond to parents who try to engage us in, a discussion of the merits v. pitfalls of the Common Core, APPR or any of its related issues. In other words, we have been threatened with the loss of our jobs if we speak up. Like everyone else, we have to make a living, and we have families to support. I, for one, have chosen to speak up in my home district, where my two children attend school, and with friends and family. I have joined a number of groups fighting this and sign every petition that comes my way. I also speak to colleagues who engage me in discussions to share whatever I know.
One might wonder why, in a lose/lose situation like this, we, “educators” don’t go ahead and speak up and out. Many of us do. But well, let’s see. Our unions, to whom we look to for support, sold us down this Common Core quagmire by agreeing to allow our due process rights be determined by our APPR ratings, which are in turn, based upon our students’ performance on these blasted Common Core tests. The public and the media had turned against us already, so why would we think we would be taken seriously? Many believed, and current events bear this out, that once parents saw the effects of Common Core and its associated testing on their children, that there would be an uprising.
So far, parents are beginning to rise up, but we are all fighting against something larger than just the Common Core, APPR, SATs, and ACTs and that is an oligarchy that stands to make a great deal of money off of the standardization of education and the testing machine that keeps it running. Here in NYS, the state senate has voted to put a 2-year halt on Common Core testing based upon “poor implementation” — many, including our supposedly Democratic, progressive governor — say it’s the “poor implementation” and not the Common Core itself that is to blame.
There has also been a call in New York State, for legislators to vote against re-appointing 4 of the Board of Regents members who were involved in the roll-out of the Common Core. Although our legislators are listening (this is the first time these appointments have not been automatic), they cannot agree on whom to appoint in their place and there are quite a number of people who have thrown their names in the ring. So who knows how that will turn out.
David Coleman is a master of manipulation. He knows that in order to keep selling the SAT, he has to win in the court of public opinion. So when he publicly states his awareness of the research that states students’ GPAs are the best predictor of college success, he is making it appear that parents voices are being heard, and those parents who just want “someone to do something about this” think they have been heard.
The truth is that David Coleman and Salman Kahn from Kahn Academy are receiving money and marching orders from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who, along with the Broad Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and a host of other oligarchs, are in the midst of the biggest fraud ever perpetrated upon the American public — the selling of our children. We all need to wake up and smell the coffee, folks.
“All in all, the changes are intended to make SAT scores more accurately mirror the grades a student gets in school. The thing is, though, there already is something that accurately mirrors the grades a student gets in school. Namely: the grades a student gets in school.” Point, Set. Match.
To hell with Common Core, SAT, ACT, APPR.
OPT YOUR CHILDREN OUT OF IT ALL!!!
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The reformers are eavesdropping and now David Coleman has a benevolent plan to provide SAT prep for low-income kids. How generous. Another Coleman, Kahn, Gates triangle. They give the illusion that they actually care about leveling the playing field. Do they think this is the SAT version of Affirmative Action?
The barrier that Coleman claims will no longer be present is the entire point of the SAT.
As only the 2nd college graduate in my family and the first with a master’s degree, my family struggled with this test. My father paid for me to attend a test prep class back in the 80’s with an emphasis on the vocabulary Coleman now calls a, “.. focus on tricks and trying to eliminate answer choices. We are not interested in students just picking an answer…” Wow, think of all of the hours and dollars kids and their families spent on learning those words, and now Mr. Coleman has had an epiphany about what matters in the real world. “Whenever a question really matters in college or career, it is not enough just to give an answer,” Coleman said. “The crucial next step is to support your answer with evidence…” I want a refund for being put through a test Mr. Colman now declares didn’t really matter.
Sounds like the PR geniuses on the reform payroll have found a way to spin new tests that are easier to robograde, while continuing to fuel the reformer fantasy of thinking of themselves as civil rights activists. Sadly, the public continues to swallow Coleman’s snake oil. He is truly worthy of a salesman of the year award.
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” -Albert Einstein
The time has come for us to say goodbye to your kind of thinking, Mr. Coleman.
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There is a small piece (March 2, 2014), in the Yale Alumni Magazine Blog ” in which the College Board is quoted as stating that the new SAT “will reflect the best of classroom work.” Really? A standardized exam that reflects the best of classroom work? The best of classroom work is not about dissemination and regurgitation of information in preparation for a performance on a cookie cutter conformist exam. The best of classroom work is TURGID (sorry to use such an obscure vocabulary word), with students’ challenges and questions about the status quo in society and the norms established by the dominant culture. The best classroom of work engages the imagination and qualities such as compassion and empathy. The best of classroom work inspires students to “get their wonder” on , reveals the spectrum of humanity and celebrates the holistic approach to life. The best of classroom work raises awareness about the extraordinary embedded within the ordinary. The best of classroom work. And the best of classroom work establishes a belief in the unique and varied intelligences present within all students and the necessity of questioning and original thinking. But David Coleman, as we know, the architect of the Common Core and overhauled SAT, wouldn’t have any idea, really, of what the best in classroom work is. How would he? He’s never been a teacher…
Oh, by the way, Mr. Coleman, I taught the word turgid, on paper and through experience, every year to every biology class for almost 2 decades. And, taught the myriad (oops! those pesty impossible words!), ways in which the word may be used and incorporated into writing.
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And maybe the best of classroom work and discussion reflects education as “the balance-wheel of the social machinery” in a democratic society. Maybe the best of classroom practice is – as social scientist Earl Johnson wrote – “…the making of the democratic character.” Maybe it is, as Gordon Hullfish and Philip Smith believed –– a “reflective reconstruction of knowledge, insights and values” –– essential to the maintenance of a democratic society.
It seems to me that this is what the proponents of Common Core suggest it is, or might be (wink).
Why then is the Common Core based on the (false) premise of “economic competitiveness?”
And why, then, are the US Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable –– no advocates of egalitarianism or of promoting the general welfare –– such avid supporters?
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“I’m ok with the standards, just opposed to the prepping and testing and teacher evaluations.”
ERASE THIS FROM YOUR LIST OF POSSIBLE COMMENTS!
IT IS ONE THREE-HEADED MONSTER.
You can’t be in favor of knives, but against cutting things. (from the Curmudgucation blog)
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You can absolutely have high standards without tying any test score to a teacher evaluation.
You can also have multiple modalities for testing, to allow for all different types of abilities and intelligences.
You can also question the level of content for the age of the child being tested . . . .
Remember Finland?
Remember France?
You can also use the Danielson framework (although I don’t agree with a few of its level “4” rubrics, such as ‘there can be not one behavior problem for the entire duration of the lesson’) to help shape, inspire, motivate, and develop teachers professionally, especially if you focus on very small chunks of the rubrics.
Right now, most of the criteria for evaluations and testing have become politicized by one of our most virulent presidents and first ladies and their cronies in a deliberate effort to destroy education as a public trust, as a social commons, and to destroy education unions. The president has picked up where many an effort has been building and left off. That is nothing new.
I would not mind seeing Van Roekel and Weingarten out of office, but it would be very grave of there were no effective unions to take them and their entourage’s place . . . .
People like Brian Jones, Julie Kavanugh, Karen Lewis, and even Dick Ianuzzi (the last one only lately) are trying to offer something confrontational, somewhat more militant, and oppositional for their constitiuents. These are people who will not take money from Gates and are saying, “No, this new reform is NOT good, and there is NO motivation here to partner with so and so and compromise”.
Of course, none of these union leaders are perfect, but they are pardigmatically different from the status quo.
I digress . . . . . Sorry.
Getting back to my point, standards in curriculum for the students can have but don’t have to have ties to standards for excellent teaching and professionalism. Teaching and learning in terms of test numbers is never an if/then statement because there is a very indepth and complex narrative that leads up to a child’s score.
But the reformers would not know that becauase almost all of them have never or rarely taught public school K-12 or even have backgrounds in education.
Folks, this fight’s not over.
It’s just beginning and growing.
Get happily used to it . . . . .
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I doubt that Obama wants to “destroy” public education…but I do think he’s been ill-advised, and he believes (too much) what the fat cats tell him, not only about public education but also about the big banks.
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Democracy, Obama and wife were full forces and members of organizations in Chicago 20 years ago whose mission was to open more charter and close more public schools . . .. common knowledge . . . .
He is out to destroy public education (he is a product of private education) and to wipe the floor with the middle class . . . But so is the GOP . . . .
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Upon his retirement from the presdidency, Democracy, and after his daughters finish up school at their private Sidwell Friends Academy, Obama and his Bride of Dracula Wife will go to live in a $34 million dollar ocean front manse in Honolulu, half of which is being funded with Penny Pritzker’s own personal money and the other half is being fund raised by her Rendfield-like friends . . .
Democracy, Obama is no Bill Gates in terms of assets, but he IS one of the fat cats you speak of.
In less than 10 years, he stands to make over $75 million dollars from speaking fees alone . . . .
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I suggest people read or reread Biddle and Berliner’s brilliant takedown of the SAT in their 1995 (?) book, The Manufactured Crisis. Until you have read that and know just exactly what the SAT/ACTs are designed to measure and how it was perverted by reformist propagandists to claim they measured something that they were never intended to measure, don’t talk about it here.
I see a lot of misinformation about the SAT/ACTs on this and other ed discussions. These tests do not measure success in college, they don’t measure potential in life, and they don’t measure “intelligence.” They measure ONLY preparation for college and are used as a screening tool for applications.
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In other words, these tests are NOT predictors of anything. Period.
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That’s what I’ve been saying…and they do not “help” disadvantaged students. Quite the opposite.
And, now they are allegedly “aligned” with the Common Core. Obviously you see the problem.
But go into any regular public high school (or, increasingly, any middle school) and ask teachers or administrators how important the ACT or SAT is, or what the tests “measure.”
You know the kinds of responses you’ll get, right?
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Here’s a suggestion
Tweet this simple message and spread the word. Anyone may copy and paste this Tweet into their Twitter page.
And anyone may ReTweet it from there.
Keep it simple. Spread those simple message. Do it over and over and create a meme.
Here’s one that I just posted through my Twitter a account:
The SAT test doesn’t measure college success
potential in life
or intelligence
DiscoverThe Manufactured Crises
http://amzn.to/1hXRMSk
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Great idea, Lloyd! I’d suggest adding a hash tag or two. I just posted this:
Student grades predict college success better than the SAT #TheSATsucks #TrustTeachers Read The Manufactured Crisis http://amzn.to/1hXRMSk
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Thank you. I don’t always think about hash tags when writing a Tweet. The idea just isn’t there to add them. Mind blank on the #.
I’ve always been a slower learner.
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No problem. Lloyd. I’m not very active on Twitter or big on hash tags either, but I think that’s how trending works there
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The Internet is a never ending learning cycle.
And each site be it Twitter, Facebook, Blogging,etc. offers new challenges to learn and continue learning.
More evidence of the need for life long learners.
:o)
My next task of the day is to work on taxes and learn more about HootSuit.
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Thanks for the memories! I read “Manufactured Crisis” way back in the day. It’s as true now as it was then. You’re correct — it was and still is brilliant.
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