We learned a few days ago that Connecticut will require all juniors to take the SAT instead of the Smarter Balanced Assessments. This is a solution to the problem that most students fail the SBA, and that creates a dilemma: what will the state do with the majority of students who won’t graduate? The SAT doesn’t have a passing mark, no one “fails,” and schools can really use multiple measures.
States will replace PARCC or Smarter Balanced with the SAT because:
1) David Coleman is president of the College Board (salary: $750,000), and he aligned the SAT with Common Core. So, no difference.
2) More than 800 colleges and universities no longer require the SAT, which is a threat to its income.
3) if more and more states require all juniors to take the SAT, it is a huge bonanza for the College Board.
SAT scores are closely correlated with family income, so states will get a close measure of affluence and poverty.
Researchers have. found that high school Grade Point Average and course taking were better predictors of college success than the one-shot SAT. That’s why many colleges have become test-optional.
Question: when did the SAT become a measure of career readiness?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
http://m.wesh.com/news/seminole-county-school-board-proposes-new-plan-for-student-testing/32504054
A Florida superintendent is advocating for the PSAT/SAT and is gaining other supers as supporters.
If the SAT is aligned to the same standards as the high school accountability test, *one* of them is redundant. At first I thought the SAT might lose out, but SBAC/PARCC are unpopular enough that they might go away, in 11th grade at least.
“If the SAT is aligned to the same standards as the high school accountability test, *one* of them is redundant.”
*One* may be redundant, but ALL ARE COMPLETELY INVALID including those “SAME STANDARDS”. To understand why read and comprehend what Noel Wilson has proven about the MYRIAD ERRORS, FALSEHOODS AND FUDGES ingrained in the whole process from start to finish that render ANY RESULTS COMPLETELY INVALID:
“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.
1. 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.
2. 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).
3. 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.
4. 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 word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
I see no problem if they drop the CCSS tests and the schools pay for SAT. Except ACT should have a share of the wealth.
The problem I see is what the data are used for in terms of schools and teachers. SAT never has been a great measure of the effect of teaching and schools. It’s intententionally been pretty generic as to content. At least in the math parts, it’s been more about critical thinking and problem solving.
Diane is right about GPA and course selection as predictors. And those are things the school does have some impact on.
Some states already require and pay for all juniors to take the ACT. Utah is one. It’s a royal pain in the neck, though. School’s cancelled the entire day for it, but it manages to mess up middle school schedules in the district as well. It’s such a waste.
Oh! But the juniors STILL have to take the AIR Common Core tests in Utah.
Agree. SC does this, too
We haven’t seen the new SAT that Mr. Coleman and company are rolling out this next year. I suspect it to be PARCCish.
I agree with Peter Smyth that a big problem will be how the data are used. Never mind the actual test data, the SAT asks for your SocSec # and your religion! And of course who pays for the test is an issue.
This is a very coastal outlook. Need to open this up to be a question about both the
ACT and SAT.
One reason for state level policy makers is that if the federal government requires a high school assessment, using the ACT or SAT as a state assessment means that the mandated assessment has some relevance/benefit to some or many of the students (depending on how many plan to apply to a college that requires the ACT or SAT).
The other reason I often hear is that students who might not be planning on college will receive an ACT or SAT result and have more information to consider their post-secondary plans.
How ironic!
As The College Board is on the verge of ca$hing in on a contract for the SAT to replace PARCC and SBAC, my son took the practice version of the new PSAT over the weekend, which is posted on the official College Board website. When he finished, he said, “Mom, take a look at the third reading passage. I think The College Board is using the test to make a strong statement about their views on shared wealth.”
Here is a link to the test. Page 11 contains the passage to which I refer, a reprint from Andrew Carnegie, “Wealth”. I implore all interested parties to read it for yourself, and to view the entire test including questions.
Click to access psat_nmsqt_practice_test_1.pdf
And of course tinfoil hat-wearing Right Wingers have been finding Communist propaganda throughout the Common Core curriculum, including math (even though, of course, the textbooks are written by authors employed (for the most part) by Big Three publishers, not exactly bastions of the left unless I’m miss something, like a big “socialist” takeover of Houghton, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson).
Finding propaganda in the reading passages of standardized tests is only slightly less absurd than finding secret codes in the Old Testament or Koran that will help you make billions in the stock market. Anything you care to find is “there,” if you’re willing to do enough intellectual gymnastics and contortions.
What do you make of the 2nd passage, the one from Marina Gorbis’ The Nature of
the Future: Dispatches from the Socialstructed World? Sounds like Communism to me and mentions the Soviet Union in the first sentence. Obvious globalism and One World advocacy in there. And what about the selection from Austen’s EMMA to open up the festivities? Is it a subtle critique of the status quo, or perhaps a not so subtle advocacy of the rigid social and class structures of 18th century England? Given enough readers, I’m sure someone will find that it’s fraught with a host of evil thoughts.
When we finally hit the fourth (not the third) passage by Carnegie, I’m about ready to burn down the local free public library (Carnegie funded the building of over 2500 such institutions throughout the world, and in 1919, about half of America’s 3500 public libraries were built through Carnegie grants. Doesn’t make the guy a saint, but I think he did something pretty damned valuable through that program).
But seriously: is the issue that kids are asked to read something by one of the richest Americans of the past with some sort of critical eye (in the broadest sense of “critical”) or that the College Board is shamelessly promoting the philosophy of a “robber baron”?
I very much doubt that the College Board has an official stance on shared wealth. I doubt that the Big Three publishers are promoting a philosophy of wealth. What they are undoubtedly doing is practicing a policy of making money themselves, which given that they are huge corporations should come as a shock to no one at all.
If you read up on the history of the Educational Testing Service and the philosophy behind the development of the SAT, I think you’ll find some well-intentioned attempts at promoting more fairness in who got to go to college (during a VERY different time in this country, well before such things as the GI Bill, open admissions, etc.) which ultimately and probably predictably went awry because of many assumptions that were a function of the founders and the era and atmosphere in which they lived. Some of those associated with standardized testing, particularly “intelligence” testing, died with a lot of dues to pay. I’m fairly sure that David Coleman and his minions will ultimately be judged as having a lot of dues to pay as well. But it is not my sense that the wrongs they do can be judged by what passages show up on the reading portions of their tests. I think pursuing that line of thinking is pretty much a waste of time and will ultimately prove fruitless. The issue is the very idea of high-stakes summative assessment, not whose political agenda can be discerned in the reading selections.
The only exam that has a possibility of being beyond politics is an exam that every high school student takes — whether in a private, parochial or public school. The fact that private school students get to opt out of any testing while public school students must go to schools where teachers are evaluated primarily on how their students perform on such tests means that the tests that public school students take are easily manipulated for the result (“cut score”) that the people in power want. Right now, the people in power seem to be bought and paid for by the billionaires who want to privatize public schools, so the tests that only public school students take are tricky and ambiguous instead of well-thought out.
The solution to this is every student taking the same exam because once private school parents start seeing their children coming home with “below standards” scores that don’t reflect their abilities, they will be opting out just like the suburban parents have started to do. I would not object to the SAT — in this form or in the new “common core” form — to be used as an exam as long as every student in the state was tested. But as long as the private school students can opt out, the results can never be trusted. And the fact that hundreds of colleges — most with very high tuitions — are making the SAT “optional” just encourages low scoring wealthy kids not to be tested. All students should be tested, just like they are in England, via the A levels and GCSEs.
” I would not object to the SAT — in this form or in the new “common core” form”
You SHOULD OBJECT to it. Read and understand Noel Wilson’s damning destruction of standardized testing I have referenced above. Read it and get back to me if you still believe in the “validity” of standardized testing.
I did not say it was valid. I said that I would not object to the SAT per se if EVERY student had to sit for it to measure the worth of their school’s education. It doesn’t matter how much evidence we have to the contrary — evidence has never mattered in politics. You need to string up the testers with their own words. I guarantee you that if every private school student was forced to take the same exam as public school students are, and if every private school was RANKED according to the test results of their kids, you would hear a huge opposition to those test results from the same billionaires who now support them. You would hear that those tests are invalid for measuring how good a school and their teachers are. Billionaires would be humiliated by knowing that the teachers at the U. of Chicago Lab school were terrible because while SOME students have high SAT scores, some other students would have lower ones which would clearly demonstrate that the teachers weren’t teaching them very well and should be fired. And if the students at Horace Mann had higher SAT scores than the students at Chicago Lab School, the parents at Lab would have to agree that the teachers at Lab were far inferior and any teacher who happened to teach a junior who scored low would be fired. NOT.
The only way to change this emphasis on testing is to make sure ALL students take the same test. We have a system where Bill Gates’ children’s school is never compared to other private or public schools so he has no idea if his children’s teachers are horrible. Let’s call their bluff. Let’s make public the overall SAT scores of every private school just like we make public the overall state test scores of every school and we will judge the schools on their children’s performance. Call their bluff!
Have you not been paying attention?
1. We are asking schools to be rated on VAMs, not raw achievement scores. Yes, have all schools publish their VAMs. I’m all in.
2. The prior SATs were aptitude tests. You can’t judge teachers on students’ IQs. You do realize that sine kids scored 1250+ on the old, harder SATs (pre-1993) in the seventh grade, right? That was before they were exposed to much of the material in school. It measured IQ, not achievement.
If charters or private schools have low VAMs, I’m sure their billionaire sponsors will shut them down.
I agree with your sentiments to a point.
However, forcing anyone to take these COMPLETELY INVALID TESTS is unethical. To use invalid results from invalid tests for anything is irrational, illogical and just plain stupid, a waste of time, energy and monies.
Most Americans sure do love their rankings and sortings no matter how absurdly insane those rankings are.
Illinois tried having all 11th graders take the ACT and paid for it. It is now the PARCC so I guess the latter had better salespersons. All of this is a joke. Will the PARCC be used for entrance tests to college? The Illinois mandatory ACT for high school juniors was not! How do we teachers cash in on all the money being made by testing companies? Or maybe we teachers should ask how we get rid of people who make the decisions to pay all this money.
If the PARCC is used for high school graduation, then more than half the students will not get a high school diploma.
Next we can bring back feudalism.
Abigail, I think that is the plan of at least a few of them. There has been talk in ALEC states of passing laws and/or amending the constitution to only allow landowners to vote.
Really Chris in Florida? I was just making one of my snide comments, or so I thought!
In Utah, juniors have to take BOTH the ACT AND the Common Core testing. In 10th grade, they take both the PLAN and the CC testing, and they take the Explore and the CC testing in 9th grade. The PLAN and EXPLORE are essentially the same test. Such a waste of time and money.
These people must love when a plan comes together.
From 2013 – Jeb Bush is quoted:
“When I was governor of Florida, our partnership with the College Board helped close the student-achievement gap. David’s new role as president of the College Board is great news for our country. He is the kind of leader who gives me hope for the future.”
http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-100/slide/david-coleman/
Very sad to see the SAT transformed from an aptitude test to an achievement test. I understand what the College Board was doing but it removes a tool from employers everywhere.
Diane, while the SAT might be used in lieu of the PARCC/SBAC in high school, districts still need grade-level appropriate tests for elementary and middle schools. Thus, I think it’s a little bit of an exaggeration to say the SBAC/PARCC will be replaced.
“. . . but it removes a tool from employers everywhere.”
Ha ha ha ha ah he he eh he he je je je je je (for all you Spanish speakers) ha ha ha ah ha ah ha ha!
That’s a good one Brian!
Kind of like removing a chain saw from an upholsterer’s tool bag, eh!?!?!
The SAT is also like no other test anyone takes ever. You receive a point for a correct score, lose 1/4 of a point (maybe even 1/2) for a wrong score and receive 0 points for omitting an answer. So not only are you supposed to know the answers, you are supposed to strategize when you’re not quite sure. I have always felt that this creates an unpredictable testing environment.
I think that may be one of the things they are changing on the new SAT. Right now, students can take the ACT instead of the SAT and the SAT was losing big market share to them, especially now that every elite university accepts either score. (In decades past, only the SAT was acceptable.) I am shocked at how many college applicants I know take the ACT instead of the SAT now. I assume that for all this talk about changing the SAT to align with the common core, what this is really about is capturing more market share of the testing market by making the test more popular.
Jennifer Berdine, the SAT has the fairest scoring system around. Here’s why. Say that a given student doesn’t have time to confidently answer all 40 questions in a section.
1. First, let’s look at an exam with no penalty. If he/she leaves them blank, he is losing scoring opportunities. If he fills them in randomly, he cannot be penalized. Assuming there are 4 answers each, his expected gain on each question is 1/4. If he bubbles in 10 questions, that’s an extra 2.5 points.
2. Second, let’s look at the old SAT with 1/4 point penalties. A student can leave those extra questions blank with absolutely no penalty. If he bubbles them in, he’s expected to get 2.5 correct. But he loses 2.5 points from the 1/4 point penalty. Thus, his expected gain is zero, just like he didn’t answer them. No pressure to bubble in the extras.
The reason the SAT was forced to change the scoring method is because folks like you don’t understand basic math concepts like probability. You throw a fit even though the SAT had the most equitable scoring system around. Begs the question who is actually teacher our kids!!!!!
Nice try. The reason SAT was resigned is its disconnection “from the work of our high schools”–not the reason you described above.
This is the word that exactly came out from the mouth of person NONE OTHER THAN David Coleman, the director of College Board.
Speaking of “irrational” probability.
Oops! Called someone out for being wrong and made a HUGE typo! People like you who can’t spell are the reason . . . See how offensive your words are?
“Begs the question who is actually teacher our kids” with multiple exclamation points like a teenager!!!!!
Shame on you.
The 1/4-point penalty system is at odds with almost all other exams where kids are pressed hard to leave nothing unanswered, especially multiple choice sections.
It also lowers scores even more for those who eliminate two incorrect answers but then pick wrong for whatever reason between the final two. In other words, over-thinkers and worriers and those with test anxiety or those who just feel they aren’t good test takers get slightly more penalized. Prophecy self-fulfillment?
You should have left off your last paragraph. You lost more than 3/4 of your point right there.
Akademos, please tell me you do not teach anything related to STEM. Please.
Tests with appropriate penalties are the fairest tests of all. Twenty years ago, I used this exact lesson in my interview with Kaplan. The idea is to have students use critical thinking to confirm the best strategy for taking tests. While the end goal is to teach probability concepts, a side product is a demonstration of where these concepts can be applied. The same occurs in every career in which one does not have infinite time to meet limitless demands (e.g. every career).
1. Students shouldn’t worry about not answering any question when penalties are assessed. The expected value of guessing is zero. What that means is one has 1/5 chance of getting the question correct and getting a full point (5 answers provided). One has an 80% chance of missing and getting -1/4 point. Together, (20% * 1) + (80% * -1/4) = (.2 * 1) + * (.8 * -0.25) = 0.2 – 0.2 = 0!!!!!! Students can simply focus on the questions that they understand and ignore the rest without worry.
2. Students who can eliminate one or more answers get increasing more credit. This is consistent with “showing work” or “partial credit”. Let’s assume the student can eliminate 1 answer out of 5. His expected value now becomes: (25% * 1) + (75% * -1/4) = 0.25 – .1875 = 0.0625 (1/16 of a point). Not much but we don’t want to reward a student too much for eliminating just one answer. The following show the expected value of eliminating:
– 2 answers: 0.167
– 3 answers: 0.375
– 4 answers: full credit = 1 pt
3. The same principles apply to tests in which there is no penalty with one caveat. Kids have a built-in 1/5 pt penalty if they don’t answer the question (kids answering all questions 1/5 pt on average for each question they bubble). They receive the following pts by eliminating various answers: 0.05, 0.13, 0.3. At some point, the kid must bubble in all unanswered questions or else they will be penalized in your preferred model.
Akademos, what subject do you teach? Do you follow the logic in this post? Even though the test makers and STEM majors have explained this concept to teachers for years and years and years, teachers simply cannot understand it. They complain over and over about the “unfairness” of penalties even though penalties actually make tests fair. Finally, because the College Board gave up explaining basic probability to teachers, they eliminated penalties and made the tests less fair. Congratulations. Ignorance wins again!
virginiasgp, why are you criticizing Akademos and not the leaders at Harvard, Yale and Princeton, who now happily accept ACT scores in lieu of the SATs? Are you claiming those administrators don’t care about high standards and choosing the best students? If so, I’m sure you will advise every bright young student you know to only apply to colleges that require SATs only, because if they accept ACT scores, “ignorance” will be winning again.
“Teachers” don’t give a darn whether their students take the ACT or SAT, and what a very stupid remark to make. The “folks that don’t understand basic math concepts like probability” are the admissions officials at Ivy League schools who don’t require SAT scores. THEY are the ones who you are certain are the “ignorant” ones. Thanks for demonstrating your complete disdain for the people who choose which students are admitted to selective colleges. What an IGNORANT bunch of fools they are not to listen to you.
NYC public school parent/akademos, I have not criticized the officials at those schools. Everybody with knowledge of testing agrees with my analysis. That’s why most standardized tests included penalties. To get rid of the bias for not answering questions. But in the end, it proved to be a liability when the public and teachers could not understand it. I have explained this concept not less than 100 times in the last 20 years. Most folks still don’t understand. Why don’t you get your heros (Amrein-Beardsley and Darling-Hammond) to weigh in. They will tell you the same thing even if they dismiss the benefits of tests overall.
Look, I didn’t like the recentering of the SAT in 1993. They moved the average up from 900 to 1000 and expanded the std dev. However, the SAT is a product for college admissions departments. While having a more challenging SAT helped the Ivies (there were basically no perfect scores prior to 1993), most schools wanted more visibility in the students they would admit (700-1200). Thus, the recentering made sense for their clients. I also don’t like the revamping of the SAT from an aptitude test to an achievement test. But once again, the customers are admissions departments who are more interested in knowledge and skills than aptitude. The admissions departments wanted this change. Businesses who want to determine aptitude in future applicants and are prevented from using IQ scores oppose this change. The old SAT was convenient and useful throughout life. The new SAT is targeted and useful for colleges.
In the end, the College Board is responding to their market. That’s called capitalism and despite the protests from Bernie Sanders’ socialist fans, capitalism is responsible for bringing more humans out of poverty than any other concept in history.
Are you really upset by me giving Akademos some snark back? You all were elated when you could “show up” the VAM fan, right? But when your ignorance was revealed you complain about being proven wrong and deflect. Based on the comments of Diane’s readers, many will cheer your deflection. But just a little piece of advice. Unlike Diane and I, never reveal your identity. Wouldn’t want your remarks to be assigned to your actual identity.
People get the math, Brian.
It’s much more than just adjustment for time and guessing.
Your take is very superficial.
Lose the attitude. Take care of your kid(s).
Students are often instructed to guess on the SAT once they have it narrowed to two choices even if it’s merely a total guess at that point, since it’s 50% of 1 full point versus 50% of 1/4 off. But the worriers will often go against their own judgment, and it’s rarely a pure guess. So this situation will crop up when they should get the full point, when they are not guessing. It hurts on the usual multiple choice tests, but the 1/4 point loss just makes it a tiny bit worse.
And how does the 1/4-point penalty stack up against the strategy of working out most of the section carefully, tallying the choice frequencies and then bubbling the least chosen choice for the rest of the section?
Akademos, are you serious? Are you suggesting that the test makers are so dumb they try to equalize the number of times each letter is used as an answer?
So tell me, do you go to the casino, count the number of reds in roulette and bet on the next roll based on the red/black ratios? Can I please play you in poker?
And you are incorrect about the “worriers” being fooled. Many studies have shown we attribute success to our own actions and failure to luck or outside opposition. What you are observing is the natural tendency for students to ignore questions they answered correctly even though they guessed. Students will look back at questions they got wrong and guessed. Thus, they incorrectly assume that most of their guesses were wrong.
If a student can eliminate a single answer, it is in their interest to guess. However, the benefits don’t really accrue until they get down to 2 choices. They would be much better off verifying the answers on which they are certain first than struggling on unfamiliar questions. In the end, these tests (with penalties or not) do give partial credit. It’s just that most teachers and parents don’t understand the math so they don’t realize that partial credit is given. This why we need Common Core in the first place. So that all citizens can knowledgeably engage in public policy discussions based on facts and not on ignorance. Basic probability is not complicated. If you had been taught this in high school, we would not even be having this conversation right now.
Oh, and btw, my kids are fine. Given the state of our schools, I expose them to everything “taught” in school before they receive it in school. However, I must admit I deferred to the wonderful kindergarten teacher this year who was simply amazing. I have enough exercises from her to work with my 1st grader for a year.
Stop posting, Brian.
Take care of your own business.
Your ad hominem is not welcome here.
So now that Akademos has been shown to misunderstand probability on multiple choice tests, he/she instructs me to “stop posting”. Since I work in IT, it takes all of 60 seconds to take a quick break and share some insights. But nice try.
The frequency bubbling strategy has no validity. Do you have any evidence that test makers attempt to equalize the correct answers by letter? Any whatsoever? I have never seen this nor can I imagine they would even try. Working in IT, I can tell you that the test makers would have to proactively include such an equalization algorithm for it to exist. It simply does not. If students are using that “strategy”, they received horrible advice. Maybe it will work in a teacher’s classroom who makes her own tests and subconsciously (or not) tries to equalize the letters. But not on a standardized, computer-generated test.
Why don’t you just say “I was wrong; I should understand probability before I start to make conclusions about testing methods.” and leave it at that. You simply will not relent and then attack me for ad hominem attacks. I taught you how to understand partial credit on tests and how penalties for incorrect answers are actually fair. Apparently, you had never been taught this before and couldn’t figure it out it on your won. Your response is to double down and attack. I guess it works for some.
Just threw that frequency bubbling strategy out there because it’s not random. Not that it’s a realistic strategy for success.
It has actually been used.
From the Devil’s Dictionary of Education Jargon:
Mental Mathturbation* (n.) To discuss in any manner, fashion and/or form the questions of, the purpose of, the disseminating the results and/or data and said results/data for the purposes of improving the teaching and learning process. Mental mathturbation is a sub-category of the MMoOO** variety
*thanks to SDP (I think, correct me if I’m wrong, someone)
**MMoOO = Mental Masturbation or Obligatory Onanism
Question: when did the SAT become a measure of career readiness?
A better question might be when did David Coleman become the decider of career readiness? (first with Common Core and now with the test aligned to it)
David Coleman is the poster boy for the “ethically challenged” (with Mitchell Chester as the runner up)
The SAT is scored to create a bell curve. This is lunacy.
Chris, were you referring to me? What typo? I make them often but I didn’t see one in this post. The change in scoring is because folks can’t understand the probability involved. See WaPo’s posts for knowledgeable educators lamenting that change as well. Fools got confused over having a “penalty” for answering incorrectly. That penalty simply eliminates any bias generated by guessing. Did you follow the logic in my post?
I’m sorry you can’t read your own post but saying “Begs the question who is actually teacher our kids!!!!! makes no sense. Did you mean ‘teaching our kids’? You lose partial penalty points Poindexter!
I was smirking at myself when I saw his last sentence. Clearly, temper and angst are getting better of himself. I’m pretty sure such blunder deserves penalty not just in SAT or PARCC test but virtually any kind of tests. Too bad his special status as “Supernova Gaijin Planet” (Oh is it Student Gain Progress?) makes no excuse for that 🙂
You criticized someone for a typo in another post and that’s why Chris noted your typo in your answer. Although it’s strange you still haven’t noticed it despite the prompt — you wrote this: “Begs the question who is actually teacher our kids!!!!!” Your glee in finding typos in other people’s work has come back full circle.
I don’t have an opinion as to whether having a wrong answer penalty in a standardized test is preferable or not — there are arguments for both views. But if you don’t realize that the only reason that the SATs are changing is to capture more market share because too many students were choosing the other kind of exam, then you are very, very naive. And obviously, the most selective Ivy League universities strongly disagree with your assessment, since they are happy to accept ACT scores instead of SAT scores. Why? Don’t they care about getting the “best” students?
NYC public school parent, since when do I revel in finding typos? Nobody has ever accused me of writing well. That’s for sure. But I think I can get my point across. I ignore typos because many of these posts are written on smartphones.
The ACT and SAT are loosely correlated with IQ now. They both measure knowledge and skills. Schools are generally flexible in accepting national tests so that students don’t have to take multiple ones. If you take the ACT for the midwest, those students don’t want to have to take the SAT for east coast schools.
Yes, the College Board is changing the SAT because of the market. Especially the admissions departments. But you are also naive if you think 15-20 elite schools drive the market for the SAT. If they did, we would go back to the pre-1993 test that had greater variability in scores among the top students.
virginiasgp, I thought I saw a post where you criticized someone’s spelling or grammar, but since I can’t find it, I apologize if I was wrong.
You very wrongly accused TEACHERS of objecting to the SAT exam, as if they have anything to do with why the SAT exam will no longer have a penalty for wrong answers. That has nothing to do with teachers at all. And if the 20 or 30 “elite” schools went back to requiring ONLY the SAT as long as the college board kept it as you prefer, then I have no doubt the college board would do so. If you don’t like the system, blame the people at the College Board or in the admissions offices at colleges.
If teachers had that much power, you wouldn’t see the crappy standardized tests that ONLY public school students must take while private school kids get to “opt out” from. They have no power. The only people with power are the families who are the “consumers” of standardized tests and the colleges that choose to accept scores as valid or not.
By the way, you are most certainly wrong about “midwest schools”. Students in the midwest could always JUST take the SAT and the midwest schools accepted that in lieu of the SAT. I don’t know of a school in the country that ONLY accepted the ACT and forced kids who took the SAT to also take the ACT. So your entire premise is wrong.
In fact, it was only when the elite colleges also started accepting the ACT that the SAT started losing market share and continues to do so.
NYC public school parent, a couple months back, after being dinged, I noted a history teacher’s error. But one sentence later, I acknowledged I was just replying in kind and mentioned that I was interested in the content as opposed to perfect grammar. Most on here have been kind to me in not dissecting my many mistakes. I don’t take offense to the correction, but am just requesting that we focus on the real content. I have been wrong on here before and will be wrong at times in the future.
Here is a good comparison among the tests (prior to the recent changes). The SAT focused on application of skills (“he SAT is more likely to include story problems and creative application of the basic rules of geometry. The ACT, by contrast, tends to be more straightforward.” and “As in the math sections, the ACT is more a test of knowledge than of reasoning and problem-solving.”). I believe some like to call these “critical thinking” or applied skills. My college tests had these in spades to the point that if you didn’t see the novel application, you received zero points. Rather harsh, but hey, it was competitive. One is a quasi-IQ test, whereas the other is a content assessment test.
I guess I’m showing my age in the midwestern remark. Twenty years ago many colleges in the midwest required the ACT and east coast colleges required the SAT. Now, it appears both accept either.
I’m not blaming teachers for the testing methods of either one. In fact, when I heard schools would supplant achievement tests with aptitude tests (SAT), I was shocked. It is patently unfair to grade a teacher or school on a kid’s aptitude. But I guess now that the College Board has changed the SAT, it might be applicable. I was only questioning Akademos understanding of the penalties on standardized tests. I have pointed out the same issues with Carol Burris‘s comments on “guessing”. As you can see from the expected values of guessing, you don’t gain a lot of points by eliminating a single answer. And the chances of increasing your correct answers by 7-10 over what is predicted by probability is extremely unlikely When folks who are not familiar with probability opine on the “chances of guessing”, then we are in big trouble.
For the record, I do not support using a single test for yearly assessments given in high school. Maybe the SAT or ACT are appropriate for just the 11th grade. But in general, the test should be aimed at the grade being tested with appropriate questions above/below grade level. And I would never support an aptitude test being given to measure student knowledge or evaluating teachers on such a test. I ridicule my local district for reporting SAT scores since for the most part, teachers have nothing to do with those scores good or bad.
Now, if the College Board is announcing that it is entering the market for annual achievement tests to compete with the SBAC or PARCC, I think that is good news. You all talk of an oligopoly and having more entrants in the market should increase competition, improve quality and lower price. As long as the tests are here, shouldn’t there be more choice? Note the emphasis on choice and freedom? As the late, great Friedman would say “Free to choose!”
You know, just because people don’t respond to the specifics in your arguments, that doesn’t always mean they don’t understand them. Sometimes they don’t think that that is where the problems lie.
Have a good day.
Your link to your “evidence” that most midwestern colleges ONLY accepted the ACT and would not accept the SAT instead is the website of a test prep company. (I hope students in the US aren’t being taught to use that kind of sourcing.) I can’t find a much better link, but I can tell you that I used my SAT scores to apply to colleges all over the country — including the midwest — decades ago. Most students from the midwest would take the ACTs, but that did not mean that colleges in that region rejected SAT scores as invalid. They accepted SAT scores, too.
NYC public school parent, not sure what we are arguing about. The ACT has historically been used in the midwest. The SAT has historically been used in the east/west coasts but was accepted nationally. The SAT was fundamentally different until recently. Some schools would only accept the SAT on the belief that it measured ability and not knowledge. It appears that is no longer true.
I do think the ACT marketed to students very effectively. Recall that aptitude tests, of which the ACT is admittedly is not one, help to identify talented individuals whose education has not been great. My college classmate from rural Georgia in a graduating class of 8 attended a great college because of a high SAT score. If he had to take the achievement-based ACT, that might not have been the case. If we are interested in selecting students with potential but in poor school districts, I would argue an aptitude test is better. If we are trying to identify students who work hard and learned the material, an achievement test is better.
In the link above, see the line about “you are not penalized for guessing” right after stating you are tested on what you know. This advocacy group had the same misunderstanding as Akademos and was just as proud of their misunderstanding.
The notion that you choose which scores to send to college for the ACT is crazy (see link above). If I take a test 5 times, probability dictates some scores will be higher and some lower based on the standard error alone and not just on the true score. By allowing students to cherry-pick the best scores, we are incentivizing students taking the test multiple times. In effect, you are penalized if you don’t take it more than once. All scores should be sent to the colleges. The colleges are not idiots. The same thing happened in my district with SOL scores. They passed a law that allows retests but only count the highest score. Even though the scores don’t affect the kids, schools pressure kids to retake the test since it can only help the schools’ accreditation. Schools do this even though it stresses the kids out and identifies which ones have failed. The administrators don’t care as long as they look good. That’s why I have such mistrust of school officials. The same can be said for the ACT. Send all the scores or none.
again, virginiagsp you are barking up the wrong tree. Your beef is with the colleges that accept only the “best” score. All they have to do is require every score to be sent and voila! You blame a school administrator for encouraging kids to have better scores and somehow are unwilling to criticizing the college administrators who obviously don’t care anymore about getting the smartest kids, right?
Did it ever occur to you that maybe the colleges want the RICHEST kids and that’s why they do this? What better than to allow students to take the SAT or ACT as many times as their parents can afford and get only the highest subscore so they can accept those rich but not especially smart kids whose parents can pay full fare over the poor kid who might have slightly lower SATs or the same scores but only took it once. Colleges WANT those rich kids desperately because not too many parents can really afford $60,000 a year tuition, but they also know that their US News rankings will suffer if their average SAT score of incoming students is too low. So here is their solution: 1. Let kids take a standardized exam as many times as they can afford to pay the cost and only count their top score of each section. 2. Tell kids that standardized test scores are “optional” so they can still accept lots of not too bright rich kids without test scores that will bring down their average and lower their college’s rankings.
It’s a game and it STARTS with the college admissions officials and administration. If you want to criticize someone, that’s where you start. The fact that you are trying to blame teachers and public schools is really weird and speaks volumes about your biases.
“am just requesting that we focus on the real content. I have been wrong on here before and will be wrong at times in the future.”
And after you read and understand Noel Wilson you will be more fully able to appreciate just how wrong you have been in relying on standardized test scores/VAM/SGP.
Brian, if you have already read Wilson’s work, please refute and/or rebut his claims. I’m all eyes & ears.
The new math test is significantly more difficult. Geometry has virtually disappeared and students have to be well-versed in quadratics, which was never expected before.
“Question: when did the SAT become a measure of career readiness?”
Maybe Noel Wilson already answered your question, Diane, back in 1997:
“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.”
Also, putting Wilson aside for the moment, how do we really know how reliable studies are regarding assessments of this type, at this level, with so much bias, private funding and so many career and attention seekers, not mention our exceedingly limited understanding of human intelligence and psychology at this point? It’s at the point that one would have to do extensive research to have an inkling of the validity of a single study, and still not really know. And the studies themselves are often extremely limited in what they can even point to while even that gets wrongly analyzed.
Sometimes we have to rely A LOT on common sense, as subjective as that can be. Pay attention to how people treat each other, blind spots and all. It’s likely a reflection on how they set up and process through dialectics within their own minds and reveals how deep they can go. Besides being an obvious reflection on basic civility and sense of morality and ethics; though anyone can blow their top once in a while, given circumstances, etc.
Das niedrigste Gefühl, das ich kenne, ist der Abscheu vor Unterdrückten, so als hätte man aus ihren Eigenschaften ihre Getretenheit zu rechtfertigen. Von diesem Gefühl sind sehr edle und gerechte Philosophen nicht frei.
There is nothing more base than a certain loathing for the oppressed that goes to great lengths to justify their downtrodden state by pointing to their shortcomings. Not even great and lofty philosophers are entirely free of this failing.
Elias Canetti
The first reaction from members of the junior class should be an enormous sigh of relief. There will be one less set of tests to take during the school year. The second sigh will come from other students, faculty members, and the administrative team for two major reasons-the computer labs will now be available year round and schedules will not have to be rearranged for testing sessions.
In addition, the credibility of the SAT will most likely receive more buy-in from all stakeholders. Students know what the brand SAT is and what the scores mean; students are already invested in doing well for college applications. Even the shift from the old score of 1600 (pre-2005) to 2400 with the addition of an essay has been met with general understanding that a top score is 800 in each section (math, English, or essay). A student’s SAT scores are part of a college application, and a student may take the SAT repeatedly in order to submit the highest score.
In contrast, the SBAC brand never reported student individual results. The SABC was created as an assessment for collecting data for teacher and/or curriculum evaluation. When the predictions of the percentage of anticipated failures in math and English were released, there was frustration for teachers and additional disinterest by students. There was no ability to retake, and if predictions meant no one could pass, why should students even try?
My thoughts continued at: http://usedbooksinclass.com/2015/08/15/fyi-jrs-cts-ccss-sbac-doa-sat/