AuntShecky
03-12-2014, 05:19 PM
The New, Improved (?) SAT
The columnist and erstwhile television pundit Kathleen Parker always struck me as a pleasant and articulate woman, but I seldom agreed with her opinions. This past Sunday, I could have kissed her! Her take on the newly-vamped SAT (http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20140309/OPINION/303090016/Kathleen-Parker-What-do-SAT-changes-really-accomplish-?nclick_check=1) exams is sensible and sensitive.
Criticism of the College Board’s “Scholastic Aptitude Test” is hardly recent. For years we have been hearing how questions on the SAT carry a built-in racial, economic, and cultural bias. Having taken the SATS several decades ago, I can’t remember my scores which-- believe me-- is a good thing. But I do recall some of the questions. One was in the field of yachting, an unlikely avocation for a lower working class girl growing up a hundred miles or so inland. Another one referred to “Chippendale,” which I found out later meant a hoity-toity brand of furniture, not Disney’s animated pair of chipmunks, nor –much later -the name of a franchise of nightclubs featuring male strippers.
Though those accusations continue, cultural bias isn’t the primary reason the College Board “tweaked” the SAT. The real impetus for changing the tests,as Kathleen Parker cites, is the decreasing market share with the stampede of high school seniors defecting to a rival exam, the ACT. The pressure to revise the test was even greater because the average scores have been skewering lower.
“Owing to what?” Kathleen Parker wonders. “Surely not the gradual degradation of pre-college education. By making the test more ‘accessible,’ board officials theorize, more students will be able to attend college, where, presumably, they will flourish.”
But there’s the rub. Making the test “easier,” doesn’t really assess an individual student’s ability to do college-level work. This was the whole point of measuring “scholastic aptitude.” By no longer requiring a timed essay, the test won’t indicate whether the student has the ability to “compose a coherent sentence” or to unify his or her thoughts. The much-lampooned “analogy” questions –which the College Board dropped in 2005– had been designed to evaluate "cognitive ability. Can the kid think?”
Pampering college-bound students with a watered-down admissions test doesn’t do anybody a favor. If anything it would harm the kid, lulling him into believing that his high school preparation has vigorously prepared him for the rigorous study load for the next four years as well as employment opportunities after graduation.
Offering an effective admissions test isn’t really elitist or biased toward the wealthy class.As Kathleen Parker states,
“We all want a level playing field and equal opportunity for our children. This is fundamental to who we are. But if we really want to improve everyone’s eventual employment and success, the playing field has to be plowed and seeded well before the harvest of standardized testing.
It starts with schools and teachers, and everybody knows it.
Yet, today grades are inflated to massage low student self-esteem and justify flaws in curricula and instruction. In this setting, it seems that rigorous standardized testing is more crucial than ever. As for the income differential in comparing test scores, outcomes have more to do with access to good schools and teachers than whether certain words aren’t common among lower-income students.”
Your thoughts? Extra credit if you put your answer in the form of a coherent English sentence, not to mention the automatic 200 point bonus for signing your name.
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20140309/OPINION/303090016/Kathleen-Parker-What-do-SAT-changes-really-accomplish-?nclick_check=1
The columnist and erstwhile television pundit Kathleen Parker always struck me as a pleasant and articulate woman, but I seldom agreed with her opinions. This past Sunday, I could have kissed her! Her take on the newly-vamped SAT (http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20140309/OPINION/303090016/Kathleen-Parker-What-do-SAT-changes-really-accomplish-?nclick_check=1) exams is sensible and sensitive.
Criticism of the College Board’s “Scholastic Aptitude Test” is hardly recent. For years we have been hearing how questions on the SAT carry a built-in racial, economic, and cultural bias. Having taken the SATS several decades ago, I can’t remember my scores which-- believe me-- is a good thing. But I do recall some of the questions. One was in the field of yachting, an unlikely avocation for a lower working class girl growing up a hundred miles or so inland. Another one referred to “Chippendale,” which I found out later meant a hoity-toity brand of furniture, not Disney’s animated pair of chipmunks, nor –much later -the name of a franchise of nightclubs featuring male strippers.
Though those accusations continue, cultural bias isn’t the primary reason the College Board “tweaked” the SAT. The real impetus for changing the tests,as Kathleen Parker cites, is the decreasing market share with the stampede of high school seniors defecting to a rival exam, the ACT. The pressure to revise the test was even greater because the average scores have been skewering lower.
“Owing to what?” Kathleen Parker wonders. “Surely not the gradual degradation of pre-college education. By making the test more ‘accessible,’ board officials theorize, more students will be able to attend college, where, presumably, they will flourish.”
But there’s the rub. Making the test “easier,” doesn’t really assess an individual student’s ability to do college-level work. This was the whole point of measuring “scholastic aptitude.” By no longer requiring a timed essay, the test won’t indicate whether the student has the ability to “compose a coherent sentence” or to unify his or her thoughts. The much-lampooned “analogy” questions –which the College Board dropped in 2005– had been designed to evaluate "cognitive ability. Can the kid think?”
Pampering college-bound students with a watered-down admissions test doesn’t do anybody a favor. If anything it would harm the kid, lulling him into believing that his high school preparation has vigorously prepared him for the rigorous study load for the next four years as well as employment opportunities after graduation.
Offering an effective admissions test isn’t really elitist or biased toward the wealthy class.As Kathleen Parker states,
“We all want a level playing field and equal opportunity for our children. This is fundamental to who we are. But if we really want to improve everyone’s eventual employment and success, the playing field has to be plowed and seeded well before the harvest of standardized testing.
It starts with schools and teachers, and everybody knows it.
Yet, today grades are inflated to massage low student self-esteem and justify flaws in curricula and instruction. In this setting, it seems that rigorous standardized testing is more crucial than ever. As for the income differential in comparing test scores, outcomes have more to do with access to good schools and teachers than whether certain words aren’t common among lower-income students.”
Your thoughts? Extra credit if you put your answer in the form of a coherent English sentence, not to mention the automatic 200 point bonus for signing your name.
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20140309/OPINION/303090016/Kathleen-Parker-What-do-SAT-changes-really-accomplish-?nclick_check=1