The Education Wonks
I suspect we're seeing the end of the "SAT bubble," sort of like the currently deflating "real estate bubble."
Contrary to the sunshine pumped up our backsides by the admissions office, my collegues and I have noted a decline in student talent and motivation for several years. I won't speculate why, but most of my freshmen and sophomores have the attention spans of 5-year olds. No wonder a 5-hour process gets the best of them. And we expect 4 or more YEARS in college...
Excuse me, but if you change the test how valid is it to use previous, different tests as a benchmark?
The other question is, what difference does it make? The vast majority of people who take the SATs or even the ACTs will never graduate from college and will never have to read at a more than 5th or 6th grade level.
There was a great article in the Economist about a year ago that discussed the changes to the SAT, essentially saying that the new test hurt kids from disadvantaged backgrounds. The reasoning was in the sections the added, scoring well is more dependant on the education you recieve, while the parts they removed/cutback were a better measure fo raw "smarts" than taught "smarts", so a smart kid could do well on them dispite attending a LAUSD School.
As far as the SAT (after administering and proctoring it for 8 years), the new test is too long and overall its a way to make money playing off the fears of parents and students. (It used to be worse with "Score Choice" where you could pay to withhold your score reports until you saw the score, then pay to send them out.)
I acknowledge that I am no genius. But when you have 503 out of 800 that's 62%. Does that bother anyone else? I have the same issue with out state tests. When you use straight division of score/total possible the percentage is very low. Am I looking at it wrong mathematically? Or, are my concerns that we expect "meeting the standard" to mean a 60-80% span justified?
Sorry, it's supposed to be OUR state tests, not out, above!
One different point I don't get is how they can compare average scores from one year to the next. Don't they "normalize" the scores the way they do with the LSAT, such that the "average" raw score is correllated to a particular output score, leaving you with a nice more-or-less bell curve centered around the same score each year?
I guess a totally separate issue is how they can draw any meaningful comparison between last year's test, which was a significantly different format (not just a different set of questions).
Aquiram:
A 503 out of 800 doesn't mean they got a 62%. There certainly aren't 800 questions on each test.
Awhile back, the College Board decided to have each part of the test have a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100. Since three standard deviations from the mean in each direction captures 99.97% of all data, that range captures all the scores. So they calculate some raw score, find out how far it is away from the mean, and then convert it to a 200-800 score.
The mean has risen, and now has fallen, so the mean isn't 500 each year. There are questions on the exam that are the same from time to time. Looking at those questions, you can judge whether or not this "class" is smarter than the last "class" to take it.
The College Board says that there were many less kids taking the test for the second time this year. And since the second time through the test usually raises your score by about 30 points, the scores were lower. It wasn't the test's length that made the difference.
I'm surprised SAT doesn't publish the results of first time test takers this year with first time test takers last time. That should explain most of the difference.
Well of course the test and those who write it couldn't possibly have any bearing whatever on student performance. I'm certain that their tests are research based! And if you don't believe that their tests, including the greatly expanded time required to complete them, aren't literally perfect, simply ask them.
The $30K for low income and $100K for high income households might explain why lows declined and highs increased.
Maybe fewer households are making below $30K. And households with children taking the SAT are not necessarily typical households so national income statistics may not tell us much.
I can't give the answer but a general rise of incomes may have something to do with this. Or the way the figures are collected.
Honestly, I think it just shows that curriculum and the testing that goes with it have been dumbed down..so "rising test scores" are just an illusion because the tests are dumbed down.....and yes, low income, less prepared students can take the SAT's for free so perhaps they are accounting for a greater number of these test takers but SAT scores don't measure effort that many second language learners are willing to put in, which is massive..many will be very successful in college because they have the drive to do so.
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