7 ms·

Amazon Asking Cities for Their High Schoolers' SAT Scores

80 points by meri_dian 9y ago

AdmiralAsshat 9y ago
Umm...are high schools authorized to share that kind of information with a giant retailer? What is to stop Amazon, or anyone else who asks, from simply using that data to target its advertising towards children?
- srtjstjsj 9y ago
  Most of the data is already public: https://blog.prepscholar.com/sat-scores-by-high-school-and-district https://blog.prepscholar.com/sat-scores-by-high-school-and-d...
- icebraining 9y ago
  I'm assuming they're asking for city-wide averages (they say "statistics" in the article), not individual results.
- alehul 9y ago
  It's actually public information, at least at a state level. Extrapolating that to the largest city in the state wouldn't be a hard process, and so I don't think it's concerning information if anonymized and aggregated. Also, as a Bostonian, I really hope this will edge us over Atlanta and whatnot, as MA has the highest standardized test scores in the nation. Been waiting for ages for this city to become more of a tech center.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    ISTM housing costs are the big barrier for Boston? Tech companies already know the area has plenty of talent. Expensive housing can be a difficult problem, since lots of vested interests are opposed to any effective solution.
    - mateo411 9y ago
      I think the reason the Boston is not more of a tech center is that MA law supports no compete clauses as condition for employment. CA has high housing prices where the tech industry is located. However, CA does not support no compete clauses for condition for employment.
      - alehul 9y ago
        There are definitely a lot of factors at play (education, etc. etc.), including a preferential attachment model where cities with established startups and funding opportunities will attract new startups. You've really hit the nail on the head, however, as that no-compete clause is, while perhaps even enticing to large companies, very restrictive to new startups. We seem to disproportionately have ideas about and go on some entrepreneurial mission in an area we already know intimately, usually related to our current employment. No-compete clauses destroy that entire basket of opportunities.
        jessaustin 9y ago
        That seems like a reason that no state besides California would have lots of startups? We're moving the goal posts a bit, however, since thread parent from Boston cares about tech jobs which is not the same as startups.
- xkjkls 9y ago
  Are there specific products you would be advertised to based on your SAT score?
  - AdmiralAsshat 9y ago
    SAT Prep guides, among other things? AP Exam study materials? Books on getting into your desired college?
    - xkjkls 9y ago
      But that's before you take your SATs, not afterwards.
      - AdmiralAsshat 9y ago
        If a school has comparatively high SAT scores, it stands to reason that the kids do SAT prep. Which means even the juniors and seniors are done with theirs, the freshmen and sophomores will be buying materials for the next year.
- Liquix 9y ago
  I'd imagine it's more content curation (i.e. prime video recommendations) and advertising products the kids would want to the parents in that area. This vein of advertisement is governed by strict 'truth in advertising' standards, but not much else. Amazon has something for everyone and therefore doesn't need to worry about false claims - they just need to know what to put in front of you.
- kevindong 9y ago
  I think most (but definitely at least some) of the departments of education at the state level release average SAT scores by high school/district annually. MA: https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2018/02/15/here-are-the-mass-highschools-with-the-highest-sat.html https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2018/02/15/here-are-... TX: https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2018/02/26/these-texas-high-schools-have-the-highest-sat.html https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2018/02/26/these-tex... NJ: http://www.nj.com/education/2018/01/the_50_nj_high_schools_with_the_best_sat_scores.html http://www.nj.com/education/2018/01/the_50_nj_high_schools_w... IL: http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/ct-school-report-card-sat-scores-2017-htmlstory.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/ct-school-report-card-... IN: https://www.doe.in.gov/sites/default/files/accountability/sat-corporation-and-school-20171113.xlsx https://www.doe.in.gov/sites/default/files/accountability/sa... VA: http://www.nbc12.com/story/33261679/look-sat-scores-show-wide-gaps-in-central-va-school-districts http://www.nbc12.com/story/33261679/look-sat-scores-show-wid... CA: http://data1.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/ http://data1.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/
- Pulcinella 9y ago
  Teacher here. Whether or not schools are authorized to share information like that, companies ask all the time. I get tons of junk mail sent directly to me at school (as does every other teacher) asking for student names, DOB, address, etc. or for me to give the students the forms directly for them to fill out and then mail back. It’s usually for very sketchy “scholarship” or “study abroad” opportunities (from companies and organizations no one has ever heard of and the return address is some random PO box in Deleware.) Sometimes, however, it’s from straight up marketing companies. The vast majority of teachers throw these things straight in the trash but some teachers will fill out any form they are given...
jweir 9y ago
The legality or the morality of this aside, I doubt this is being used as a metric for directly hiring those taking the SAT. My gut is telling me this is a metric to evaluate the education system for families to move there (or remain there). Having recently moved, education, was a huge metric – but it is tough to determine. SAT scores are much better than the state testing which vary from state to state. SAT scores gives you the outcome of K-12 experience. edit - typos
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  That doens't make sense. Cities typically have lower test scores than the wealthy upper class suburbs that surround them.
- learc83 9y ago
  >And SAT scores gives you the outcome of K-12. If you account for many other factors. The percentage of students that take the SAT in a given area is often overlooked, but it varies wildly by state. You also have to correct for racial/cultural, language, and income bias in SAT scores.
  - michaelt 9y ago
    You also have to account for racial/cultural, language, and income bias Whatever backlash Amazon faces for asking for overall average SAT scores, it's nothing compared to the backlash they'd get if they'd asked for average SAT scores for white and asian kids from married two-parent families with a six-figure household income, english as a first language and both parents college graduates.
    - smt88 9y ago
      They probably wouldn't need to ask for this. They can just combine public data sets with the SAT scores to come up with a rough, adjusted estimate. But that's assuming they'd even want to correct for any of the aforementioned biases. I doubt they care because their employees wouldn't care. "Good school" in some places often also means "white school" because of the nature of income disparities, but you never hear parents asking, "But when you say 'good,' are you adjusting for race?"
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
They've probably already chosen their finalists for the next round and are looking for a metric to justify their choice. Per [1] the list is currently Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Washington DC, and Columbus, Ohio. Boston has a tech workforce that has a lot in common with SillyValley so it seems like it would be a good culture fit and for a company like Amazon the benefits to being located in the same city and sharing the same workforce as the federal government are innumerable. Denver is SV-lite. If that's what they were looking for there's a lot of other West coast options that would be on the list. Dallas and Colombus seem to be the wildcards. They don't have the advantages or workforce or access that Boston or DC do but they're cheap and Amazon might be betting that its size and lack of competition there would let it dominate local politics. They might also be betting that they can tap into the "I'll move but not to CA" demographic" and get a good 5-10yr run as a monopoly on local talent until the tech scene there grows. Austin, Chicago and Atlanta seem like the middle ground between Boston/DC and Dallas/Columbus. I don't know enough about local economics in all those places to know how sorting by SAT scores would turn out. I'm betting DC and Boston are gonna make the next cut. I don't think Denver will make the cut. the other four I have no idea. [1]http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-reveals-hq2-candidates-2018-1?utm_source=markets&utm_medium=ingest http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-reveals-hq2-candidates... Edit: Not sure why I'm being down-voted here. Is my analysis wrong or is the suggestion that there exists people in tech who don't want to be part of the SV tech scene just that abhorrent? edit2 If I wanted to evaluate the pros and cons of all 20 cities listed in [1] I'd write a real article about it and post it on HN for internet points. I just evaluated the ones the author highlighted at the top.
- kd5bjo 9y ago
  Dallas has a sizeable tech workforce, but they're primarily telecom/embedded engineers instead of the webapp engineers you'll find in SV. It also has a major international airport that's halfway between the two coasts of the US.
  - sjm-lbm 9y ago
    Dallas also has a sizable amount of really unsexy business process automation-type development jobs - it's the original home if both EDS and Perot Systems, for instance, and DXC and NTT DATA still have sizable facilities there. Dallas isn't the #1 tech job location or anything, but there's a decent workforce and Amazon would be a fairly unique offering in the Dallas area.
account145345 9y ago
It is for silly purposes such as puns I guarantee it.
vinceguidry 9y ago
My mom was telling me yesterday that a big part of the political agenda in South Carolina revolves around education. Apparently, they're finding it very difficult to encourage companies to locate firms there because it's so difficult to find local talent. It costs far more to relocate people than it does to find someone local. So lots of legislative activity around education policies.
viburnum 9y ago
Haha, Amazon asked me for my SATs way back when too. What dopes.
foobaw 9y ago
Maybe they're trying to strategize on SAT Prep book marketing /s. Jokes aside, SAT score is not a good indicator of "success" in terms of salary at least in my personal circle. Some of my friends who got perfect scores on their SATs are all at sub-standard jobs, getting paid significantly less than the average salary. Of course, this is purely based on personal anecdote but attending top-tier schools seem to have a stronger correlation.
- lotsofpulp 9y ago
  Top tier schools are a proxy for people who score high on SATs, and/or have wealthy networks that can get them in. Many of the companies that pay the most only recruit at specific schools for this very reason, the high hurdles of getting into the school itself give them candidates that have higher chances of being successful hires. SAT is not a good indicator of success for a specific individual, but when sifting through thousands of people, it seemingly is a useful metric.
- pkaye 9y ago
  Do you feel that SAT scores have a negative correlation to "success"?
- mikeash 9y ago
  A quick Google for “correlation between sat and salary” reveals a pretty strong correlation. I wouldn’t take your personal observation as meaning anything here.
lithos 9y ago
Amazon kinda already has a metric for this based on what areas are buying prep books.
walterkobayashi 9y ago
So, Boston wins!

80 points by meri_dian 9y ago

Umm...are high schools authorized to share that kind of information with a giant retailer? What is to stop Amazon, or anyone else who asks, from simply using that data to target its advertising towards children?

srtjstjsj 9y ago
Most of the data is already public: https://blog.prepscholar.com/sat-scores-by-high-school-and-district https://blog.prepscholar.com/sat-scores-by-high-school-and-d...
icebraining 9y ago
I'm assuming they're asking for city-wide averages (they say "statistics" in the article), not individual results.
alehul 9y ago
It's actually public information, at least at a state level. Extrapolating that to the largest city in the state wouldn't be a hard process, and so I don't think it's concerning information if anonymized and aggregated. Also, as a Bostonian, I really hope this will edge us over Atlanta and whatnot, as MA has the highest standardized test scores in the nation. Been waiting for ages for this city to become more of a tech center.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  ISTM housing costs are the big barrier for Boston? Tech companies already know the area has plenty of talent. Expensive housing can be a difficult problem, since lots of vested interests are opposed to any effective solution.
  - mateo411 9y ago
    I think the reason the Boston is not more of a tech center is that MA law supports no compete clauses as condition for employment. CA has high housing prices where the tech industry is located. However, CA does not support no compete clauses for condition for employment.
    - alehul 9y ago
      There are definitely a lot of factors at play (education, etc. etc.), including a preferential attachment model where cities with established startups and funding opportunities will attract new startups. You've really hit the nail on the head, however, as that no-compete clause is, while perhaps even enticing to large companies, very restrictive to new startups. We seem to disproportionately have ideas about and go on some entrepreneurial mission in an area we already know intimately, usually related to our current employment. No-compete clauses destroy that entire basket of opportunities.
      - jessaustin 9y ago
        That seems like a reason that no state besides California would have lots of startups? We're moving the goal posts a bit, however, since thread parent from Boston cares about tech jobs which is not the same as startups.
xkjkls 9y ago
Are there specific products you would be advertised to based on your SAT score?
- AdmiralAsshat 9y ago
  SAT Prep guides, among other things? AP Exam study materials? Books on getting into your desired college?
  - xkjkls 9y ago
    But that's before you take your SATs, not afterwards.
    - AdmiralAsshat 9y ago
      If a school has comparatively high SAT scores, it stands to reason that the kids do SAT prep. Which means even the juniors and seniors are done with theirs, the freshmen and sophomores will be buying materials for the next year.
Liquix 9y ago
I'd imagine it's more content curation (i.e. prime video recommendations) and advertising products the kids would want to the parents in that area. This vein of advertisement is governed by strict 'truth in advertising' standards, but not much else. Amazon has something for everyone and therefore doesn't need to worry about false claims - they just need to know what to put in front of you.
kevindong 9y ago
I think most (but definitely at least some) of the departments of education at the state level release average SAT scores by high school/district annually. MA: https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2018/02/15/here-are-the-mass-highschools-with-the-highest-sat.html https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2018/02/15/here-are-... TX: https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2018/02/26/these-texas-high-schools-have-the-highest-sat.html https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2018/02/26/these-tex... NJ: http://www.nj.com/education/2018/01/the_50_nj_high_schools_with_the_best_sat_scores.html http://www.nj.com/education/2018/01/the_50_nj_high_schools_w... IL: http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/ct-school-report-card-sat-scores-2017-htmlstory.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/ct-school-report-card-... IN: https://www.doe.in.gov/sites/default/files/accountability/sat-corporation-and-school-20171113.xlsx https://www.doe.in.gov/sites/default/files/accountability/sa... VA: http://www.nbc12.com/story/33261679/look-sat-scores-show-wide-gaps-in-central-va-school-districts http://www.nbc12.com/story/33261679/look-sat-scores-show-wid... CA: http://data1.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/ http://data1.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/
Pulcinella 9y ago
Teacher here. Whether or not schools are authorized to share information like that, companies ask all the time. I get tons of junk mail sent directly to me at school (as does every other teacher) asking for student names, DOB, address, etc. or for me to give the students the forms directly for them to fill out and then mail back. It’s usually for very sketchy “scholarship” or “study abroad” opportunities (from companies and organizations no one has ever heard of and the return address is some random PO box in Deleware.) Sometimes, however, it’s from straight up marketing companies. The vast majority of teachers throw these things straight in the trash but some teachers will fill out any form they are given...

jweir 9y ago

The legality or the morality of this aside, I doubt this is being used as a metric for directly hiring those taking the SAT. My gut is telling me this is a metric to evaluate the education system for families to move there (or remain there). Having recently moved, education, was a huge metric – but it is tough to determine. SAT scores are much better than the state testing which vary from state to state. SAT scores gives you the outcome of K-12 experience. edit - typos

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
That doens't make sense. Cities typically have lower test scores than the wealthy upper class suburbs that surround them.
learc83 9y ago
>And SAT scores gives you the outcome of K-12. If you account for many other factors. The percentage of students that take the SAT in a given area is often overlooked, but it varies wildly by state. You also have to correct for racial/cultural, language, and income bias in SAT scores.
- michaelt 9y ago
  You also have to account for racial/cultural, language, and income bias Whatever backlash Amazon faces for asking for overall average SAT scores, it's nothing compared to the backlash they'd get if they'd asked for average SAT scores for white and asian kids from married two-parent families with a six-figure household income, english as a first language and both parents college graduates.
  - smt88 9y ago
    They probably wouldn't need to ask for this. They can just combine public data sets with the SAT scores to come up with a rough, adjusted estimate. But that's assuming they'd even want to correct for any of the aforementioned biases. I doubt they care because their employees wouldn't care. "Good school" in some places often also means "white school" because of the nature of income disparities, but you never hear parents asking, "But when you say 'good,' are you adjusting for race?"

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

They've probably already chosen their finalists for the next round and are looking for a metric to justify their choice. Per [1] the list is currently Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Washington DC, and Columbus, Ohio. Boston has a tech workforce that has a lot in common with SillyValley so it seems like it would be a good culture fit and for a company like Amazon the benefits to being located in the same city and sharing the same workforce as the federal government are innumerable. Denver is SV-lite. If that's what they were looking for there's a lot of other West coast options that would be on the list. Dallas and Colombus seem to be the wildcards. They don't have the advantages or workforce or access that Boston or DC do but they're cheap and Amazon might be betting that its size and lack of competition there would let it dominate local politics. They might also be betting that they can tap into the "I'll move but not to CA" demographic" and get a good 5-10yr run as a monopoly on local talent until the tech scene there grows. Austin, Chicago and Atlanta seem like the middle ground between Boston/DC and Dallas/Columbus. I don't know enough about local economics in all those places to know how sorting by SAT scores would turn out. I'm betting DC and Boston are gonna make the next cut. I don't think Denver will make the cut. the other four I have no idea. [1]http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-reveals-hq2-candidates-2018-1?utm_source=markets&utm_medium=ingest http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-reveals-hq2-candidates... Edit: Not sure why I'm being down-voted here. Is my analysis wrong or is the suggestion that there exists people in tech who don't want to be part of the SV tech scene just that abhorrent? edit2 If I wanted to evaluate the pros and cons of all 20 cities listed in [1] I'd write a real article about it and post it on HN for internet points. I just evaluated the ones the author highlighted at the top.

kd5bjo 9y ago
Dallas has a sizeable tech workforce, but they're primarily telecom/embedded engineers instead of the webapp engineers you'll find in SV. It also has a major international airport that's halfway between the two coasts of the US.
- sjm-lbm 9y ago
  Dallas also has a sizable amount of really unsexy business process automation-type development jobs - it's the original home if both EDS and Perot Systems, for instance, and DXC and NTT DATA still have sizable facilities there. Dallas isn't the #1 tech job location or anything, but there's a decent workforce and Amazon would be a fairly unique offering in the Dallas area.

account145345 9y ago

It is for silly purposes such as puns I guarantee it.

vinceguidry 9y ago

My mom was telling me yesterday that a big part of the political agenda in South Carolina revolves around education. Apparently, they're finding it very difficult to encourage companies to locate firms there because it's so difficult to find local talent. It costs far more to relocate people than it does to find someone local. So lots of legislative activity around education policies.

viburnum 9y ago

Haha, Amazon asked me for my SATs way back when too. What dopes.

foobaw 9y ago

Maybe they're trying to strategize on SAT Prep book marketing /s. Jokes aside, SAT score is not a good indicator of "success" in terms of salary at least in my personal circle. Some of my friends who got perfect scores on their SATs are all at sub-standard jobs, getting paid significantly less than the average salary. Of course, this is purely based on personal anecdote but attending top-tier schools seem to have a stronger correlation.

lotsofpulp 9y ago
Top tier schools are a proxy for people who score high on SATs, and/or have wealthy networks that can get them in. Many of the companies that pay the most only recruit at specific schools for this very reason, the high hurdles of getting into the school itself give them candidates that have higher chances of being successful hires. SAT is not a good indicator of success for a specific individual, but when sifting through thousands of people, it seemingly is a useful metric.
pkaye 9y ago
Do you feel that SAT scores have a negative correlation to "success"?
mikeash 9y ago
A quick Google for “correlation between sat and salary” reveals a pretty strong correlation. I wouldn’t take your personal observation as meaning anything here.

lithos 9y ago

Amazon kinda already has a metric for this based on what areas are buying prep books.

walterkobayashi 9y ago

So, Boston wins!