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> That's not the R^2 of your SAT based on income; that's the R^2 of average scores within an income bucket. Predictability based on income is far, far lower - i

> That's not the R^2 of your SAT based on income; that's the R^2 of average scores within an income bucket. Predictability based on income is far, far lower - in fact, in California at least, both student ethnicity and parental education is more predictive as far as background factors go (https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9gs5v3pv https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9gs5v3pv). You write that as if you disagree with my comment, but then you go on to agree with it. Scores are highly predictable from income and factors like race. Yes. That's what makes standardized tests not just worthless, it makes them classist and racist. > Huh? Prior to tests, schools were even more classist. This is why tests were introduced, schools were claiming to admit people based on skill. But then the "wrong" people showed up with skills. So they introduced tests. You should read the history of testing that I linked to before, it explains this very nicely. > Standardized tests have also been used in all sorts of societies historically explicitly to break class lines. i.e. the Chinese Imperial Examinations (created over 2,000 years ago) intentionally were created so that candidates were not just merely young aristocrats recommended by other aristocrats (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination). You should totally read a book on this. I suggest "Civil examinations and meritocracy in late imperial China" by Elman. The examinations were extremely onerous and required pretty deep pockets. The exams were a way to choose among elites. Just like standardized tests today! > Of course, neither the history of testing or holistic admissions says anything about the actual value of them today. The fact that scores are basically a proxy for income+race does say something about their actual value today. Zero. Let's stop building on the infrastructure of racism and oppression that those who came before up put up.

usaar333 5y ago
> it makes them classist and racist. What do you mean by these terms? I'd argue that they only are if the results, conditional on future college performance, are biased by class or race. Are they? The article you linked doesn't say. > The exams were a way to choose among elites. Just like standardized tests today! What percent of students scoring over a 1500 on the SAT are from the top 1% of household earners? I doubt it is not a minority. There's obviously an income correlation, but it's far better than simply taking rich kids. How do you propose selecting students?
- light_hue_1 5y ago
  > What do you mean by these terms? By racist and classist? That an identical child, who happens to be born poor or who happens to be born with a darker skin color, will have fewer opportunities and worse life outcomes. That's literally what a racist society is. Where your skin color plays a large role in your fate. > How do you propose selecting students? Simple. We start with the society we want. One that is not racist and not classist. In other words, your skin color and the income of your parents should not play an overwhelming role in your life outcomes. We tell universities that if they want any federal funding they must admit classes that accurately reflect US demographics. 1% of the incoming class is from the top 1% of earners. Same for socioeconomic status. Colleges can do whatever they want, if they don't like the deal, that's fine, but they get no federal funding and they get no federally-backed student loans. You start with the outcomes you believe are just. And you set up incentives to get that outcome. That's literally what we do everywhere else. We tell car manufacturers that they need to make cars that have fewer emissions, we don't tell them how. They figure it out. Universities will figure out how to make this happen, they're full of smart people.
  - flowerlad 5y ago
    > That an identical child, who happens to be born poor or who happens to be born with a darker skin color, will have fewer opportunities and worse life outcomes. Yes, your appearance does have an impact on life outcomes, that much is true. But standardized tests are not to blame. In fact, standardized tests are the solution, because the test doesn't know what you look like. > 1% of the incoming class is from the top 1% of earners. If the 1% of earners are in the 1% because of being smart and because of being hard working, and the children inherit these traits, why punish the children for that?
  - usaar333 5y ago
    > who happens to be born poor Yes, that's troublesome, but it is inherently impossible to solve this. Less poor parents generally educate their children better (or at least keep their children in better environments), so this is difficult if not impossible to correct. I ensure my preschooler does her reading lessons every night - poorer parents (on average) don't. How are you supposed to correct for this? > or who happens to be born with a darker skin color Huh? Are you in tech? If anything, the "darker" kids were performing better at the schools I attended growing up (in the Bay Area). > We tell universities that if they want any federal funding they must admit classes that accurately reflect US demographics. 1% of the incoming class is from the top 1% of earners. Same for socioeconomic status. Well, demographics is a bit arbitrary, so the only way to do this across whatever you are trying to measure is to run a US-wide lottery for every school. This would functionally kill the concept of universities as tracked systems and I imagine it would be strictly better for all of the top schools to simply forgo federal funding to preserve their very purpose.
tester34 5y ago
>Scores are highly predictable from income and factors like race. Yes. That's what makes standardized tests not just worthless, it makes them classist and racist. Saying that "standarized test" is racist is some joke? What's your alternative then? >The fact that scores are basically a proxy for income+race does say something about their actual value today. Zero. Let's stop building on the infrastructure of racism and oppression that those who came before up put up. Skew the odds then? A lot of people do that, but it requires putting effort which in majority of the cases is what people lack - determination, desire and other.
- light_hue_1 5y ago
  > Saying that "standarized test" is racist is some joke? A joke? It's deadly serious. Standardized tests help entrench racist ideas and keep the poor out of good opportunities. > What's your alternative then? Simple. If universities want government funding they must admit classes that accurately represent the socioeconomic conditions of the wider population. 1% of the class can be in the top 1% of the income bracket. If a university doesn't like this, that's fine, they can go their own way. They get 0 federal dollars and no federal backing for student loans that go there. Let colleges figure this out. They're smart. You need to solve problems at the output level, what society you want. And we can all agree that the society we want is one where your skin color doesn't determine your fate.
  - flowerlad 5y ago
    > If universities want government funding they must admit classes that accurately represent the socioeconomic conditions of the wider population. 1% of the class can be in the top 1% of the income bracket. That's insane. They are in the top 1% because of being smarter and because of hard work (especially in the US, where they are more likely to have made their wealth on their own than inherited it). Their children are likely to inherit some of these traits. Limiting the number of smart & hard working kids in universities will lead to a dumber nation.
    - light_hue_1 5y ago
flowerlad 5y ago
> Scores are highly predictable from income and factors like race. Yes. That's what makes standardized tests not just worthless, it makes them classist and racist. Is there some aspect of standardized tests that makes the test easier for rich white kids while making it harder for others? If so the solution is to fix the test, not eliminate the test. It should be expected that in a nation that prides itself as the land of opportunity, there will be some correlation between wealth and the genes you were born with. Hard work is important, but it is not the only determinant. Being born smart is a factor too, right? Smarter parents beget smarter kids. If so there will be some correlation between wealth of parents and how well the kids do in tests. Blaming that on some kind of bias in standardized tests is insane.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Is there some aspect of standardized tests that makes the test easier for rich white kids while making it harder for others? Rich white kids are less likely to have, for one of many examples, been deliberately exposed to toxic levels of lead by action of their state government. There are a myriad of other unequally-distributed social and environmental impacts on cognitive function and academic ability, and evaluations of standardized testing tend to control for very few of them. Standardized testing reveals uncorrected racial and economic injustice, it isn’t the source of it. Blaming standardized testing is a way of avoiding addressing the problems it reveals.
- adrianN 5y ago
  Rich kids who have quiet rooms and can afford tutors have it easier than poor kids who have to share their room with siblings and can't afford tutors.
  - tester34 5y ago
    >Rich kids who have quiet rooms and can afford tutors I do agree that this is advantage, but nowadays there's internet and you can have cheap as fuck access to very good materials Been there, did that.

usaar333 5y ago

> it makes them classist and racist. What do you mean by these terms? I'd argue that they only are if the results, conditional on future college performance, are biased by class or race. Are they? The article you linked doesn't say. > The exams were a way to choose among elites. Just like standardized tests today! What percent of students scoring over a 1500 on the SAT are from the top 1% of household earners? I doubt it is not a minority. There's obviously an income correlation, but it's far better than simply taking rich kids. How do you propose selecting students?

light_hue_1 5y ago
> What do you mean by these terms? By racist and classist? That an identical child, who happens to be born poor or who happens to be born with a darker skin color, will have fewer opportunities and worse life outcomes. That's literally what a racist society is. Where your skin color plays a large role in your fate. > How do you propose selecting students? Simple. We start with the society we want. One that is not racist and not classist. In other words, your skin color and the income of your parents should not play an overwhelming role in your life outcomes. We tell universities that if they want any federal funding they must admit classes that accurately reflect US demographics. 1% of the incoming class is from the top 1% of earners. Same for socioeconomic status. Colleges can do whatever they want, if they don't like the deal, that's fine, but they get no federal funding and they get no federally-backed student loans. You start with the outcomes you believe are just. And you set up incentives to get that outcome. That's literally what we do everywhere else. We tell car manufacturers that they need to make cars that have fewer emissions, we don't tell them how. They figure it out. Universities will figure out how to make this happen, they're full of smart people.
- flowerlad 5y ago
  > That an identical child, who happens to be born poor or who happens to be born with a darker skin color, will have fewer opportunities and worse life outcomes. Yes, your appearance does have an impact on life outcomes, that much is true. But standardized tests are not to blame. In fact, standardized tests are the solution, because the test doesn't know what you look like. > 1% of the incoming class is from the top 1% of earners. If the 1% of earners are in the 1% because of being smart and because of being hard working, and the children inherit these traits, why punish the children for that?
- usaar333 5y ago
  > who happens to be born poor Yes, that's troublesome, but it is inherently impossible to solve this. Less poor parents generally educate their children better (or at least keep their children in better environments), so this is difficult if not impossible to correct. I ensure my preschooler does her reading lessons every night - poorer parents (on average) don't. How are you supposed to correct for this? > or who happens to be born with a darker skin color Huh? Are you in tech? If anything, the "darker" kids were performing better at the schools I attended growing up (in the Bay Area). > We tell universities that if they want any federal funding they must admit classes that accurately reflect US demographics. 1% of the incoming class is from the top 1% of earners. Same for socioeconomic status. Well, demographics is a bit arbitrary, so the only way to do this across whatever you are trying to measure is to run a US-wide lottery for every school. This would functionally kill the concept of universities as tracked systems and I imagine it would be strictly better for all of the top schools to simply forgo federal funding to preserve their very purpose.

tester34 5y ago

>Scores are highly predictable from income and factors like race. Yes. That's what makes standardized tests not just worthless, it makes them classist and racist. Saying that "standarized test" is racist is some joke? What's your alternative then? >The fact that scores are basically a proxy for income+race does say something about their actual value today. Zero. Let's stop building on the infrastructure of racism and oppression that those who came before up put up. Skew the odds then? A lot of people do that, but it requires putting effort which in majority of the cases is what people lack - determination, desire and other.

light_hue_1 5y ago
> Saying that "standarized test" is racist is some joke? A joke? It's deadly serious. Standardized tests help entrench racist ideas and keep the poor out of good opportunities. > What's your alternative then? Simple. If universities want government funding they must admit classes that accurately represent the socioeconomic conditions of the wider population. 1% of the class can be in the top 1% of the income bracket. If a university doesn't like this, that's fine, they can go their own way. They get 0 federal dollars and no federal backing for student loans that go there. Let colleges figure this out. They're smart. You need to solve problems at the output level, what society you want. And we can all agree that the society we want is one where your skin color doesn't determine your fate.
- flowerlad 5y ago
  > If universities want government funding they must admit classes that accurately represent the socioeconomic conditions of the wider population. 1% of the class can be in the top 1% of the income bracket. That's insane. They are in the top 1% because of being smarter and because of hard work (especially in the US, where they are more likely to have made their wealth on their own than inherited it). Their children are likely to inherit some of these traits. Limiting the number of smart & hard working kids in universities will lead to a dumber nation.
  - light_hue_1 5y ago

flowerlad 5y ago

> Scores are highly predictable from income and factors like race. Yes. That's what makes standardized tests not just worthless, it makes them classist and racist. Is there some aspect of standardized tests that makes the test easier for rich white kids while making it harder for others? If so the solution is to fix the test, not eliminate the test. It should be expected that in a nation that prides itself as the land of opportunity, there will be some correlation between wealth and the genes you were born with. Hard work is important, but it is not the only determinant. Being born smart is a factor too, right? Smarter parents beget smarter kids. If so there will be some correlation between wealth of parents and how well the kids do in tests. Blaming that on some kind of bias in standardized tests is insane.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> Is there some aspect of standardized tests that makes the test easier for rich white kids while making it harder for others? Rich white kids are less likely to have, for one of many examples, been deliberately exposed to toxic levels of lead by action of their state government. There are a myriad of other unequally-distributed social and environmental impacts on cognitive function and academic ability, and evaluations of standardized testing tend to control for very few of them. Standardized testing reveals uncorrected racial and economic injustice, it isn’t the source of it. Blaming standardized testing is a way of avoiding addressing the problems it reveals.
adrianN 5y ago
Rich kids who have quiet rooms and can afford tutors have it easier than poor kids who have to share their room with siblings and can't afford tutors.
- tester34 5y ago
  >Rich kids who have quiet rooms and can afford tutors I do agree that this is advantage, but nowadays there's internet and you can have cheap as fuck access to very good materials Been there, did that.