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> 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 raci

> 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.

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.