6 ms·

Deciding whether or not the SAT is equitable, fair, or valuable shouldn't have any anecdotal component. For every one person with a story like yours, there is s

by cmh89 5y ago

Deciding whether or not the SAT is equitable, fair, or valuable shouldn't have any anecdotal component. For every one person with a story like yours, there is someone who had a bad experience with it for reasons outside of their control. I did exceptionally well in take home or book assignments because I understand the subject matter, but never was a good test taker. I took the ACT and did 'fine' but I could have done much better in an untimed, open book environment. What are we trying to measure with these tests? Your memory? Your ability to devote time to studying? At the end of the day, tests like the ACT/SAT will always privilege people who can afford to spend more time on it. Lots of kids do better because their parents spend thousands on tutoring. Other kids of the same skill level do worse because they work 25 hours a week to help their family make rent. No amount of change in 'access' can overcome that. Knowledge and skill is complicated and trying to boil it down to a timed test isn't a particularly useful measure.

rayiner 5y ago
That kid working 25 hours a week to help their family make rent is going to have an easier time buckling down for one test than keeping up their GPA over four years. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2021/03/23/standardized-testing-poor-students-sat-benefit-identify-column/4800781001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2021/03/23/sta...
- cmh89 5y ago
  I agree that there are issues with GPA too, but despite saying that it's easier to take one test than it is to maintain a high GPA throughout high school, that's opinion. Teachers can work with over extended students to help them while they are in school I can't really speak to your opinion piece because its behind a paywall
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    It's written by a contributer to the National Review, if that helps you decide whether you're missing out on anything important: https://theintercept.com/2020/07/05/national-review-william-buckley-racism/ https://theintercept.com/2020/07/05/national-review-william-...
    - cmh89 5y ago
      Ah, so it's the digital equivalent of trying to read soiled toilet paper. Got it
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - spaced-out 5y ago
    >Teachers can work with over extended students to help them while they are in school They can, but will they? Plus, it seems like GPA would be even easier for the wealthy to game, many fancy prep schools sell themselves on their ability to place kids in good colleges. If those kids no longer need to perform well on a standardized tests they just need a high GPA, that seems even easier from the school to guarantee.
  - rayiner 5y ago
    Privileged kids have an even bigger advantage in GPA. They can afford to harangue teachers for retakes, accommodations, etc. The kid working in his parents restaurant can afford prep, but his parents can’t afford time to game GPA.
    - blackgirldev 5y ago
      Not just that his parents don’t have time; in many places, parent’s social standing has an impact on the teacher’s willingness to be flexible.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
  How does that work? You’re saying a child being literally homeless can focus on keeping GPA up?
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    You got the point of the parent comment backward. It’s specifically easier for a bright child in poverty to ace one test than to maintain a GPA for four years.
    - nonethewiser 5y ago
      You're 100% correct but people will argue SAT performance is more a function of privelege than being bright.
    - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
      But how can it be better for child study to ace the test when they’re homeless rather than they work to help avoid homelessness and maybe not study so much?
starchild_3001 5y ago
Not sure what data you're talking about. What I've seen so far: SAT <-> Income are correlated => let's not rely on SAT? That's such a BS argument. Anything related to income will be (statistically speaking) associated with intelligence and other personal traits (perseverance etc). Any of this will be obviously correlated with your kid's SAT --- it's called genetics. Any other, more sensible data to look at?
- dsr_ 5y ago
  It's never the kid's income, though. It's always the parents' income.
- tdeck 5y ago
  > Anything related to income will be (statistically speaking) associated with intelligence and other personal traits (perseverance etc). Any of this will be obviously correlated with your kid's SAT --- it's called genetics. No, it's called social darwinism.
  - starchild_3001 5y ago
    tdeck, genetics is a statistical phenomena. Your parents being smart/strong/fast runner/good in music etc doesn't turn you into one of these instantly, but they're statistically correlated with you having similar abilities and traits. How can you argue against this? Isn't this obvious? Isn't this what genetics is all about --- parents' genes being passed to offspring? You're either blinded by your ideology... or maybe don't understand biology.
JPKab 5y ago
The SAT is an extremely high predictor for IQ. It correlates incredibly well. I grew up in a trailer park, and didn't have access to the test prep industry, so I understand that wealthier kids had a big edge. That being said, nobody is talking about the SAT being biased against poor kids. They are pretending that it's purely a racist, culturally-biased test due to its outcome of having average scores that are hundreds of points lower for certain ethnic groups. And like all hamfisted efforts at "equity", it will benefit the most privileged members of the favored class at the expense of the least privileged members of the disfavored class. Rich Black kids will gain the most, and poor Asian and White kids will lose the most. Poor Asian kids are already getting screwed. My best friend is the child of dirt poor Cambodian refugees, but the college admissions people treated him as if he was the son of college educated Korean immigrants. Obama's daughters will never be held back in life, and this ideology makes no room for that fact, or the fact that a pale kid born to a single mom in a trailer park is, statistically, screwed.
- cmh89 5y ago
  Plenty of people recognize that the SAT is bias against poor kids https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/07/why-poor-schools-cant-win-at-standardized-testing/374287/ https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/07/why-po... The reason that the racial component comes out is that Black children are over-represented in poor communities due to systemic racism
  - atweiden 5y ago
    What JPKab said is entirely true. The SAT is known to correlate strongly with general intelligence, which is determined almost exclusively by hereditary factors outside a person’s control [1]. The data clearly suggests lower class persons of east asian descent will disproportionately suffer the consequences of this policy. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/16/books/what-is-intelligence-and-who-has-it.html https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/16/books/what-is-intelligenc... [1]: https://www.nytimes3xbfgragh.onion/1994/10/16/books/what-is-intelligence-and-who-has-it.html https://www.nytimes3xbfgragh.onion/1994/10/16/books/what-is-...
  - 5y ago
BurningFrog 5y ago
> At the end of the day, tests like the ACT/SAT will always privilege people who can afford to spend more time on it. Lots of kids do better because their parents spend thousands on tutoring. This i true, but the effect is small. The studies I've seen mentioned say 50-100 points.
- ericd 5y ago
  Seriously, most of the gains you get from test prep are from taking a few practice tests to get comfortable with the format and the question types. I found a $20 test prep book more useful than the course I took (which mostly consisted of giving us a practice tests anyway). If I’d needed help with fundamental Algebra and Geometry, to the point of needing tutoring, a selective college would not have been the right place for me, frankly. The problem is much more fundamental, we need to try to solve the severe economic stresses for underprivileged kids’ families if we want them to have a fair shot at higher education and the success it supposedly grants, not these little tactical band-aids. They need economic opportunities and safety nets.
hedora 5y ago
The article presents a lot of relevant data. In particular, about half the people that got in with high test scores but low grades were from under privileged groups. I’d wager that such groups are less than half the population of admitted students.
nonethewiser 5y ago
Even if all of that is true it's not an SAT problem.

by cmh89 5y ago

rayiner 5y ago

That kid working 25 hours a week to help their family make rent is going to have an easier time buckling down for one test than keeping up their GPA over four years. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2021/03/23/standardized-testing-poor-students-sat-benefit-identify-column/4800781001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2021/03/23/sta...

cmh89 5y ago
I agree that there are issues with GPA too, but despite saying that it's easier to take one test than it is to maintain a high GPA throughout high school, that's opinion. Teachers can work with over extended students to help them while they are in school I can't really speak to your opinion piece because its behind a paywall
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  It's written by a contributer to the National Review, if that helps you decide whether you're missing out on anything important: https://theintercept.com/2020/07/05/national-review-william-buckley-racism/ https://theintercept.com/2020/07/05/national-review-william-...
  - cmh89 5y ago
    Ah, so it's the digital equivalent of trying to read soiled toilet paper. Got it
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- spaced-out 5y ago
  >Teachers can work with over extended students to help them while they are in school They can, but will they? Plus, it seems like GPA would be even easier for the wealthy to game, many fancy prep schools sell themselves on their ability to place kids in good colleges. If those kids no longer need to perform well on a standardized tests they just need a high GPA, that seems even easier from the school to guarantee.
- rayiner 5y ago
  Privileged kids have an even bigger advantage in GPA. They can afford to harangue teachers for retakes, accommodations, etc. The kid working in his parents restaurant can afford prep, but his parents can’t afford time to game GPA.
  - blackgirldev 5y ago
    Not just that his parents don’t have time; in many places, parent’s social standing has an impact on the teacher’s willingness to be flexible.
SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
How does that work? You’re saying a child being literally homeless can focus on keeping GPA up?
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  You got the point of the parent comment backward. It’s specifically easier for a bright child in poverty to ace one test than to maintain a GPA for four years.
  - nonethewiser 5y ago
    You're 100% correct but people will argue SAT performance is more a function of privelege than being bright.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
    But how can it be better for child study to ace the test when they’re homeless rather than they work to help avoid homelessness and maybe not study so much?

starchild_3001 5y ago

Not sure what data you're talking about. What I've seen so far: SAT <-> Income are correlated => let's not rely on SAT? That's such a BS argument. Anything related to income will be (statistically speaking) associated with intelligence and other personal traits (perseverance etc). Any of this will be obviously correlated with your kid's SAT --- it's called genetics. Any other, more sensible data to look at?

dsr_ 5y ago
It's never the kid's income, though. It's always the parents' income.
tdeck 5y ago
> Anything related to income will be (statistically speaking) associated with intelligence and other personal traits (perseverance etc). Any of this will be obviously correlated with your kid's SAT --- it's called genetics. No, it's called social darwinism.
- starchild_3001 5y ago
  tdeck, genetics is a statistical phenomena. Your parents being smart/strong/fast runner/good in music etc doesn't turn you into one of these instantly, but they're statistically correlated with you having similar abilities and traits. How can you argue against this? Isn't this obvious? Isn't this what genetics is all about --- parents' genes being passed to offspring? You're either blinded by your ideology... or maybe don't understand biology.

JPKab 5y ago

The SAT is an extremely high predictor for IQ. It correlates incredibly well. I grew up in a trailer park, and didn't have access to the test prep industry, so I understand that wealthier kids had a big edge. That being said, nobody is talking about the SAT being biased against poor kids. They are pretending that it's purely a racist, culturally-biased test due to its outcome of having average scores that are hundreds of points lower for certain ethnic groups. And like all hamfisted efforts at "equity", it will benefit the most privileged members of the favored class at the expense of the least privileged members of the disfavored class. Rich Black kids will gain the most, and poor Asian and White kids will lose the most. Poor Asian kids are already getting screwed. My best friend is the child of dirt poor Cambodian refugees, but the college admissions people treated him as if he was the son of college educated Korean immigrants. Obama's daughters will never be held back in life, and this ideology makes no room for that fact, or the fact that a pale kid born to a single mom in a trailer park is, statistically, screwed.

cmh89 5y ago
Plenty of people recognize that the SAT is bias against poor kids https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/07/why-poor-schools-cant-win-at-standardized-testing/374287/ https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/07/why-po... The reason that the racial component comes out is that Black children are over-represented in poor communities due to systemic racism
- atweiden 5y ago
  What JPKab said is entirely true. The SAT is known to correlate strongly with general intelligence, which is determined almost exclusively by hereditary factors outside a person’s control [1]. The data clearly suggests lower class persons of east asian descent will disproportionately suffer the consequences of this policy. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/16/books/what-is-intelligence-and-who-has-it.html https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/16/books/what-is-intelligenc... [1]: https://www.nytimes3xbfgragh.onion/1994/10/16/books/what-is-intelligence-and-who-has-it.html https://www.nytimes3xbfgragh.onion/1994/10/16/books/what-is-...
- 5y ago

BurningFrog 5y ago

> At the end of the day, tests like the ACT/SAT will always privilege people who can afford to spend more time on it. Lots of kids do better because their parents spend thousands on tutoring. This i true, but the effect is small. The studies I've seen mentioned say 50-100 points.

ericd 5y ago
Seriously, most of the gains you get from test prep are from taking a few practice tests to get comfortable with the format and the question types. I found a $20 test prep book more useful than the course I took (which mostly consisted of giving us a practice tests anyway). If I’d needed help with fundamental Algebra and Geometry, to the point of needing tutoring, a selective college would not have been the right place for me, frankly. The problem is much more fundamental, we need to try to solve the severe economic stresses for underprivileged kids’ families if we want them to have a fair shot at higher education and the success it supposedly grants, not these little tactical band-aids. They need economic opportunities and safety nets.

hedora 5y ago

The article presents a lot of relevant data. In particular, about half the people that got in with high test scores but low grades were from under privileged groups. I’d wager that such groups are less than half the population of admitted students.

nonethewiser 5y ago

Even if all of that is true it's not an SAT problem.