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Joined: Feb 2010
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http://www.nationalreview.com/corne...se-alarm-about-sat-scores-jason-richwineThe College Board’s False Alarm about SAT Scores By Jason Richwine National Review September 26, 2013 It’s time again for the yearly ritual: The College Board releases data on recent SAT scores, which show some large percentage of American students are not “college ready.” The alarm is sounded. Much hand-wringing follows. Wash, rinse, repeat.
The Atlantic has helped move things along this time with an article entitled “This Year’s SAT Scores Are Out, and They’re Grim.” The article warns, “For the fifth year in a row, fewer than half of SAT-takers received scores that qualified them as ‘college-ready.’”
Absent from the article is any discussion of what percentage of students should be college-ready. How can the results be “grim” without some a priori understanding of what constitutes success?
In reality, there is a substantial fraction of students for whom “college ready” is not an appropriate goal. The costly four-year-college track simply does not suit the interests and abilities of many young people who are pushed into it.
Rather than gnashing teeth about college readiness each year, a more productive activity would be to analyze the degree to which our school system is tailoring instruction to individual student needs. For example, is vocational training available to kids who want it? Are two-year technical degrees advertised properly? Are gifted students challenged enough? These are much more important topics than tabulating what percentage of students pass an arbitrary test-score threshold.
It would also be nice if more media outlets noted the College Board’s conflict of interest here. In releasing the data, the College Board issued a “call to action,” saying, “These scores can and must change — and the College Board feels a sense of responsibility to help make that happen.” And, coincidentally, ensuring these scores go up will require everyone to purchase College Board exams for years to come!
It gets worse. The College Board offers some speculative reasons about why some students are college-ready and others are not. One is that more college-ready students took the PSAT. (Guess who sells the PSAT.) Another is that college-ready students took more AP tests. (Guess who sells AP tests.) Still another is that more college-ready students completed a “core curriculum.” (Guess who will be selling tests based on the Common Core national standards.)
Ginning up alarm may be lucrative business, but education policy requires a more mature discourse.
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The College Board appears to not understand the basic concept that correlation does not imply causation, which is somewhat troubling.
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Oh, but that's okay. They're going to fix it with "re-alignment" anyway. (Check out who's now running the show at CB these days... and take a gander at his vita.)  In this case, maybe quite literally-- an observed (er-- or 'unearthed' perhaps) correlation is causation. LOL.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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Joined: Feb 2011
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The College Board appears to not understand the basic concept that correlation does not imply causation, which is somewhat troubling. Makes you feel a LOT better about the fact that neither the SAT nor the PSAT includes a "Science" section, doesn't it? 
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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Joined: Aug 2010
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However, there's something to be said for feeling concerned about the fact that THOSE WHO TAKE THE SAT are not college-ready. If it was "those who graduate from high school," the bits about vo-tech, technical degrees, etc would be more relevant.
What percentage of students take the SAT but do not then attend college? Anyone know?
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Joined: Sep 2013
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Somewhere along the way, going to college became the only acceptable outcome for a high school student. I believe this has led to many of the sad stories about high college debt/no job graduates, industries who cannot find skilled workers (i.e. technical/vocational skills), etc.
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Well, I don't think there are huge numbers of jobs for HS graduates going begging out there for a lack of skilled workers. Some, perhaps, and better vo-tech and training is something to look at, but the larger issue as I understand it is that we have transitioned from a manufacturing economy to a service economy, and those jobs don't pay well.
The concern I see about vo-tech is that you can end up using your educational years to train for a specific job that may become obsolete. Algebra and writing skills do not become obsolete.
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Joined: Feb 2011
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However, there's something to be said for feeling concerned about the fact that THOSE WHO TAKE THE SAT are not college-ready. If it was "those who graduate from high school," the bits about vo-tech, technical degrees, etc would be more relevant.
What percentage of students take the SAT but do not then attend college? Anyone know? I addressed this very briefly yesterday with someone else, so I happen to have some info handy. CB's own 2013 SAT report One of the most distressing things IN that report, imo, was that some 42% of the students who scored below that 1550 combined benchmark had taken "advanced" high school coursework... AP/honors.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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H.S. graduates generally still need additional training and good math and literacy schools, but everything I read suggests that there are indeed jobs for those with skills. For example, construction companies are reporting a serious dearth of skilled works. Yes, some types of training may need to be refreshed if the job marketplace changes, but the investment of time and resources is also not normally the same as a four-year college education. Here's one article on the subject. http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/14/smallbusiness/trade-schools/index.htmSkills don't necessary need to be manufacturing oriented, either.
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Uh, I'm just skimming the Board's report but it looks like Mr. Richwine (wasn't there a scandal about this guy?) is not being forthright. I don't see where "The College Board offers some speculative reasons about why some students are college-ready and others are not." Actually, I don't see any direct claim that "college-ready students took more AP tests" or that "more college-ready students took the PSAT." Might have missed it. He's correct about "more college-ready students completed a “core curriculum," but of course, that's not the same as Common Core, which we all know is a new thing.
What the report does say is that students who scored higher on AP tests also scored higher on the SAT, and that students who scored higher on the PSAT score higher on the SAT. Duh. And it tries to sell us the value of the PSAT as an early indicator. But I don't see ANY claims that taking the PSAT or taking AP exams makes you get a higher score on the SAT.
Again, I'm just skimming, but from where I stand this look like like poor journalism from the National Review.
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