Why is the College Board so upset that only 43% are college ready? (I question if a 1550 is college ready, as that means when DD16 was in 7th grade, she was ready.)
According to the College Board report "SAT Benchmarks
Development of a College Readiness Benchmark and its
Relationship to Secondary and Postsecondary School Performance"
https://research.collegeboard.org/s...ness-benchmark-secondary-performance.pdfin 43% of the 2010 cohort were "ready". Even if the same fraction of all groups were ready, the higher earnings and other favorable outcomes of college graduates would motivate policymakers to raise this fraction. (I don't think it's possible, because of the IQ distribution without further degrading the BA.)
There is a further problem. According to the report, only 15% of blacks and 24% of Hispanics, vs. 53% of whites were ready. Only 15% of the children of non-high-school gradates were ready, compared to 52% and 68% of the children of parents with bachelors's and graduate degrees. It is very politically incorrect to assert that that these groups differences reflect real differences in ability that cannot be bridged. It's easier to talk about the malign influence of test prep and promise to create a new test impervious to test prep and producing much smaller gaps, while still predicting college grades. Actually making such a test will be more difficult.
