What's your source for education majors averaging in the 20th percentile on SATs?
(Note: she didn't say that education major scores AVERAGED the 20th percentile, only that it was possible.)
This site lists average SAT scores by major, presumably for 2013, which would be about when the would-be teachers in the OP were taking the SAT.
The average math score was 482, which is the
38th percentile. If you dig around the College Board site or do a web search, you'll find that education majors as a group have long had low SAT scores.
The College Board has set a math score of
530 as indicating that the student is ready for college-level work:
Students with an SAT Math section score that meets or exceeds the benchmark have a 75 percent chance of earning at least a C in first-semester, credit-bearing college courses in algebra, statistics, pre-calculus, or calculus.
Education major average reading scores were also 482, which puts them barely into the college-ready category. And that category has a low bar: a 75% chance of getting a C in "college courses" --- but I'm not sure why algebra and pre-calc are called college courses. They're high school courses. But we've dropped our expectations to a point where 11th grade math counts as a "college course" now.
In this sense, I don't blame education majors or anyone else who goes to college thinking they're ready for college classes when they aren't. Education romantics can pretend that algebra 2 is a college-level course by renaming it "college algebra," but that won't change the reality of STEM and other degrees that start with Calc 1. This is a bit OT, but IMO, it's shameful that we tell lies to children, encourage them to attempt majors for which they're unprepared, and then leave them with enormous student loan bills after they fail and drop out. It's wrong. Literally half of my eldest's freshman engineering class failed. He was aghast as he watched his classes shrink during the year. That is just wrong.
