Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Major Changes in SAT Announced by College Board

This brings to mind the use of the word "schooling" in a recent post. While schooling can be compared/contrasted with education, schooling can also be compared/contrasted with shoaling.

The terms education and shoaling both indicate a level of autonomy or independent thinking as contrasted with schooling's uniformity.

And what I find disturbing about this kind of testing is that under the right set of circumstances-- or in the right writing context, a surprising word choice which is still correct in the technical sense serves a different purpose entirely, and that kind of metacognitive skill (or its capacity, even) is ignored by this kind of testing.

It's driven my DD nearly mad over the years spent with people of this mindset (new SAT/SmarterBalanced, etc) writing assessment items.

There's a reason that she loved the ACT (well-- okay, but it was a relief because it seemed to make sense) and found the entire mindset behind the SAT to be a cipher. Ahem. And yes, that is the word that I want there.

Questions like that don't HAVE actual "right/wrong" answers half the time-- they have "expected" answers. Shame on College Board for not understanding the difference. Such questions are not in fact very good candidates for multiple choice assessment in the first place, in my estimation.



As for colleges being "less rigorous" because they CAN'T expect more than the students have been exposed to, well, I seriously can't see how that is anything but inflammatory rhetoric at this point. Yes, they want students in seats, but administrators simply don't control what individual faculty do, nor what external accrediting agencies will tolerate. Ultimately, higher ed HAS mostly ignored the erosion of secondary education in terms of adjusting standards. Oh, they may offer more remedial coursework-- but think about it-- that remedial coursework is cheap to teach and brings in even MORE tuition $$. It's unclear who "they" is that would "prevent" colleges from establishing their own standards for coursework or majors. The vocabulary in primary sources and ground-breaking historical works isn't getting any easier to read just because we'd wish it so, and passing boards is still as difficult as it's ever been, ergo preparation in professional programs is not going to "adjust" for ill-prepared students-- it'll just chew them up and spit them out again after collecting some tuition money from them. Honestly, this is just more bad news for middle class families since it makes it (IMO) less likely that they can successfully pursue the some fields.

I expect this is going after are pre-university courses like exist at the CA State Universities. When you enter Cal State you need to demonstrate a minimum level of math & writing skills. You can do this with certain grades on the SAT/ACT, AP Tests, or their own placement tests that can be taken while still in H.S. You can be admitted to the various campuses without passing these courses, but you can not start taking regular classes until you have taken and passed remedial coursework. Math and/or a writing class taught over the summer. This coursework does not count towards your degree and does cost money. My guess the above is trying to suggest that if you pass Common Core Algebra II it is the equivalent of passing the math test. Algebra II proficiency is what these tests look for now so I assume that is the equivalent course one would need to pass.

Problem with that is assuming the same quality over all Algebra II classes throughout the U.S. is going to be quite a challenge. How is that going to be implemented, require passing a standardized test? Isn't that just pushing the pea around the pod.

Heard of this being in the original RFPs for grant writing for Race to the Top. Milgram speaks of it in the documentary created by Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) here at about 18:40 - 19:28.

That is also my understanding.

Agreed! Consider this statement "… It is a shift about standards, it’s a shift about assessment because it means they will be equally measured, and it’s finally a shift about curriculum" at 3:33 – 3:38 in the documentary video. This seems to indicate that the quality across classes may be standardized by a shift in curriculum to that which seems correlated to the best assessment scores.

I think we need a source for the statement on common core and pre-test placement in sub-100 level remedial courses before we debate on that too much. "It has been indicated" obscures the source, and often indicates an appeal to authority fallacy. This may be much ado about nothing.

However...

It's worth stating that the use of sub-100 remedial courses is highly correlated with failure to attain a degree, so anything that reduces the use of such courses is a good thing. Realistically, they should not be needed by recent high school graduates, who should be graduating fully prepared for college. The fact that they're largely not prepared has been left as a problem for the colleges to solve, and the expansion of sub-100 courses is one of their very few options (rejecting applicants being another).

So, IF curriculum standards are designed such that certain courses aligned to them adequately prepare students for college, AND the grades earned in those classes reflect the level of success for the individual students in attaining that preparation, THEN it follows that for such students who completed such courses with sufficient grades, no pre-screening or remedial course placement should be necessary.

Some sources are more or less biased than others, as well. Just noting. I'm not seeing that College Board has alluded to anything of the sort on the credentialling front. It's not that they wouldn't, either-- they clearly DO just that with AP and CLEP, after all, and to a lesser extent, this is how they market subject tests.

Indeed, HK. I'm familiar with the writing placement exam for the UC system, since my local UC administered their test to all AP English students in their junior year of high school, as a practice. So I looked it up and saw that, yes, that's still a thing, though it's waived if you get a high enough score on the right sections of the SAT or ACT, or a passing grade on the AP English test.

Whether you take the UC test or not, you're still being assessed.

American society is committed to the idea that almost everyone should graduate from high school, including people with IQs in the 80s and 90s, who are just as numerous as the people with IQs in the 100s and 110s. You can give someone with a 90 IQ a high school diploma, but you cannot make him "fully prepared for college", unless you remove serious intellectual demands from college work.

On the other hand... for some, such phrases may refer to things which have become common knowledge, frequently discussed in some circles, and no longer needing a source. On a separate note: friend-of-a-friend eyewitness sources may be considered credible by those who know them, and making light reference to them here is not intended to subject individuals to scrutiny as this is not a court of law, but a forum of individuals with different knowledge bases.

Those seeking a primary source document rather than anecdotes may wish to file an open records request with their state department of education or public university for all documents related to Race to the Top, including RFPs.

When one offers research, some may want anecdotes... when one offers anecdotes, some may want primary source documents. C'est la vie. I do not feel the need to persuade or convince. In raising awareness that such ideas are part of the national discourse on common core, each person may respectfully follow his/her own inclinations and leanings.

Not all colleges are equally selective. Jason Zimba states the standards are “not for selective colleges” (20:49-21:24) in the video.