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ACT, college sports, discrimination, A proposal recently released by The National Association of Basketball Coaches requests the NCAA remove an eligibility requirement to submit SAT or ACT scores. In the proposal, put forth by the Committee on Racial Reconciliation, the NABC decries the two tests as wicked forces of institutional racism that should be “jettisoned for that reason alone.” The committee was formed last month, and the proposal shows it.Their argument runs like this: the SAT was created in 1926 by the eugenicist Carl Brigham. Brigham intended the test to demonstrate the racial superiority of white blood. His project, of...

More students in the U.S. are coming homes with A’s on their report cards, while overall SAT scores are dropping, according to a Harvard study. The Harvard Graduate School of Education found that nearly half (47%) of all high school students in 2016 had an A average on their report cards, compared to 38.9% in 1998. Meanwhile, their average SAT score fell from 1,026 to 1,002 on a 1,600 point scale. Additionally, the study found that only 56% of those students end up completing a four-year degree within six years of entering college.

The most recent Census Bureau data reveals that of the $3.2 trillion in total expenditures by state and local governments in 2012, public education accounted for the highest percent at nearly 28 percent, California is home to what appears to be the most wasteful K-12 spenders. ... 11 of California’s 16 most-populated cities score in the bottom 25 of U.S. cities on standard tests. The worst performing cities have in common the very high percentages of households where English is not spoken as a first language. Research shows that the language barrier can have a disastrous effect on learning outcomes....

All we can say is that the need for the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too has never been greater.

SAT reading scores for graduating high school seniors this year reached the lowest point in nearly four decades, reflecting a steady decline in performance in that subject on the college admissions test, the College Board reported Wednesday. In the Washington area, one of the nation’s leading producers of college-bound students, educators were scrambling to understand double-digit drops in test scores in Montgomery and Prince William counties and elsewhere. “Once you hit a certain mark, you want to maintain that,” said Frieda Lacey, deputy superintendent for Montgomery schools. “Don’t think the decline didn’t bother us. It really did.” Nationally, the reading...

Colleges across the country are reporting a drop in SAT scores this year. I've been tutoring students in New York City for the SAT since 1989, and I have watched the numbers rise and fall. This year, though, the scores of my best students dropped about 50 points total in the math and verbal portions of the test (each on a scale of 200 to 800). Colleges and parents are wondering: Is there something wrong with the new test? Or are our children not being taught what they should know? Before 1994, the verbal section of the SAT was about...

Statistical analyses of relationships between SAT scores, Republican Party affiliation, spending on education, ethnic compositions of towns, and tax rates reveal that among those factors (that is, excluding financial components) the ones that matter most in driving comparative and competitive home sales prices (by town medians over time, and over the long-run) are those related to CULTURE -- SAT scores and Republican Party affiliation (and all the value choices that such affiliation incorporates). You may have had a gut feeling that it pays to own a home in a town with high SAT scores and strong republican values. Now here's...

Does anybody know what John Kerry got on his SAT's? I ask because I haven't heard anything about Bush's (above average) SAT scores in a while. I'm sure if Kerry outscored him, it would be a national talking piece. I know Kerry had a great education, and I am sure he probably did fairly well, but I wonder because I haven't heard anything about it.

As this election year starts, the subject of Public Education and the funding (or lack thereof) will be discussed on a national level. I’d like to share what I’ve found on the subject of Public Education. It may surprise some of you to learn that there is absolutely no correlation between funding and student performance. The idea that “poorer” students in less affluent districts are at an educational disadvantage isn’t at all true. In fact, the less money a district, city, county, or state spends on education the better the students seem to perform. The idea that smaller classrooms or...

When I was in high school, the honor roll was dominated by beautiful young ladies. The homecoming queen and her princesses were always near the top of the list, as were many of the cheerleaders. Why was it that the prettiest girls in the school were also the smartest? Well, they weren't. Appearance, personality and the ability to fit in socially often gave these girls an advantage over equally able peers when it came to getting good grades. Likewise athletic, outgoing, middle-class guys tended to get better grades than their less socially-adept classmates. Because of hidden (and difficult to overcome)...

<p>University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg yesterday defended Pitt's practice of excluding athletes and other special category students when calculating the school's SAT average, and criticized a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story about the practice.</p> <p>"I believe the coverage has been unfair to a number of people who do their work and do it effectively and do it ethically and do it honestly," Nordenberg said.</p>