Posted on 03/06/2014 7:08:04 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The College Board announced Wednesday that it is overhauling the SAT, dropping the timed essay and focusing less on fancy vocabulary in order to level the playing field a bit for high school students from a wider range of families. The organization's own data show that wealthier Americans, from more educated families, tend to do far better on the best. As do white and Asian Americans, and those students who had the opportunity to take the PSAT in high school before taking the SAT. Almost certainly, these four findings have common origins in that the SAT benefits families who can provide their kids with a better education and more test prep. But here are four charts that show how the SAT advantages specific demographics.
The first chart shows that SAT scores are highly correlated with income. Students from families earning more than $200,000 a year average a combined score of 1,714, while students from families earning under $20,000 a year average a combined score of 1,326. The writing test has the widest score gap, perhaps explaining why College Board officials are dropping the essay.
The second chart shows that students from educated families do better. A student with a parent with a graduate degree, for example, on average scores 300 points higher on their SATs compared to a student with a parent with only a high school degree. No doubt this is the same dynamic reflected in the income graph, given that there are high returns to college education. But it also dispels the notion that students in America have good opportunities to advance regardless of the family they're born to.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Oh yes, environment and morality are important factors. But for someone to suggest (as often happens) that the SAT and similar tests are unfair to the underprivileged is bogus reasoning.
I was thinking the same thing, but you beat me to it. Probably more of a memory thing, or a typo. Regardless, it is now permanently in cyberspace.
you are (or the authors of the study you mentioned) are confusing cause and effect.
think about it.
I could line the walls of a room with 1 million books from birth and it wouldn’t make a group of retarded children smart.
The real truth is that smart people are more likely to own books, and when those smart people have children, those children are more likely to be smart like their parents. The presence of the books wasn’t what was important.
I am guessing that smart people probably make their beds more often than dumb people. Would you believe the results of a study that shows that children that live in homes with their beds made are on average more intelligent? Would you then start encouraging dumb parents to start making their beds to increase the intelligence of their children?
LOL! You're right. One typo on the keyboard, and it is immortalized forever.
"correlation does not mean causation"
that is the ONE thing I REALLY dislike about this particular site. It’s the only site on the internet like this where you can’t edit your past posts.
The authors explored the data and concluded that the most important key to intelligence was to have intelligent parents.
That's one thing I love/hate about FR, their is no edit previous post option.
I thought the SAT was all essay questions now?
Even before primitive man new anything about DNA and gene's, it instinctively knew that the children of smart people were usually smart too. They were also smart enough to know their very lives depended upon that small group of people with superior intelligence governing society.
A chill just went down my back as I started thinking “Chairman Mao and the Great Leap Forward”.
Recasting the lede:
The SAT — an almost universal college entrance gauge — will be dumbed down so that we can pretend morons and slackers are as qualified as intelligent, hard-working applicants.
Everyone should be allowed to ascend as high as their God given talents can take them. To deny them that right is to deny society the benefit of their leadership.
I got my Mom’s great verbal skills and my brother got my Dad’s great math skills so much so that colleges were offering him scholarships as a soph. I am a math mutant.
Yes, the dumbing down of the SAT continues apace.
The authors of the study said, "the intellectual environment those volumes reflect — gives children an enormous advantage in school."
It's well known that intellectual enrichment is a strong factor in childrens' neurological development.
I would believe a do-gooder such as Michelle Obama starting a campaign to get people to make their beds for that reason.
I didnt do to well on the SATs back in ‘83, not privileged, didnt go to college, joined the workforce and have been working ever since...
Fact is ,,, not every kid is college material . . .
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