Posted on 11/23/2004 10:48:20 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
For years, people like Thomas Sowell have argued that affirmative action regularly places Black students into schools for which they are not educationally qualified, that in so doing it dooms them to less challenging courses and failure. In debates about affirmative action , the performance of Black students on SAT tests is rarely mentioned. It should be. It is not only supportive of his arguments but the most damning evidence of the inadequacy of the urban school systems from which most of these students come.
According to the College Board, 1,877 African American students nationwide scored higher than 1300 out of a possible 1600 on the SAT last year, compared with nearly 150,000 students overall who achieved that score
A SAT score of 1300 is a good baseline for competitive college-level academic work .Only 1.2% of the students who achieved that level this year were Black. That's not enough to meet the demand of the Ivies let alone all the other first level colleges vying for these students.
Until we face this fact head on and institute educational change at the elementary and high school levels, we are engaged in a harmful charade.
affirmative action needs to be abolished imo, putting people where they don't belong or are not qualified is just ridiculous.
Just passing through pay no attention to me.
Since blacks make up about 10 to 12 percent of the population one would have expected about 15,000 of the 150,000 would be blacks, so this represents closer to 1% than the expected 10%.
Of course in the spirit of "if we don't measure up you have to change the yard stick" many claim the tests are biased in favor of whites.
This ignores the fact that asians are over represented in the highest scoring groups. Yet you will note no clamoring for adjusting the tests so that asians score lower. Thomas Sewell is one of those exhibiting clear thinking on this and many other social-economic issues. He's been called a few names over the years too.
sounds like the sats need to be restructured. They are obviously rasist. Everyone who works there needs to be fired because they are lowering the test scores of the black students. And the test is unfair.
Quick call the ACLU and the "reverend" himself.
I think cosby is on to something. Its got nothing to do with kids not being where they don't belong and everything to do with how they are being (or not being) raised.
Are they attending Princeton Review? Are they getting tutored? Do they know the importance of preparation at least one year in advance? Are their parents motivating them? What about their teachers?
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Until we face this fact head on and institute educational change at the elementary and high school levels, we are engaged in a harmful charade.
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A lot of the educational establishment love thing JUST THE WAY THEY ARE.
Math scores test both innate logic skills, and the curriculum of one's school.
Draw conclusions as appropriate.
Most of my SAT score was verbal. My math prep was dismal. I recently took a retest and scored 1450.
1300 is a very high score, is it not? Or is this the new "normalized" score, which is equivalent to a pre (1990s?) score, plus 50 points or something.
My verbal was better then my math, too. Weird, cause English is not my first language.
Its still pretty high. I think the average is a shade over 1000.
You mean to tell me that people are expected to perform in the classroom? That academics are more important than sports?
Large note of sarcasm now removed from my voice!
the highest level of math is algebra 2. most students take that about 9th grade. I don't really why kids with 3 years of algegbra 2 udner their belts can't master these problems. Its an Aptitude test. I'll give ya, some questions are tricky and are ment to be that way. I'm not saying everyone scores a perfect. But come on. They dumb down the staderdized tests and limit the teachers. I bet every kid learned how to put a condom on at school, But they can't solve for x? 2=2x give me a break. Their parents are too busy drinking lattes while they read the washing toast and the ny slimes wondering what the world is comming to while their kids are playing dr in the back or learning how to turn mom's suv into a national disaster via a car bomb.
My mom taught me to read when I was two.
I'd abolish the cities in Blue states as they are failing in every respect, especially their schools.
BTW, if your mom was like my mom, the english they taught you was better than the stuff in the classroom. My mom isn't from this country either.
Your figures are skewed. The article does not say that 150,000 took the test but 150,000 overall who achieved that score.
Not enough information is given to determine anything here.
For that we need to know how many students took the test - Both black and white.
Oh yes, say even if it equivalent to a 1250 from the past, it is still a very good score..
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