Posted on 08/29/2006 8:32:31 AM PDT by RushCrush
The high school class of 2006 recorded the sharpest drop in SAT scores in 31 years, a decline that the exam's owner, the College Board, said was partly due to some students taking the newly lengthened test only once instead of twice.
Fatigue wasn't to blame, the College Board insisted, even though this year's class was the first to take a new version of the exam which added an essay. It now takes an average of three hours and 45 minutes to complete the test, not counting breaks, up from three hours previously.
The results come several months after numerous colleges reported surprisingly low SAT scores for this year's incoming college freshmen. The nonprofit College Board, which had said scores would be down this year, released figures Tuesday showing combined critical reading and math skills fell seven points on average to 1021.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I agree that governemtn schools are failures and we should adapt new means to educate. We start with competition, we then dismantle the union, we then pay for merit/performance.
This was just announced at my school today. This proves either that the College Board's new test isn't working or that students just don't care enough to work hard anymore...or maybe both. However, I think the writing section should be scrapped. Colleges already get to see how you write in you application essay, so why do they need to see your score on a 25-minute timed essay draft? After all, in the real world, you have more than 25 minutes to write essays and reports, and they are not just an unedited spewing of the first ideas that come to your mind like on the SAT.
My neighbors did that too, except that they had to wear barbed wire shoes (just to show that they could afford barbed wire and the rest of us couldn't.)
I agree that government schools are failures and we should adapt new means to educate. We start with competition, we then dismantle the union, we then pay for merit/performance.
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The merit/performance thing was proposed here where I live, and of course, it was rejected...thanks to the powerful teachers unions.
The problem is that we have all these factions (parents, teachers, administrators, government functionaries, so-called "activists" and "experts"), each with their own agendas...none of which have anything to do with actually educating our children.
Actually most public universities do require application essays, and although colleges currently only care about the math and verbal, starting in 2007, they will start looking at the writing section as well.
One reason for a timed essay on the SAT is that they know reasonably well that YOU DID IT YOURSELF -- no help from parents, "admission counselors," paid prep aides, etc. Second, in real life, as well as on College exams, you frequently have to think, write and produce a piece of writing on deadline. It's not the only thing, but most folks who can't produce a reasonable piece of writing in 30 minutes aren't going to give you Paradise Lost if you give them all year!
Ashley Anderson, 16 years old
NewsWithViews.com
9-16-03
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