SAT Scores at an all time high!

http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/cbsenior/yr2002/pdf/CBS2002Report.pdf ^

[Sloth]

I don't think it's anger at students so much as disbelief that schools could be doing any better. FWIW, I share their skepticism.

[balanced]

I heard you the first time. Do you have a kid in school? My kids are working way harder than I did back in the 1960/1970s. I don't believe anything has been "watered down." The high schooler is learning calculus, something that wasn't even taught in high school in my day.

[Modernman]

This is a crock- the average college graduate today knows LESS than the average college-bound High School senior did a generation ago. The proliferation of external aids (like being able to GOOGLE anything, the use of graphing calculators, etc) covers up a lot of this ignorance. They may not actually KNOW much, but they can look it up when needed.

Every generation says that about the younger generation. You're talking about memorization of facts versus application of knowledge. Our society has gotten a lot more complex, which means kids have to have a much wider breadth of knowledge. Simply knowing stuff isn't that useful anymore- applying it is.

College is much more competitive these days than it was 30 years ago. The fact that so many more kids go to college than used to means that, to stand out, you have to work a lot harder. I see what my cousing have to go through these days compared to what I had to go through just 10 years ago in college. I can buy the contention that SAT's are going up.

[eyespysomething]

Well, here in Georgia, we are at the bottom, number 50, again this year, just like last.

Not much celebrating here.

We may be higher than DC though.

[balanced]

Well, if you don't believe the college board, the department of education, the international math and science studies, or the national center for education statistics, what is the organization that you do believe in that backs up all these skeptical positions?

[balanced]

Thank you. I thought I was alone in this.

[meowmeow]

I think we need the kitties here...

[T Minus Four]

Well, here in Georgia, we are at the bottom, number 50

What's even more shocking is that twenty-four other states also scored in the bottom half. This is intolerable!

[aruanan]

Congratulates students.

Congratulations, students. Both SAT and ACT have changed. It's easier to get higher scores. If you took the tests before the change, you're given a formula to recalculate your score and add points to it to account for the inflation.

[Zavien Doombringer]

Ahem...Troll alert!

[fr_freak]

College is much more competitive these days than it was 30 years ago. The fact that so many more kids go to college than used to means that, to stand out, you have to work a lot harder.

I agree that college seems to be getting more competitive, but I don't believe it is in the way that you think. A college degree today, in most cases, as an indicator of intelligence, ability, or knowledge, is essentially worthless. To verify that for yourself, all you have to do is examine the curriculum at many universities, including the Ivy League, to see how non-intellectual things have become. However, a degree is still seen as the necessary ticket to prosperity, and many now view having that ticket punched as an entitlement, and wonderful lawsuits follow. The result? Many, many college students who never should have graduated high school.

Students do have to work harder to stand out now in universities, but only because there is such a preponderance of 4.0+ grade point averages coming in from high schools (more entitlement) that students who wish to stand out have to resort to social, political and athletic activities to achieve distinction. These activities do not necessarily promote a more well-rounded person, especially if they are related to some anti-intellectual, left-wing cause.

[Tribune7]

We have become jaundiced about the claims of the educational establishment and the NEA. The changes in 1995 came after much publicity about a three-decade long fall in the SATs. Now, this information comes during the "No Child Left Behind" dispute in which the educrats are fighting tooth and nail to discredit the law.

So, I don't trust it.

OTOH, a whole lot of kids are being home-schooled now. Maybe that could be the reason if there were an increase in SATs

[Physicist]

I know a philosophy major who didn't know the difference between utilitarianism and Unitarianism.

He believes in doing the greatest amount of good for the smallest number of deities.

<rimshot>

[Teacher317]

previous scores I described were from 2002; these are even higher in 2003

Reminiscent of the Soviet era, when every year saw a record harvest... and for the same reasons. They have a vested interest in manipulating scores to make things look better than they truly are. If they did not, they would not have to change the test every few years.

[boycott]

I heard you the first time.

Sorry for the double post.

I really think it depends on the school system. A lot of students finish high school and cannot even read.

[Paleo Conservative]

I am absolutely stunned at the venality of this lie. For the SAT board to proudly announce this comparison, without mentioning the extra points they've added, proves to me they confidently live in a world of NewSpeak and CorrectThink - where facts and truth no longer matter.

You want the truth? You can't handle the truth.

[balanced]

Well, there clearly is a strong attitude that American students are doing poorly, and that educators are not telling the truth about it. But then how do you explain that other countries are also saying that the United States is improving? The OECD based in Paris has a Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) that finds that the United States is pretty good (as opposed to 20 years ago when everyone agrees we were near the bottom - see the 1983 report called "A Nation at Risk").

The PISA results at http://www.pisa.oecd.org/Docs/Download/PISAExeSummary.pdf shows that the US ranks above average in reading proficiency and 7th out of 32 in level 5 achievement (the highest possible).

[Ranger]

The current high school kids impress me. They are smart and socially aware. No doubt about it. Normalized SAT scores are looking good for what they're worth. Bashing kids for Googling at the speed of light instead of pushing a slide rule like their grandpa did is simply a sign of youthful resourcefulness. To the old farts on this thread wearing lime green golf pants up to their armpits, I say, eat a prune, America is doing just fine.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Yeah, they did. (I took them in 1966.) But they have been dumbed down, or "recalibrated". Especially the high end. It is much easier to score in the 700's now than it was in 1966. (762 Math in 1966 as a sophomore.) - Not to make it a competition.

[balanced]

Here's an idea - why don't you take the SAT again this year and see if you're as good as the kids today?

If your brain has degraded like mine, I bet you'd be lucky to do half as well as you did back then. (I took it in '73 & got 780. Today I'm having trouble with the junior's homework. What is a "jacobian matrix"?)