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where is the data to show that low SES kids score well
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<p>The College Board does have data to show that low SES students sometimes score very well, and I have seen it done in my part of the world. But some of those data look politically incorrect on other grounds, so it has been years since they have been published in detail.</p>
<p>Straighttalk said:
"I also found the reasoning by Fritzsimmon of getting rid of SAT1 disingenuous. Poor kids are less likely to take any test multiple times because the costs are substantial. Why wouldn't he propose to limit the number of test to one to level the playing field? This will dramatically reduce the gaming of the test."</p>
<p>Agreed! I also think all colleges shall follow U C and U Michigan's example, only consider SAT I score in the same sitting, no supper scoring. This will also reduce the tendency of taking SAT I multiple times.</p>
<h1>136:</h1>
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[quote]
My other contention is that shifting away from the SAT or ACT to more emphasis on subject tests will increase the advantage of the wealthy, distract more than focus high school kids in their studies, encourage premature specialization and just generally inflate what is already too much preoccupation with testing during high school.
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<p>I think US highschool students are more preoccupied with testing during high school than foreign students. US students start taking tests when they enter highschool (SAT, PSAT, ACT, SAT-II, 8-16 APs plus state STAR tests and High School Exit Exam although they don't have to prepare for these state tests). Foreign students only take tests at the end of 12th grade.</p>
<p>token:</p>
<p>if you have any links I'd love to peruse them. But, my supposition is that, on a percentage basis, far less low SES kids score high than high SES kids, and that is due primarily to reading (or the lack thereof) and/or vocabulary. But, don't forget the second part of mammal's claim: lifting oneself up after scoring high. Even of the high scorers, I would opine that low SES kids opt for colleges close to home as a much, much higher rate than high scoring high SES kids. Quite frankly, attending a pedigreed school like H or Y is just not a big deal down in the 'hood.</p>
<p>mushmouse: In fact, IMO, UMIch has already de-emphasized the ACT/SAT....the most important criteria for them is the 10 academic grades taken soph/junior year....(UM GPA)....many, many students were admitted this past year with lower than stellar standardized test scores.....Higher test scorers with good, but not stellar GPA's were not admitted....</p>
<p>The links about the controversial issue of correlates to SAT scores other than socioeconomic status include (in approximate order of date of ORIGINAL publication): </p>
<p>Image:1995-SAT-Education2.png</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia </p>
<p>Image:1995-SAT-Income2.png</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia </p>
<p>As</a> Data Show Fewer Report Race, Minority Scores on SAT Questioned (washingtonpost.com) </p>
<p>I learned about the phenomenon shown in the Wikipedia graphics, which are based on College Board data, from a book </p>
<p>I read a few years ago (and don't have at hand today). You could peruse the book for the author's description of her observations and her thoughts about what the mode of causation is for that phenomenon. College Board has ceased publishing data that would allow a ready check on recent trends, so I make no statement here about whether analyzing the data the same way today would show the same phenomenon--I wish College Board would simply lay out the data and let the data speak for themselves, with whatever commentary the College Board cares to attach to the data displays. </p>
<p>After edit: One problem with all such data displays from the College Board is that they show mean scores rather than the whole range of scores. It would be better to show a full bivariate plot ("scatterplot") of SAT scores related to family income to show what is possible, which is that some low-income students score very high indeed.</p>
<p>"If you say that our Universities are the best in the world, it is because we have been collecting a lot of brains from other countries for sometimes, not because of having a great supply of talents from our K-12 education."</p>
<p>First of all, "I" don't say it: the world says it. They said it before I said it. They've been saying it for decades. They clamor to come here from India, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, Germany, France, Australia, the U.K., the Middle East, and more.</p>
<p>However, I haven't argued that fact as part of the debate on this thread. The thread is not about the comparison per se of the quality of U.S. colleges vs. other countries. So I'm not sure why you're bringing it up. There are, however, since you brought it up, a variety of reasons for the quality of our colleges. One major reason is the quality of the professors at those institutions.</p>
<p>I do not currently teach in K-12 public schools. I have a very different role at present. And just for the record, my teaching was highly successful. I was not an example of the "failure of k-12 U.S. education," as you so put it. Nevertheless, because the system itself, i.m.o., has too many failures of approach built into it, the current role I play allows me better access to reverse those failures than merely being within the k-12 public system.</p>
<p>More later. Have to go. I'll elaborate later on your misstatement that I think evaluations for college readiness should be limited to grades & recs. Never said that. Do not misquote or misinterpret me.</p>
<p>token, </p>
<p>There's some good recent data on correlations between ethnicity, parental education, income, eligibility for subsidized lunch programs and similar factors and SAT scores in Rebecca Zwick, ed., "Rethinking the SAT" (2004), particularly the papers "Is the SAT a Wealth Test?" and "Group Differences in Standardized Test Scores and Other Educational Indicators."</p>
<p>The conclusions are pretty much what one saw in previous literature: correlations between income, ethnicity, parental education and standardized test scores were strong and disturbing. But one finds the same correlations between these same factors and and HS grades, course completion rates, scores on curriculum-based tests for which no coaching is available, et al. In other words, these correlations are revealing many factors that have nothing to do with standardized college admissions tests, most notably the way that race and income often equate to unequal access to quality education. The NACAC report addresses the literature on these questions at least in passing.</p>
<p>BTW, the full text of the NACAC report is available via the first link on this pg. The emphases are quite different than some of the reporting in the popular press.</p>
<p>token adult - I'm bad with graphs - what is the phenomenon?</p>
<p>As a group, higher SES students tend to do better. The SAT may provide a way for an excellent student from a mediocore or bad high school to show that they are capable of doing well at a top university. A student with a 4.0 from a not well know or well regarded high school may be overlooked in admission because of the weak curriculum of the HS. By doing well on these tests, that student would have a better chance. Would that student have as good a chance as a kid from a top prep school, of course not but a better chance than if the SAT did not exist.</p>
<p>GPA can also be gamed. Teacher recommendations may overlook the shy, geeky kid that may not be well like in HS but do great in college.</p>
<p>Blue Bayou #80 << top 5% exceed NMSF level>></p>
<p>Is this a public high school? How big is the class? I find this very surprising. I live in an area with many kids that are tutored. Many become NM Commended but only a handful become NMSF and of the ones that did, most (including my son) were not tutored. Even the top high schools in my state don't have anywhere near 5% as NMSF.</p>
<p>^ I wouldn't worry over the percent of NMSFs in your high school - this brilliant commission is also advocating doing away with the Nationa Merit Scholaship competition. It's apparently just not fair to give kids who test in the top 1% on the PSAT a bit of money toward college.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"If you say that our Universities are the best in the world, it is because we have been collecting a lot of brains from other countries for sometimes, not because of having a great supply of talents from our K-12 education."</p>
<p>First of all, "I" don't say it: the world says it. They said it before I said it. They've been saying it for decades. They clamor to come here from India, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, Germany, France, Australia, the U.K., the Middle East, and more.</p>
<p>However, I haven't argued that fact as part of the debate on this thread. The thread is not about the comparison per se of the quality of U.S. colleges vs. other countries. So I'm not sure why you're bringing it up. There are, however, since you brought it up, a variety of reasons for the quality of our colleges. One major reason is the quality of the professors at those institutions.
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<p>That is mixing apples and oranges. </p>
<p>On the surface, the United States presents an amazing chasm between the level of its K-12 and the level of its tertiary education. The most amazing part of the chasm is that the quality of the education that is available drops considerably as a student advances through the years. If the United States is a leader in kindergarten and elementary years, it drops in the middle of the pack for middle school, and is among the worst performers in the industrial world for high school. To make it even worse in comparison to other leading nations, not only is our level abysmal, we are regressing faster than most in our performance in graduating our high schoolers, especially in urban areas.</p>
<p>While it is undeniable that the world does recognize the superiority of our colleges, one needs to be careful in overplaying that advantage. Our list of top 25 universities and top 25 LACs --according to the USNews-- gives us a regal hint: the number of public universities are a mere handful among the top 50, and most are earning their high marks mostly because of USNews efforts to level the playing field and allow universities to use their graduate school recognition as opposed to their UG's. </p>
<p>So, is there a lesson there? Yes, our performance and international reputation is directly tied to the resources and type of schools we have in the US. While the K-12 is dominated by public schools (about 90% of high schools) the percentage of leading colleges and universities is more or less reversed. We do have indeed great professors in our colleges ... because we can afford them. Nobody would ever compare the resources of the Sorbonne to Harvard's or even Berkeley's! However, when it comes to our K-12, the US is one of the biggest spenders and ... wasters. We spend more than most nations and should be ashamed of our results, especially when considering our resources. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, it is pretty easy for the cynic to recognize that public education does not work as well as its private counterpart. For a country that is so enamored with its individual liberties and freedom, it is simply amazing that the US citizens cling to the notion that government provided education provides the best and only option deserving public funding. Inasmuch as our country would never accept the federal or state delivery of medical, transportation, entertainment services, we find little reason to question the resources squandered in our public education system. </p>
<p>We really should!</p>
<p>Re Post 150:
I have said on cc previously that gpa can be gamed. Again, I fail to see the "argument."
That is why gpa should not be used alone. Nor should SAT I be used alone. Nor SAT II alone, nor recs alone, nor e.c.'s alone, nor h.s. reputation alone. Etc. And guess what? They're NOT being used alone -- none of those. Nor was there a proposal, here or in the OP, to use one of these elements "alone."</p>
<p>That's why so many elements are required, because so many elements are variable, non-standard (non-comparative). The SAT I does <em>not</em> standardize the profile, or the student, against other students. It is one piece of information in a package, which compares other whole packages. If Enrollment Management is not in the picture, a college tends to value the high-performing student over 4 years, as assessed by a combination of grades + level of challenge + reputation of school + <em>specific examples</em> in the teacher recs + academic awards won in & out of school + academic programs completed in other settings, & the fruit of those programs, combined with an OK but not spectacular SAT I score, versus a student with a 2400 who has underperformed for 4 years. There is no guarantee that the 2400 will magically transform into an actual student at college, whereas the other student has a track record if the academic parameters for that track record are well defined & described, & if the student's voice in the application & possible interview similarly match the record.</p>
<p>Context is everything. In my region, A's and B's in most local, non-magnet public high schools consisting of middle-class students are all but meaningless. The content of what is being taught is between 8th & 11th grade, and the standards for performance of that content are between 5th & 8th grade. (Little critical reading is required, & virtually no critical writing.) Graduates of these schools, with such "high" grades, often flunk the writing proficiency test in the state college system, since there is no requirement for rigor in h.s. writing, & since there is little writing practice or the teaching of the elements of writing to begin with.</p>
<p>OTOH, certain privates in the same region are worlds apart: Those schools are demanding in content, grading standards, etc. Ninth grade is truly 9th. Upperclassmen are producing much closer to college level than to 11th & 12th grade levels, by any standard. There are unusual seminar courses offered. Writing is disciplined & refined. An A is earned. A B is earned, rather than being the baseline. The oral expression of these students is vastly separate from the oral expression of the publics in the region -- even, again, when the SES levels are interchangeable.</p>
<p>Go to another region or state, and the picture changes. There are public schools in Minnesota, Indiana, Massachusetts & more which do not resemble the above publics.</p>
<p>A student of any SES level, in an excellent public or an excellent private, is being prepared better both for the SAT I and for college work itself, than a student of an identical SES level in a lower quality h.s.</p>
<p>But do you know what most consistently correlates with achievement? Not the school, not the SES level per se, but parental education level.</p>
<p>xiggi, I agree with you that my reply was mixing apples & oranges: the post I replied to did just that as well, which is why I replied as I did. I don't even know why the "quality of U.S. colleges" was brought up, & my own reply was an inadequate attempt to address a tangential complex topic.</p>
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i.e., where is the data to show that low SES kids score well and, as a result, "lift themselves" in society??
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<p>BB, I believe that one answer could be that this happens when schools are utilizing the SAT scores correctly and ARE accounting for the SES differences. AS we know, the SAT by itself cannot correct our social and economic imbalances since it only provides a measuring tool. The interpretation of the results rests entirely with the people who use the scores, namely the adcoms. In this vein, a student who scores a 1900 SAT while attending a public HS in Detroit might be viewed as a candidate with a strong POTENTIAL all the while a future graduate of Exeter with a 2000 might be considered an underachiever. </p>
<p>On the other hand, very little could be learned from comparing the GPAs from Exeter and Detroit for those two students. In so many words, that is why maintaining a NATIONAL standardized test is so important. In a nation where some school districts use ridiculous GPA boosters and do not seem to stop inventing new mechanism to confuse adcoms and the public, the SAT, ACT, and Subject Tests provide a semblance of an equalizer. </p>
<p>Scoring "well" on a standardized test while overcoming known handicaps is indeed one of the most visible attention grabbers for a low SES student.</p>
<p>momof2:</p>
<p>Class size approx. 550. And since USC offers automatic merit money based on a two hour test, it makes a lot of $en$e to prep for that test,</p>
<p>xiggi - I wish you posted more.</p>
<p>momof2 - my D just graduated with 105 in her class - 14 NMSFs and a whole lot of commended. This was a private independent school (she was on scholarship).</p>
<p>Progress can be multigenerational. A lower scoring low SES kid can still go to college in the US. If they excel there, they may be able to go to grad or professional school. What is likely, however, is that their children will be raised to approach eduction a little differently. And those kids will have a better shot. At least this is what happened to my first (college) generation friends, relatives, and their kids. Yea, it may be unfair that money buys elite access, but at least there is access, which is why I am such a big fan of community colleges and all those third tier colleges who are trying to meet their mission of opening doors that would otherwise be shut.</p>
