SAT scores continue decline; 57 percent of incoming freshmen not ready for college

Quicksearch

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Friday, September 27. 2013

SAT scores continue decline; 57 percent of incoming freshmen not ready for college

The article is here.

My guess that the decline in the average is due to more "unprepared" kids taking the exam, dragging the average down.

Posted by The Barrister in Education at 13:29 | Comments (12) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

My guess that the decline in the average is due to more "unprepared" kids taking the exam, dragging the average down.

That sounds like a plausible explanation. "Everybody should go to college" reminds me of the "Everybody should take Algebra" chant of the Math educators. I went to a highly rated high school- 10% went on to Ivy League or equivalent schools. Yet about 1/6 of the class took a General Math course, not Algebra. I doubt that those who took the General Math class had a deprived life as a result.

Vocational training past high school, which can include apprenticeships, is not a bad idea for a lot of people. But this is NOT the same as attending a four year college.

I know several people who, because of lack of proficiency in writing and such skills, would never have made a go of it in college. They knew themselves well enough to not even try college. Yet they have had successful careers as auto mechanics- a job which requires a fair amount of skill. One inherited a garage when his boss died at an early age of cancer, before he had worked much as a mechanic. He spent nights reading the manuals to improve his skills. While he didn't like reading much in high school, when he had a high motivation for reading- learn the manuals so he could do his job- he read the manuals well enough to develop as a master auto mechanic.

#1 Gringo on 2013-09-27 14:18 (Reply)

I teach intro level History and Government classes to college freshmen and sophomores and 57% is about the number who fail my 1st test in both classes. So it seems about right to me.

I think that only a certain percentage of people need college. And further, that high schools today (at least in Texas) have dumbed down their curriculum so much that most of my students are utterly unprepared for college. I tell my students all the time that our public schools are the most expensive and least effective baby sitting system in the world.

#2 Dangerous Dean on 2013-09-27 14:59 (Reply)

I too was a teacher in the public school system and you are correct. It is very expensive babysitting and should the teacher even try to require scholarship, Mommy and Daddy will be all over your ass immediately.

#2.1 annieoakley on 2013-09-28 13:01 (Reply)

Don't be so sure it's because of who's taking it. Where I teach our freshmen had an average HS weighted GPA of 3.99, and I get plenty that can't even multiply fractions, much less do algebra or write well. I'd say that over the course of my teaching career so far, the quality of students has definitely declined. 57%? I'd believe it.

#3 George on 2013-09-27 15:02 (Reply)

I may have to disagree. I interact regularly with teenage young men. They are (~95%) very much less well-read than I was at their age. The knowledge of the ages is being lost, perhaps forever.

There is a new ermerging skill that perhaps counterbalances it, or perhaps an old-one being reborn: continuous tribal communications. It's not a skill I care to develop, I resist being pulled into a constantly-chattering borg collective addressing and solving issues communally, with an instant-recall back-end tribal encyclopedia of latent skills and knowledge.

#4 John A. Fleming on 2013-09-27 16:25 (Reply)

When I applied to a number of colleges in '48, mostly fishing for some kind of a scholarship, none mentioned a standardized test (I wouldn't have known what it meant). All they wanted was a high school transcript. High school transcripts meant something then; integrity ruled the land. (Sigh.)

#5 BillH on 2013-09-27 16:28 (Reply)

I had a deep and personal argument with a sister-in-law who believes (strongly) that it is unnecessary for a kid to 'know' math in order to attend college. Her little precious darling wants to be a psychologist. (But can't multiply fractions!!)

Many of these kids who are now in kollage 'studying' sociology, psychology and other 'science disciplines' (albeit 'soft' science, meaning NOT science) will not have the basic skills to read a 'study' and determine its value. That is why I contend there is very little science being done. Gathering data, manipulating it into predefined outcomes is NOT science. (We have a government agency full of 'doktors' who STILL try to cram the food pyramid down the throats of DIABETICS!!! Sigh... But at least their stock in Squibb goes up with all the glucophage sales. Talk about stock price manipulation, eh? Let's see... we could create a statin deficiency! Yeah, that's it!!! Everybody take statins!!! Sorry, just one of my hobby horses. I'm off it now. But, but but... I am mounting another!!)

I suspect that is part of the problem with the AGW crowd. Modelers have no idea that adding variables to an equation softens the result to the point that eventually everything can be defined. Sigh...

Supposedly a Von Neumann quote: "With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk."

"It's a floor wax! No wait, it's a desert topping! Wait, there's more! It's global warming!!"

I wonder how many parameters those morons at the 'climate' institutes cram into their models??

#6 Cap'n Jan on 2013-09-27 16:38 (Reply)

In determining the value of a study from the softer side of "science", one can simply use the trick my Physics professor gave about differential equations, there is only a few you need to know, learn how to recognize them and memorize the solutions. As for the studies, the solution to their value equation is none.

It's not the number of parameters in their models, it's the error ellipses and that darn error budget they don't understand. Well, i guess they use the U.S. government budget method on managing the error budget, it's something they develop, then promptly ignore as they build a massive deficit that dominates the results.

#6.1 JKB on 2013-09-27 19:12 (Reply)

"...about differential equations, there is only a few you need to know, learn how to recognize them and memorize the solutions..."

There is a big difference between finding an analytical solution for an ODE (ordinary differential equation) and doing the same for a PDE (partial differential equation), and (almost) never the twain will meet. Only real men can solve the latter.

#6.1.1 Agent Cooper on 2013-09-27 23:26 (Reply)

Broken record, AVI on cue.

Once again, people talk about their impressions of how the students are doing, compared to what they think students used to be like, or should be like. I notice again, no one is quoting the numbers here, and making sure that apples are being compared to apples. I don't know if it's rosy memory or just being married to a particular world-view. But students used to be worse.

PISA scores: Look 'em up yourself. Or read Pat Buchanan on the subject. Or read up on the Flynn Effect. Or try and prove me wrong by going and getting the real data.

Asian-American students outscore all Asians, with the sometime exception of Singapore.

White American students outscore all Europeans except Finland (and I suspect the Finns have a small gaming of the system.)

Hispanic Americans outscore all Latin American countries, usually by large margins.

Black Americans outscore all African and Caribbean nations - by far. (Admittedly, there's a scarcity of data here.)

So who's left? No one. We beat them all when it's apples to apples.

We have the best schools in the world. Not that there are no problems, but it is not what we think. Schools are also better now than they used to be. Complain and cherry-pick examples all you want, it is simply so.

#7 Assistant VIllage Idiot (Link) on 2013-09-27 22:46 (Reply)

"...more "unprepared" kids ..."

That right there seems to be the problem with the SAT, if we were honest, how do you prepare for an "Aptitude" test.

Seth Godin had this to say of the "illustrious" SAT:

QUOTE:

In 1914, a professor in Kansas invented the multiple-choice test. Yes, it’s less than a hundred years old.

There was an emergency on. World War I was ramping up, hundreds of thou-
sands of new immigrants needed to be processed and educated, and factories
were hungry for workers. The government had just made two years of high
school mandatory, and we needed a temporary, high-efficiency way to sort
students and quickly assign them to appropriate slots.

In the words of Professor Kelly, “This is a test of lower order thinking for the
lower orders.”

A few years later, as President of the University of Idaho, Kelly disowned the
idea, pointing out that it was an appropriate method to test only a tiny portion of what is actually taught and should be abandoned. The industrialists and the mass educators revolted and he was fired.

The SAT, the single most important filtering device used to measure the effect of school on each individual, is based (almost without change) on Kelly’s lower-
order thinking test. Still.

The reason is simple. Not because it works. No, we do it because it’s the easy and efficient way to keep the mass production of students moving forward.

#8 JKB on 2013-09-27 22:57 (Reply)

Except that it measures IQ just about as well as more complicated, open-ended tests. Even at highest levels.

#8.1 Assistant VIllage Idiot (Link) on 2013-09-28 10:12 (Reply)

Add Comment

Name
Email	(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)
Homepage
In reply to
Comment	By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications. Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u], [url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here. Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (word), underscore are made via _word_. E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications. To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly. Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above: BBCode format allowed
	Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry

Maggie's Farm

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

RSS Readers

Friday, September 27. 2013

SAT scores continue decline; 57 percent of incoming freshmen not ready for college