quote:the persistent test score gap between Blacks and Whites on the nation's most important college examiniation is evidence of bias in the nation's school system
Does that mean that kids from the same school, who took the same classes, will score higher or lower on the test because of racial bias WITHIN a school?
Or does it mean that white kids from one school score higher than black kids from another school because of racial bias that determines where a kid lives and what school he attends?
quote:critics, such as the Boston-based Center for Fair and Open Testing (FairTest), contend that the bias is in the tests themselves. Poor students, students of color and students for whom English is a second language suffer most because of biases built into the exam
That one has me scratching my head. In which language should the test be written? Or do they contend that more math test story problems should feature black train engineers and Hispanic fence-builders?
quote:Why do you think Blacks continue to lag behind Whites and Asians on the SAT and other standardized tests? And what do you think can be done to close that gap?
posted
The issue isn't race, its money. Whites tend to be wealthier than Blacks so they score higher. Why is it money? Because richer people pay more money in taxes leading to better schools. Just compare public schools in the projects to those in the suburbs. Then factor in private schools for kids with even more money and the gap gets even wider.
Language is another issue, but seeing as how Blacks and Whites both speak English its something that only affects immigrants.
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posted
What I fear is that people will begin artificially manipulating the tests based on race, rather than addressing the actual reasons behind the discrepancy, which I see as several:
1. Money. Blacks, in general, find themselves lower income brackets, and live in poorer sections of town, where less funding is available to schools.
2. Culture. We still need to conquer the idea that a black kid doing well in school is "acting white". Intelligence and curiosity are NOT race-linked traits. Meanwhile, becoming a sports star, a drug dealer, or a pimp is often portrayed as the only "black" way to make moeny. This is an myth that needs to DIE RIGHT NOW.
3. Hope. Middle-class white kids are expected to go to college because that's what everyone around them does, and they have a lot of convincing adult examples to look to. Lower-class black kids have few, if any, positive examples of education paying off, and as a result, do not treat success in education as the key to their future.
4. Support and Daily Experience. Kids who are surrounded by people who talk or act a certain way will naturally those behaviors. This makes it very difficult for kids to move from a traditionally-downtrodden position in society to a successful one. Their speech and their habits will say "poor and uneducated" even when they have a desire for something more.
I would like to see a study done on white kids who live in black-dominated neighborhoods, to see how their test performance compares to that of other white kids.
posted
The English being tested on the SATs is proper American English without slang from either the suburbs or the "streets." No school teaches either slang so that's irrelevant.
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posted
Another quick point. The SAT is not a test of IQ. It is a test of a student's readiness to enter an American university. Among the required traits is the ability to speak, write, and understand proper English. If a person has grown up in a background where language skills were more difficult to learn, then that is a problem that needs to be addressed. But the test is not "biased" when it tests for the very skills that a student will NEED to possess if he or she passes the test. That is called being "useful" and "relevant".
posted
I still haven't seen any questions on the SAT that test "culture."
quote: 3. Hope. Middle-class white kids are expected to go to college because that's what everyone around them does, and they have a lot of convincing adult examples to look to. Lower-class black kids have few, if any, positive examples of education paying off, and as a result, do not treat success in education as the key to their future.
Remove the words "white" and "black" and you'll see a pattern. Its not race its economics. Middle class kids are expected to go to college and lower class kids have few positive examples and so don't see education as a key to their future.
quote: I would like to see a study done on white kids who live in black-dominated neighborhoods, to see how their test performance compares to that of other white kids.
I would like to see a study done on middle class black kids and lower class white kids and I think you'll see that the former's scores will be significantly higher than the latter's.
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quote:Remove the words "white" and "black" and you'll see a pattern. Its not race its economics. Middle class kids are expected to go to college and lower class kids have few positive examples and so don't see education as a key to their future
posted
I can't read the article, but here's my two cents:
I have attended a workshop on cultural biases in testing this summer. I think that studies saying that white student's do better are actually saying that if you're raised in a middle-class American home you'll probably do better. For example, students in South Texas were given an oral and written placement test when they arrived to the US in the early 90's. They would be shown a picture of a red fruit with a stem, and the child would normally identify it as an apple. However, the fruit is in fact a cherry. Therefore, since the child cannot identify a simple cherry, they are classified as uneducated and placed in a lower program than they might belong. But they have never seen a cherry since they are not a common food eaten in Mexico, a family would have to be fairly wealthy for the child to have eaten cherries. So, cultural/racial bias in the test. This example may seem almost absurd, but it actually happens- I think it's difficult to remove all cultural biases from tests, but I think that a better job can be done.
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posted
In its historical form, the SAT involved a large section on analogies. The stated objective of this section was to measure reasoning skills but because the test words that are not commonly used in everyday communication, the section was also a test of vocabulary.
In every day communication, english speakers use only about 1000 - 2000 words. People who use english as a second language usually rapidly learn those words, but their vocabulary nearly always lacks the depth of native english speakers. As a result, students who aren't native english speakers often struggle reading textbooks even though they appear to be fluent in english.
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posted
The SAT doesn't have "identify a cherry" on it. If by the time you take the SAT you still can't differentiate between the two fruits then I think you need more American schooling before you head off to an American college. Remember the SAT is essentially a placement test for college.
Puppy, if that is your point why do you keep on inserting "white" and "black" as qualifiers?
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posted
I've seen the historical examples that Rabbit is talking about, I think I remember one being the word "yacht" used and a complaint that poorer kids wouldn't have any idea what a yacht was.
I also remember thinking that I've never been on a yacht or seen one in person and wasn't raised in a rich family and still knew what it was because I read a lot.
Almost any deficiency in knowledge can be overcome with reading. There are public libraries all over the country where one can read for free. There is free internet access there too.
There is no excuse for a college bound student not to have strong vocabulary skills, whether they are poor or second language speakers or not - they can increase their vocabularies with reading, just as I did and I'm sure every hatracker has done.
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posted
I believe that my point was an example of cultural bias.
Of course the SAT doesn't ask us to identify fruit, but it does require that you have a frame of reference to answer the questions. Often that frame looks though the middle-class sector of America.
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posted
Many of my students wouldn't be able to tell me what a yacht is, and they read as much as most high school students do. Honestly people- I challenge you to take a college admittance exam for another country and I'm almost certain that there will be things that you have no clue what they are talking about.
Sure, some of it comes down to general knowledge, but I have many students who were well educated in Mexico, speak English well, and still do a miserable job on the SAT's. If you're part of the culture that the exam is geared toward, you probably won't ever notice a bias.
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posted
My problem here is that the reading comprehension part doesn't actually require you to know anything about anything, except what's in the article. The purpose of the test is to determine how well you derive something from written text. Therefore, every answer to every question is within the passage itself. There will never be a question that isn't sufficiently explained therein. If there are any words in the text that are specifically asked about, it will be in this format:
From the passage it can be determined that "melancholy" means:
A. Depressed B. Sad C. Unloved D. Apathetic
Then you read the sentence that has the word "melancholy" in it, and there you will find how the word is used.
Point being, you don't have to know anything to take the SAT's, except what the test makers expect of you. I don't see how that can be significantly affected by culture or race.
After reading this I realized that the example I made up is even HARDER than actual SAT questions because it requires that you know what apathetic means. : P
quote:compare public schools in the projects to those in the suburbs
I thought school funding was based on the number of enrolled students, not on the tax base of the community served by the school.
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posted
It depends on the state. Most schools are funded by property taxes, and property taxes are higher in richer neighborhoods.
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And even in states that guarantee more funding to schools with more students, this often still results in less "real funding" for inner city schools, as to attract teachers with the same degree of expertise to an inner city school requires significantly higher salaries, meaning that money available for other things is actually reduced.
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posted
kat -- a lot of states that still (for sound economic reasons) fund schools by property tax have all property taxes for schools go into a state pot, where its then reallocated to the districts by attendance/other need.
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posted
I have to say that is an enormous cultural bias not on the test, but in the students. It is "black culture" versus "white culture" that I see everyday in the hallways of my school. My black friends who ditch the apathatec, blameful black culture score very well on the SATs, nothing to be ashamed of at all. Some of my white friends who have become a part of the black culture do consistentley poorly. And, instead of seeing how they can do better, they blame it on anything and everything.
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posted
Economics and race are all mixed up. For social change, you have to organize and motivate people, and appealing to race is more effective than appealing to poverty.
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posted
Thought it might be interesting to you, as it went in a different direction from where your statement seemed to be going.
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posted
The bottom line is that the SAT has been shown in study after study to be uncorrelated with peoples performance in college. It can not be used to accurately predict either performance in freshman classes or graduation rates.
What's more, the SAT routinely overpredicts how well white males will perform in college and underpredicts the performance of women and minorities. A 1994 ETS study found that, on average, males scored 33 points higher on the SAT-Math than females who earn the same grades in the same college math courses.
The bias is particularly slanted against bilingual students, even if their strongest language is english.
The key issue isn't simply that women and minorities have lower SAT scores that white men. It is that these lower scores are not reflected by poorer performance in college.
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posted
It would be nice to link the study since you're citing specific numbers and there have been studies that have gone both ways. Some are more reliable than others and the only way I can evaluate how reliable yours is is if you link it.
quote:In its historical form, the SAT involved a large section on analogies. The stated objective of this section was to measure reasoning skills but because the test words that are not commonly used in everyday communication, the section was also a test of vocabulary.
just to throw in some personal experience here, that may or may not be relevent. I wasn't born in this country and my vocabulary has always been inferior to others in my age group. Taking the Iowa tests(similar to SATs but given to elementary and middle school students) when i was younger I always used to score poorly in the straight vocubulary section, like 65 or 70th percentile. But in the reading for comprehension sections i always scored in the top 95th percentile or higher. Some have already mentioned this in the thread, but my point is that a literal understanding of the words, which harmed me in the vocab sections, had no effect on my comprehension.
posted
Most of the information I gave is stuff I've assembled in my brain over years of reading about this in engineering education publications so I really can't direct you to the studies themselves.
One good summary I found on the internet is here.Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Dagonee, If you are scoring in the 95th percentile in other parts of the test, then scoring in the 65th percentile on vocabulary is low. If you are trying to get into an elite university, the difference between the 95th percentile and the 90th percentile on the SAT could make the difference. At the 65th percentile you probably wouldn't be seriously considered. And this is all despite the fact that the SAT is a very poor indicator of college success.
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posted
Forget the exact numbers. My point is that there was a 30% difference(a huge difference, in my opinion) between my scores which would both be under the "English" section of the SAT. That there's a big difference between knowing how to speak a language and comprehending the meanings of things and being able to think logically. You can have one and not the other, and it works both ways.
posted
Another significant economic issue is test-prep. Kids whose parents can afford to send them to a test-prep course (or who scrimp and save to do so, as some Asian families whose kids I taught SATs to did) can expect their scores to go up 100-200 points, on average.
Now, there are cheaper ways to get the same point-rise yourself, but most require motivation and a large commitment of time.
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posted
You maybe correct Dagonee, but most of the people who score above the 90th percentile in reading comprehension on these exams, understand what percentile means.
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posted
I've seen reports on the horrible state of education in school systems based on overall SAT percentiles in the 60s.
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posted
Actually, Rabbit, I doubt that. I've run into plenty of people extremely well versed in reading that are completely clueless about math. I've also run into plenty of people who are well versed in math (such as calculus) who don't know what in the heck a percentile is.
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posted
A semi-related and rather scary thought... I'm going to assume that most of us here have at least heard of the No Child Left Behind Act ("NCLB") (or if not can Google and get some basic information).
The Chicago Tribune in the last week or two published a list from the Illinois Department of Education of the state's schools on the "action" list.... while some of the schools listed are to be expected because they're inner city districts with major income issues in the homes, some of our state's TOP high schools are on the watch list this year, including my own school!
These other schools I refer to are in districts that are in middle-class to affluent areas, often several minority groups, a significant quantity and variety of extracurricular activities. LT, for example, was ranked in the top 10 schools in the state academically when I was there (I haven't bothered to look at those rankings since i graduated 15 years ago). It's very very hard for me to believe that my school has disintegrated so dramatically in that time. By the way, AJ, Rolling Meadows is also on that same list! Something to consider with the discussion we had via IM over the weekend. I'd not realized they were watchlisted also.
What this rating means, though, is that students who live in these "watchlisted" districts, based on the actual test scores (there are several levels to the watchlist) can transfer out to districts that meet or exceed the standards set by NCLB without having to pay out-of-district fees and with transportation provided in order to improve student performance.
Of course, if the students have insufficient support at home, including time to devote to studies, money for appropriate nutrition, etc., transferring out of school is not going to help. The article in the Tribune that had caught my attention in the first place was a year-long study of a young girl (3rd or 4th grade) in one of our more impoverished inner-city neighborhoods who qualified for a transfer to a much better school and still failed because of external problems. The child really did want to do well, but distance and income and time all worked so much against her that she just couldn't overcome.
So, tying back into the original topic and parallelling Puppy's post, if there's no (or not enough) support at home, education suffers, therefore SAT grades will suffer. A child learns first what he or she sees in the home. Parents need to support their children in all ways to have a hope for success.
<getting off soapbox..... boy am I talkative tonight!>
posted
What concerns me about the SAT or other standardized "entrance exams" is that there are way too many variables for the tests to truly be standardized or effective in what they are measuring (at least as I've experienced them).
Many, many years ago, when I took the SAT, I didn't really score that well (just over 1000). However, when I got to college, I consistently made As and Bs (the exception being my math) and eventually graduated with a 3.30. The SAT score really didn't reveal anything more about me than: a) I honestly am befuddled by higher math b) I don't take massive tests well
The test gave the college no clue as to how I might actually function in a classroom or how well I could learn in the right environment. If you mix in cultural difference, you get even less of a clue about the student.
I work at a local Technical College (that's the politically correct way to say trade school). The school administers the COMPASS exam as an entrance exam. 65% of our entering students do not pass the COMPASS. I would venture to say out of that 65% about 2/3s of the population is from another culture. Rather than taking the time to find a way to test them with a version of the test that is focused on the ESL student, our school is lazy and clumps all of the students on the same version of the test.
The problems the students have could be solved if only someone would take the time to attend to the individual student's need. I know that rather pie-in-the-sky, but I figure if they are paying for a chance to come to school, they should be given a fairer chance to get in than that. Also, if the student cannot pass the test due to lack of vocabulary, etc. there should be a class or a group that they could be guided to to deal with their ESL issues before taking the test again.
Right now we have them go to our Learning Center and we tutor them. But some of the students are so new to the language they need teachers that can help them get acclimatized.
This is just one teaching broads views...
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posted
My wife and I have been friendly with a Vietnamese family in our neighborhood for several years. The parents came over as refugees in the late 70's, and they have done quite well. I think the reason they have done so well is that they have a huge support network whose main objective is to succeed economically in their new country. There were family members willing to loan or give them money to start a business and buy a house. This family also had what they call a "sponsor family." I don't know what role the sponsor family filled, but I think they generally helped the Vietnamese refugees to make a fresh start.
Perhaps what we need in order to break the cycle of poverty and lower expectations for education and success is for a college-educated, successful sponsor family to take a disadvantaged family under its wing. See that the school kids have a computer and know how to use it to do research and write reports. See that the kids have library cards and get to the library every two or three weeks. Have the sponsored family over one Monday night each month for fun and games. Teach the family how to do home repairs. Take the kids to the bank and help them open a savings account. Help them figure out how to do their income tax return. Help get the kids registered at school, and help with parent/teacher relations. Help the family find a doctor and dentist.
Would pride keep a disadvantaged family from accepting such help and intimate interaction? Not if they could see that the end result would be college-educated kids.
Who has that kind of time on their hands? Folks whose kids are grown and out of the house. Folks who planned to sit around in their Cancun condo when they retired, play bridge or golf all day, or go zooming around in their motorhome.
How about folks who devote more than two hours a day to TV or video games or Internet? I think sponsoring a family could be more fun that all of that.
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quote:Honestly people- I challenge you to take a college admittance exam for another country and I'm almost certain that there will be things that you have no clue what they are talking about.
But if I want to go to college in that country and graduate and be successful I'd better darn well learn what they're talking about, hadn't I? If I were applying to college in another country, I'd expect to be held to the same standard as people from that country were. If it wasn't my first language, I'd expect that I'd have to get fluent in it.
I'm not trying to argue the SAT is the perfect test, but just pointing out that if someone really has trouble reading and understanding the language the test is given in, maybe they aren't ready to go to a university where that is the predominant language spoken.
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posted
I've tutored the SAT. I've scored poorly. I've scored well. It's not about money. It's culture, and it's no one's fault, and you don't need any more tests to tell you what five minutes in a diverse school will show you.
It's the legacy of racial tension. At the core, I think there is a fundamental and subtle distrust of and insecurity with respect to all things that white people do. It's foreign and familiar and strangely dominating, and those are just the internal factors. External factors, Racism- overt and institutional-monopoly capitalism, sexism, etc.
And now you have a 10 year old trying figure out how he got into this mess and who put him here, so that when he gets out and creates a better world, he won't use the same value system of the jackass who got him into this mess to begin with. The testing gap indicative of the divide in America and it's deep. The gap is going to be at nearly all schools, Middle/lower class, homogenous or diverse, it's deep, and it goes back to slavery. It really does go back that far, and unless you take it back that far, and even farther, teaching about Imhotep and the blacks who beat Columbus by 2000 years across the Atlantic, you aren't going to understand. The extent to where it's a money issue is that you need money for better teachers because along with teaching your standard curriculum, you have to deal with lower teacher expectations, poor parent support, low student self-esteem, and an irrelevant curriculum.
Until you go deeply into the racial divide in this country and explain why the punk Uncle Fester looking kid on MTV would score higher than the guy with the Dreadlocks, then you aren't going come close to finding an answer.
I don't like the idea that it's racial, and that it goes back to slavery. When new black refugee immigrants seem to do better than blacks descended from slaves, I want to take color out of the equation altogether. But that still leaves the slavery issue doesn't it? Slavery was that bad that we're still paying the price?
Edit: I said I didn't like the idea, even though it may all be true. I want to be that 10-year old kid who doesn't own all that baggage.
quote:Slavery was that bad that we're still paying the price?
Yes, and reconstruction was so mediocre.
quote:New black refugee immigrants seem to do better than blacks descended from slaves, I want to take color out of the equation altogether.
No, that new black immigrants are doing better should show you the extreme importance of going back to the root of the problem. If people were serious, the government would dive into the problem. Talk about urban development. Talk about white flight. Talk about the good and the bad concerning desegregation. Talk about the distrust of all things white. And quit pretending it's not about race. The Founding Father's duplicity still affects modern America. It's not money, it's race. It's race. It's race. You can say it's money, because when the day is over, it'll still be race.
_________________
The biggest culpable institution left standing is the United States of America. The Government should figure out how to fix it. I have ideas, and it's not about simply giving money away. ________________
In America's defense, it's hard. I mean, it's going to work in South Africa because the black majority. It's going to work in Iraq, eventually, because once America stops pulling strings, they are going to do fine themselves, as long as we don't corrupt the economy. All the Jews just left left Europe and Russia after WWII, they also had a solid history before the atrocity. It's 400 years later and black Americans are still making up their own names. I'm not saying it's bad. I think it's good, but it is a sign.
No way! Inner cities suck! Anyone with any hope of a future should get themselves out of the inner city as soon as they are able...before they start another generation in bondage. Yes, get out of that concrete prison or sharecropper's shack before starting a family.
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