Banneker versus School Without Walls

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, so have you opted your kid(s) our of the PARCC in DCPS? I do so every year, because PARCC is a poorly written, unnecessarily lengthy, widely discredited corporate 10-hour test given to 8 year-olds, crafted and graded by a British company vs. an American one.

The SAT has been around since 1926, helping tens of millions of low and moderate-income students prove their value to elite colleges through four or five generations. You can throw the baby out with the bathwater because Banneker students don't get the prep to collectively shine on the SAT, or you can see the forest for the trees.

Test optional doesn't mean that the SAT, or ACT, has been rejected by academe. It means a decent score can only enhance an application. I don't know of any colleges that won't permit an applicant to submit a favorable SAT score with an application, do you?

It’s EXTREMELY disingenuous not to acknowledge that the SAT was created by a eugenicist as a way to support only allowing white people to immigrate to the US.

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/views/2020/08/17/history-sat-reflects-systemic-racism-opinion

LOL it's EXTREMELY ahistorical and ignorant to say the SAT was about only letting white people immigrate. You know the restrictionists in the early 20th century were trying to keep out Eastern European Catholics and Jews, right? And Bruce Hammond is a hack, not a historian. Read a book.

If you had read a book, you'd know that white supremacists didn't (and still don't) consider Jews like me or European Catholics to be white.

Also, the white-supremacist origins of the test that became the SAT have been documented extensively. You need look no further than the writings of Carl Bingham, developer of the Alpha test (which became the Scholastic Aptitude Test), to understand that his primary intellectual driving force in the 1920s was white supremacy and eugenics. He started with the ideas that different ethnic groups had an innate genetic intelligence level, that "Nordic peoples" had the most intelligence, and that allowing other groups to immigrate or to be admitted to universities risked lowering the standards and quality of those institutions. It's quite clear that his intellectual project was to scientifically justify segregation and closing both US borders and universities to people other than "Nordic" whites. It's also worth noting that he explicitly repudiated many of these ideas and much of his support for intelligence testing later in life.

It's also abundantly clear that:

- High school grades are the best predictor of first year college success (higher r value than SATs, per the College Board's own studies)

- SATs are most effective statistically at predicting parental SES

- The College Board has been really slow to implement changes that would go a long way toward reducing the pro-white, pro-wealthy bias of the SAT, the easiest of which would be to make the SAT more difficult. Studies of re-scoring previous tests by eliminating easy questions and only grading difficult questions have been repeatedly shown to reduce the wealth and racial gaps in test results, but the College Board has resisted.

All of which makes the assertion -- in spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary --- that SATs are an objective measure of college readiness really laughable.

DP. I haven't extensively researched any of that. Decades ago, the SAT was considered a good proxy test for the IQ test. They've changed it several times since then and it no longer is. Maybe you're going to say that IQ is meaningless wrt college. Maybe it is. Is it also meaningless wrt grad school or a doctorate? Is IQ ever meaningful?

I'm a 99th percentile IQ person married to a 99th percentile IQ person. High IQ means you have a brain that processes things and learns quickly. These people have the capacity to do well in grad school etc BUT IQ is not a predictor that they will do well. GPA is much more a predictor of that, because it indicates how well you do the actual work you are required to do.

There was some longitudinal study of gifted children (above 140 IQ) that followed them into adulthood. They could be found in all areas of work -- some getting grad degrees, but plenty who chose a different path entirely, worked with their hands, never graduated, etc.

High IQ people who also work hard are unstoppable, for sure. And most unique insights come from the community. But there isn't this clear line from high IQ to grad school.

[Anonymous]

What about the fact that the Banneker kids get threes on their AP exams? That's average yes, but for a college course, so that means that those kids are prepared for college even though they are still in high school. It also implies that the AP courses are decent at least. I agree with the central office poster that I would like to see more excellence in the DCPS system overall. For my middle schooler, I would want not necessarily more grunt work (the more common DCPS interpretation of "excellence"), but more books assigned to read (in six weeks there has been a single 100 page book) and longer writing assignments.

Thanks everyone for all of these interesting perspectives!

- OP

[Anonymous]

Only an American would argue that PP is wrong.

In my Asian country, students on track to attend university are expected to work at the standard that would earn them a score of at least 500 on SATs by age 13 or 14, not 17 or 18.

Only in the US would parents argue that a easy college admissions test is racist because so many poor students score low on it. The problem is that schools and living conditions for poor kids usually aren't very good in this country. The answer isn't to make the already easy SAT easier/less academic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Only an American would argue that PP is wrong.

In my Asian country, students on track to attend university are expected to work at the standard that would earn them a score of at least 500 on SATs by age 13 or 14, not 17 or 18.

Only in the US would parents argue that a easy college admissions test is racist because so many poor students score low on it. The problem is that schools and living conditions for poor kids usually aren't very good in this country. The answer isn't to make the already easy SAT easier/less academic.

Only in DC would such a wildly uniformed person stride into a conversation and make idiotic pronouncements without bothering to read the discussion that's gone before.

As has been discussed repeatedly, the best make the SAT more equitable is to make it HARDER, which is what many people who point out the clear pro-white, pro-rich bias of the test are arguing for.

Also, discounting the long discussion upthread about the explicitly racist origins of the SAT (or the "Alpha test" as the white supremacist and eugenicist who invented it originally called it) is wildly disingenuous.

The differences between college admissions tests used in Asia that are designed to test specific, clearly defined content knowledge versus the SAT (a test explicitly designed to test the genetic aptitude of different ethnic groups) has likewise been covered in depth.

PP, were you too lazy to read the previous discussion, or are you intentionally being obtuse by blathering about making the test easier (which, as has been discussed at length, has been repeatedly done and has made bias WORSE)?

[Anonymous]

*the best way to make the SAT more equitable is to make it HARDER

[Anonymous]

Wait wut? 😳

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It's EXTREMELY disingenuous not to acknowledge that high school and college admissions tests are systematically used all over the world. This is the case because such tests are useful for identifying the academic preparedness of prospective students.

If you learn a bit more about the origins and stated purpose of the SAT (hint -- it's right there in the name, the Scholastic APTITUDE Test) you'll understand the difference between the SAT and other tests used all over the world for college admissions. The SAT was explicitly developed, and has been repeatedly adapted over the years, to NOT be a content-specific or skill-specific test like AS levels or A levels in the UK.

The SAT was originally developed to be a test of genetic aptitude rather than specific skills. Looked at charitably, you could argue that this is all in an effort to prevent people from being able to prep for the test so that true genetic aptitude rather than preparation could be tested (again, explicitly UNLIKE the tests used in the rest of the world), but there are a lot of problems with this, most importantly that content-specific, prep-able tests have lower bias toward high-SES and white students. This is reflected in the fact that eliminating questions that the College Board designates as easier from SAT test scores results in a lower SES and racial gap, and the prevailing understanding of this result is that harder questions reflect things that both high SES and low SES students need to study for, whereas easy, "general knowledge" questions tend to favor high SES students.

The fact that the College Board knows all this but continues to push their genetic aptitude test is really problematic.

I'm not white and didn't grow up UMC but I say bunk. If you're a HS student of whatever race or background who can't score at least in 500s on both sections of the SAT after a couple of tries, you don't belong in a BA program. You need more prep, perhaps at a community college. You can argue about the whys and wherefores until the end of time without changing this inconvenient truth.

There aren't really general knowledge questions on the SAT. There are simple reading comp questions, only a little bit harder than those on MS state standardized tests mandated by ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act under Obama), questions stemming from knowledge of arithmetic and basic algebra geometry, and questions related to interpreting highly accessible charts and graphs. No trick questions designed to trip up poor minority students.

If you haven't acquired the requisite college prep skills in HS to get a decent SAT score, you need to that before commencing BA studies. Policy makers need to ensure that far more low-income minorities have the education to score well enough on good-quality standardized tests to demonstrate that they're ready to move on to BA studies on good form. I wasn't a cherry-picked minority at a private school or NYC magnet. But I had access to GT programs in ES/MS in my working-class community, and good AP classes in HS. The SAT was no great mountain to climb for me and my low-SES minority friends.

All of these claims are flatly refuted by mountains of evidence.

PP, this is why we don't make policy based on anecdotes, but as long as we're sharing anecdotes -- in my elementary school G&T classes were for whites only, and their role in continuing segregation was an open secret. In fact, in my elementary school, special ed classes were where "unruly" black boys were placed to keep them away from the white kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wait wut? 😳

Read the discussion upthread. When you re-score SAT tests by eliminating the easy questions (as defined by the college board), the wealth gap and the racial score gap shrink a lot. The folks who study this theorize that everybody has to study to master more difficult material, whereas the easier questions (again, as defined by the College Board) favor wealthier, whiter students.

This is why folks who want to reduce the racial bias of the SAT say that the best way to do so is to make it much harder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
It’s about aptitude, not “genetic” aptitude. Brains have plasticity, which is why education, especially ECE, is important. And the fact that studying — learning more math and logic — can improve scores shows that skills are involved (and, I would argue, these same skills are useful in work and life).

Whether SATs predict college performance or whether it should be used for college admissions are different matters. But the idea that the SAT is all about “genetics” is absurd.

It's absurd if you are totally ignorant of the history of test. Once you learn that history, you will know that the SAT was explicitly and intentionally created by white supremacist and eugenicist Carl Bingham as a test of GENETIC aptitude (specifically in the context of claimed aptitude differences between races).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Only an American would argue that PP is wrong.

In my Asian country, students on track to attend university are expected to work at the standard that would earn them a score of at least 500 on SATs by age 13 or 14, not 17 or 18.

Only in the US would parents argue that a easy college admissions test is racist because so many poor students score low on it. The problem is that schools and living conditions for poor kids usually aren't very good in this country. The answer isn't to make the already easy SAT easier/less academic.

I don’t want my kids anywhere near an Asian education system. There is a reason Americans have dominated the tech industry when it comes to creativity. Creativity is killed by the Asian education system. Additionally, the top student in Asian countries want to come here and live. You can keep your dumb obsession with standardized tests. Smart is more than filling in a bubble with a number 2 pencil.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It’s about aptitude, not “genetic” aptitude. Brains have plasticity, which is why education, especially ECE, is important. And the fact that studying — learning more math and logic — can improve scores shows that skills are involved (and, I would argue, these same skills are useful in work and life).

Whether SATs predict college performance or whether it should be used for college admissions are different matters. But the idea that the SAT is all about “genetics” is absurd.

It's absurd if you are totally ignorant of the history of test. Once you learn that history, you will know that the SAT was explicitly and intentionally created by white supremacist and eugenicist Carl Bingham as a test of GENETIC aptitude (specifically in the context of claimed aptitude differences between races).

The Asian obsession over SATs is particularly ironic given that Bingham was staunchly anti-immigrant. There were no "good immigrants" in his estimation, even if his then targets were primarily Southern and Eastern Europeans

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only an American would argue that PP is wrong.

In my Asian country, students on track to attend university are expected to work at the standard that would earn them a score of at least 500 on SATs by age 13 or 14, not 17 or 18.

Only in the US would parents argue that a easy college admissions test is racist because so many poor students score low on it. The problem is that schools and living conditions for poor kids usually aren't very good in this country. The answer isn't to make the already easy SAT easier/less academic.

I don’t want my kids anywhere near an Asian education system. There is a reason Americans have dominated the tech industry when it comes to creativity. Creativity is killed by the Asian education system. Additionally, the top student in Asian countries want to come here and live. You can keep your dumb obsession with standardized tests. Smart is more than filling in a bubble with a number 2 pencil.

In an OECD study of 15-year-old students’ scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading in 80 nations, China ranked #1 and the US ranked #25. The US ranked well below Estonia (#5), Canada (#8), Poland (#11), and Slovenia (#13).

The only reason the US tech industry is presently so successful is because many emigrate here from other countries to make money. That doesn’t mean that our schools are better. Indeed, many emigrants take away jobs from less-educated Americans.

You really think that the current situation won’t change in the next 20-50 years? Maybe we will see Americans emigrating to other countries for better education and to make money? China gained 239 billionaires last year and currently has 626 billionaires, second only to the US, with 724 billionaires.

Rather than waving the flag, yelling “America First,” and whining about standardized tests, we should try to improve our educational system from the bottom up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It’s about aptitude, not “genetic” aptitude. Brains have plasticity, which is why education, especially ECE, is important. And the fact that studying — learning more math and logic — can improve scores shows that skills are involved (and, I would argue, these same skills are useful in work and life).

Whether SATs predict college performance or whether it should be used for college admissions are different matters. But the idea that the SAT is all about “genetics” is absurd.

It's absurd if you are totally ignorant of the history of test. Once you learn that history, you will know that the SAT was explicitly and intentionally created by white supremacist and eugenicist Carl Bingham as a test of GENETIC aptitude (specifically in the context of claimed aptitude differences between races).

The Asian obsession over SATs is particularly ironic given that Bingham was staunchly anti-immigrant. There were no "good immigrants" in his estimation, even if his then targets were primarily Southern and Eastern Europeans

Breaking news!!! George Washington was a slave owner!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only an American would argue that PP is wrong.

In my Asian country, students on track to attend university are expected to work at the standard that would earn them a score of at least 500 on SATs by age 13 or 14, not 17 or 18.

Only in the US would parents argue that a easy college admissions test is racist because so many poor students score low on it. The problem is that schools and living conditions for poor kids usually aren't very good in this country. The answer isn't to make the already easy SAT easier/less academic.

I don’t want my kids anywhere near an Asian education system. There is a reason Americans have dominated the tech industry when it comes to creativity. Creativity is killed by the Asian education system. Additionally, the top student in Asian countries want to come here and live. You can keep your dumb obsession with standardized tests. Smart is more than filling in a bubble with a number 2 pencil.

In an OECD study of 15-year-old students’ scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading in 80 nations, China ranked #1 and the US ranked #25. The US ranked well below Estonia (#5), Canada (#8), Poland (#11), and Slovenia (#13).

The only reason the US tech industry is presently so successful is because many emigrate here from other countries to make money. That doesn’t mean that our schools are better. Indeed, many emigrants take away jobs from less-educated Americans.

You really think that the current situation won’t change in the next 20-50 years? Maybe we will see Americans emigrating to other countries for better education and to make money? China gained 239 billionaires last year and currently has 626 billionaires, second only to the US, with 724 billionaires.

Rather than waving the flag, yelling “America First,” and whining about standardized tests, we should try to improve our educational system from the bottom up.

I’m all for improving the public education system but for reasons other than improving SAT scores. Don’t care about that scam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only an American would argue that PP is wrong.

In my Asian country, students on track to attend university are expected to work at the standard that would earn them a score of at least 500 on SATs by age 13 or 14, not 17 or 18.

Only in the US would parents argue that a easy college admissions test is racist because so many poor students score low on it. The problem is that schools and living conditions for poor kids usually aren't very good in this country. The answer isn't to make the already easy SAT easier/less academic.

I don’t want my kids anywhere near an Asian education system. There is a reason Americans have dominated the tech industry when it comes to creativity. Creativity is killed by the Asian education system. Additionally, the top student in Asian countries want to come here and live. You can keep your dumb obsession with standardized tests. Smart is more than filling in a bubble with a number 2 pencil.

In an OECD study of 15-year-old students’ scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading in 80 nations, China ranked #1 and the US ranked #25. The US ranked well below Estonia (#5), Canada (#8), Poland (#11), and Slovenia (#13).

The only reason the US tech industry is presently so successful is because many emigrate here from other countries to make money. That doesn’t mean that our schools are better. Indeed, many emigrants take away jobs from less-educated Americans.

You really think that the current situation won’t change in the next 20-50 years? Maybe we will see Americans emigrating to other countries for better education and to make money? China gained 239 billionaires last year and currently has 626 billionaires, second only to the US, with 724 billionaires.

Rather than waving the flag, yelling “America First,” and whining about standardized tests, we should try to improve our educational system from the bottom up.

+100. I came to the US from Taiwan for grad school, married an American and stayed in the US to work in high tech. I teach my children math 2 years ahead of the DCPS math curriculum. Even so, they're behind academically "average" peers in my country.

When I picked up an SAT prep book for my middle schooler recently, I discovered that the toughest math tested roughly equates to 7th grade math in Taiwan for the weakest math students.

If the US wants to start to catch up to "rich" East Asia for math instruction, schools need to track for math starting in the elementary grades. Not just differentiation, tracking. In Taiwan, if you're good at math, and willing to put in hard work, you're placed in a higher math classes in government schools from age 10. That's true all over the country.