Reply to Square the circle: how are acceptances harder to get than ever yet basic skills are at their lowest?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Fewer kids regularly read or write for pleasure, and I'd imagine that explains some of it. Independent reading lends itself to a greater range of general knowledge, better critical thinking skills, a larger vocabulary, and better language and communication skills.[/quote]

I think this is it.  It's a fall-off in high-end literacy.  If you're pretty smart and read well, you can do pretty well on the verbal SATs.  But if you're not well-read like more top kids used to be, then you won't know a lot of the canon, your writing style may be less sophisticated, etc.

Expectations are low in many high schools.  My kid did poorly in Spanish 4, his first semester at college. He complained that he was graded down for faults that wouldn't have been graded down in high school (accents, etc.).  I had zero sympathy for this.  On the other hand, neither he nor I had control over the grading standards used in high school. So it's true that he wasn't prepared well.  I had a bad feeling about the rigor of his Spanish courses all along but I wasn't prepared to rock the boat in a subject where he was actually doing fairly well.[/quote]

Agree.  I think same for math.  Get the correct answer but you don’t have to understand why it is correct.  Just use the right formula.[/quote]

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