The College Board announced recently that it will take another step backward on its flagship SAT college entrance exam. The SAT, once the dominant test for high school juniors hoping for a seat in a discriminating college, has lost its numerical advantage. On the coasts of the nation, it is still the test of choice in most schools. In the mid-section of the country, however, the ACT has steadily gained numbers so that it now has surpassed its rival in numbers of test takers nationwide.
It cannot be said for certain that the College Board is changing because of the competition from the ACT, but the fact remains that recent changes will bring the venerable measure closer to its younger foe. The real story of what the College Board has done comes into focus with a little historical perspective. The SAT has been gradually dumbed down to accommodate our increasingly less capable high school population. Back in 1994 the College Board succumbed to pressure to remove the devilish antonym and analogy questions. These questions measured both vocabulary and critical reasoning skills, two elements found dwindling among high schoolers. Anyone who works with college freshman and sophomores as I do can attest to their poor vocabulary and paucity of reasoning skill. To protect them from ego damage, the SAT stopped asking them hard questions. I think that is metaphorically called punting (and I don't mean using a long flat bottomed boat.)
The other major change in the SAT is the removal of "SAT words," a term of derision that has been applied to any word that the hearer does not recognize. In other words, erudition is passe; we be down with dumb. The remarks by one high school student concerning the changes are telling. Commenting on the old test which had, "hard words and stuff," she was relieved to know her vocabulary would not need to grow much to score well on the test. I can't wait to get her in Composition class.
On another front there is a furor over Common Core standards in education. Many conservatives are joining the fight against them. Rachel Alexander of the Christian Post makes a false statement typical of many objectors: "Conservatives are in an uproar over Common Core, an educational curriculum being forced upon the states by the Obama administration." First, Common Core is not a curriculum; it is a set of standards. Curriculum is what and how you teach; standards, like Common Core, are the goals you hope to achieve by teaching what you teach. The Common Core is simply a set of concepts that students are expected to know at a given stage in their education. It is up to the local school, even the classroom teacher sometimes, to decide what materials and lessons to use. Second, Obama is not forcing any state to adopt Common Core. Sure, there is federal money available for those who do, but just like many federal programs, states can choose not to take the money.
Alexander also cites Diane Ravitch, a former assistant U.S. secretary of education, saying Common Core has not been proven. That is not true either. Tennessee has vigorously applied Common Core standards along with a rigorous teacher training and accountability regime and their student scores have rocketed toward the top in national rankings. Meanwhile Michigan dithers over what to do and our student scores are rapidly sinking toward the bottom. There may be honest objections to how standards are applied and how and when students are tested, but objecting to standards is like saying you don't care if students learn anything.
We cannot spank them anymore; that would be abusive, so they misbehave with impunity. They might sue if we make onerous demands on them as teens, so they have freedom without responsibility. Schools purport to teach diversity and end up promoting mindless uniformity. Across the country nearly 20% of high school graduates are functionally illiterate. Year after year American students fall farther behind students from many other countries. If I didn't know better I would suspect a sinister conspiracy to produce a generation of mindless automatons who will stand for nothing and fall for anything. That sounds suspiciously like the technique used by the Serpent in the Garden. Surely we wouldn't fall for that again.
It cannot be said for certain that the College Board is changing because of the competition from the ACT, but the fact remains that recent changes will bring the venerable measure closer to its younger foe. The real story of what the College Board has done comes into focus with a little historical perspective. The SAT has been gradually dumbed down to accommodate our increasingly less capable high school population. Back in 1994 the College Board succumbed to pressure to remove the devilish antonym and analogy questions. These questions measured both vocabulary and critical reasoning skills, two elements found dwindling among high schoolers. Anyone who works with college freshman and sophomores as I do can attest to their poor vocabulary and paucity of reasoning skill. To protect them from ego damage, the SAT stopped asking them hard questions. I think that is metaphorically called punting (and I don't mean using a long flat bottomed boat.)
The other major change in the SAT is the removal of "SAT words," a term of derision that has been applied to any word that the hearer does not recognize. In other words, erudition is passe; we be down with dumb. The remarks by one high school student concerning the changes are telling. Commenting on the old test which had, "hard words and stuff," she was relieved to know her vocabulary would not need to grow much to score well on the test. I can't wait to get her in Composition class.
On another front there is a furor over Common Core standards in education. Many conservatives are joining the fight against them. Rachel Alexander of the Christian Post makes a false statement typical of many objectors: "Conservatives are in an uproar over Common Core, an educational curriculum being forced upon the states by the Obama administration." First, Common Core is not a curriculum; it is a set of standards. Curriculum is what and how you teach; standards, like Common Core, are the goals you hope to achieve by teaching what you teach. The Common Core is simply a set of concepts that students are expected to know at a given stage in their education. It is up to the local school, even the classroom teacher sometimes, to decide what materials and lessons to use. Second, Obama is not forcing any state to adopt Common Core. Sure, there is federal money available for those who do, but just like many federal programs, states can choose not to take the money.
Alexander also cites Diane Ravitch, a former assistant U.S. secretary of education, saying Common Core has not been proven. That is not true either. Tennessee has vigorously applied Common Core standards along with a rigorous teacher training and accountability regime and their student scores have rocketed toward the top in national rankings. Meanwhile Michigan dithers over what to do and our student scores are rapidly sinking toward the bottom. There may be honest objections to how standards are applied and how and when students are tested, but objecting to standards is like saying you don't care if students learn anything.
We cannot spank them anymore; that would be abusive, so they misbehave with impunity. They might sue if we make onerous demands on them as teens, so they have freedom without responsibility. Schools purport to teach diversity and end up promoting mindless uniformity. Across the country nearly 20% of high school graduates are functionally illiterate. Year after year American students fall farther behind students from many other countries. If I didn't know better I would suspect a sinister conspiracy to produce a generation of mindless automatons who will stand for nothing and fall for anything. That sounds suspiciously like the technique used by the Serpent in the Garden. Surely we wouldn't fall for that again.
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