Essayist extraordinaire Victor David Hansen is one of the featured authors in the National Review's new special on higher education. Yes, every other page is an ad, but it's worth reading (and the ads make me nostalgic for college days, which I didn't think was possible). The topics include the heavily-politicized college atmosphere, the impact of September 11th on campus discussions, and the controversies surrounding community service for college students.
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Are Georgia's college hopefuls not that motivated to do well on the SATs? That's the theory of Governor Sonny Purdue, who ultimately hopes to see the SATs required for the HOPE scholarship. Right now the scholarships require only a B average in core curriculum classwork, which allegedly has led to grade inflation in Georgia's schools. The interview with the governor is here. Controversial? What do you think?
The governor didn't suggest a minimum score. But he said even a low minimum SAT would help create an incentive for some students to do better on the exam.
Proposing changes to the popular HOPE scholarship is always politically dicey, but adding the SAT is especially so because there is a large gap in how students from racial and ethnic groups score on the test. On average, whites and Asians score much higher than African-Americans and Hispanics. That could make adding the SAT, which is used by colleges to help determine admissions, a tough sell.
"It would be devastating for minority students," said House Education Chairman Bob Holmes (D-Atlanta), a member of the HOPE study commission who is African-American. "Even the people at the College Board indicate you should not use this as a reflection of how well students will do in college."
That's interesting, given that the College Board markets the SAT as a method of indicating college readiness, to be used in combination with grades. I wasn't aware of any press release or research from the CB which stated that the SAT was not related to college performance.
And we're not really talking about high standards here. One suggested SAT cutpoint for the HOPE is a score of 1000, which is an average score nationwide, but above Georgia's average of 984 (the lowest in the nation). That requirement would have disqualified almost one-third of the HOPE scholars in 2000 - and remember, these are kids with B averages in high school. Luckily, Governor Perdue has faith in his students and doesn't expect minority scholarship offers to plummet if the SAT is included in the equation.
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Professorial gadfly Mike S. Adams is back with another column at Townhall.com. This time, he's written an open letter to UNC's Director of Diversity, in which he wonders why the new spirit of moral relativism and non-judgmentalism that's so prevalent on campus shouldn't be extended even further - say, to pedophiles?
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From AZCentral.com's College Guide, here's how to master tests without technically cheating. The suggestions, which are fantastically unimaginative (I mean, what student isn't going to try to buddy up on homework assignments or get copies of old tests these days?), reminded me of my experience as a TA for a legendary, tough old teacher in my graduate department.
This professor reused exams from year to year, but his exam questions were so monstrously esoteric and vague and broad and eccentric that you literally could not pass his exams unless you reviewed copies of previous exams, so that you'd have some idea of what you were in for. The items were unlike any that I'd seen on any other statistics exams, and it took people hours to finish these tests.
I took the course one year and TA'd it the next. When the time came to grade the first batch of exams, I asked the professor for the key, and he said there wasn't one. I was just to solve all the exam items on my own, and then check it against the class's work, and call him if there were any problems. It was like having to take the class all over again - but I admit, I really got a lot out of it the second time around.
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And finally, Slick Willie, otherwise known as former President William J. Clinton, has created a foundation to provide free test preparation services to Little Rock students. The William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation is teaming up with the Princeton Review to fund a program forstudents who are headed for college and would like to take the SAT or ACT, but cannot afford any test preparation courses. Right now, Arkansans who take the SAT score above average on the exam - but they represent only 6% of Arkansas's graduating seniors.
Posted by kswygert at September 29, 2003 11:47 AM