A Devoted Reader who is also a teacher suggested I visit the Channel One site to view an SAT video. I can't get the video to come up (even though I signed up for Channel One membership); luckily, my reader gave me a synopsis of it (which I have edited for clarity):
Today Channel one showed an article on the SAT. "Is the SAT an indicator of college success?"
They talked about scores being up.
College board says a focus on important course work.
Bob Schaeffer from FairTest is interviewed. [why am I not surprised?]
Complains about the "underlying issues of the accuracy and the fairness
of these (SAT and ACT ) tests." [none of which are ever defined or supported with data in these types of reports]
A 16-year-old student, "Some people aren't good at taking certain kinds of
tests." Another 16-year-old pro test comments. (Channel one usually presents one student opinion from each side.)
17-year-old: "You have to have some way to compare one student against
another."
Reporter: "Critics say SATs are biased against minorities [critics that rarely provide data or use the correct definition of bias, that is.]
Bizarrely, the video then shows black and Asian students [who generally outperform whites on the exam], and students from lower income families.
Bob comes back to say gaps between Blacks, Latinos, and Anglos have grown. Calls the SAT a strategic game. [What does he call the K-12 system that underprepares these students?]
My reader also had this to say:
I teach math at "A Channel One School". The last three years I taught Statistics. This year I'm teaching Advanced Math (Pre-Calculus) and AP
Calculus. My school is 75% Black in rural NE North Carolina. The reaction to the article in my Advanced Math class was not suprising. The vocal students were the struggling blacks. They wanted the SAT eliminated. My top students (Black and White) said nothing.
Comments by those types of "vocal students" are often presented as legitimate test criticism by clueless reporters. While the SAT has differential impact on different groups, that doesn't necessarily mean the test scores are less valid for blacks than for whites, and the fact that some students struggle with the exam is no indicator of its fairness, or validity.
Posted by kswygert at October 15, 2003 09:46 AM