Well, well, well, a columnist for the Collegiate Times has apparently had it up to here with all this talk of SAT bias (I can empathize, believe me):
During the early 20th century, rich white males who went to prestigious and expensive prep schools dominated college admissions. Implementation of a nationwide standardized test was thought to be the best way to give everyone an equal chance of getting into college and receiving scholarships.
It is ironic that nowadays people are actually trying to have it removed based on the grounds that it gives a disadvantage to minorities and women.
Great care goes into making sure the test is fair and balanced...If this test is biased, it is only biased against those with no math or English skills.
Heh. So why the gap?
Grade inflation is rampant in U.S. high schools across the country. With close to 40 percent of high school students graduating with at least an A- average, how can schools distinguish between candidates without another attribute?...
Another argument against the SAT is scores do not indicate college success. Women do worse on the SAT but yet have better grades in college. However, more women take classes that are arguably easier, such as marketing and communication...On top of that, courses in engineering and science have not been subject to the same skyrocketing grade averages.
True - the hard sciences have been less politicized and subject to less grade inflation. I won't say that there's none, and certainly professors can grade easier by giving points for extra credit, but math and science departments tend to be sanctuaries for the politically incorrect, and when the division of right-vs.-wrong answer tends to be clear, it's harder to argue the grading scheme.
Any study that compares college grades for different subgroups, without taking college major into account, is essentially producing greatly confounded results. One blogger (whose name I've forgotten) recently listed 10 college majors, ranked by difficulty of the course work; if I recall correctly, physical education was ranked above Women's Studies, or Gay/Lesbian Studies, or some such major where the only right answer depends on the professor's sex and political party affiliation.
The columnist here, Kris Hassinger, floats the theory that women and minorities do more poorly on the SAT simply because lower-ability women and minorities are less likely to find good job opportunities that would be available to lower-ability white males, such as mechanic, construction worker, etc. (Please don't write me letters telling me about all the genius mechanics you know. I'm not saying they're dumb, but they probably ended up in their fields because they were smart in ways other than "book-learning.")
Therefore, the SAT means are lower for women and minorities because they don't feel that they can do the dirty blue-collar work, and they search for another means of employment, most of which involve college degrees.
Kris winds up by dissing UC's decision to downplay the SAT I, and makes an observation that I myself have made on here many a time before:
The University of California is pushing to throw out the SAT in admissions in an effort to bolster diversity...Something is fishy if a student has a 4.0 but gets an 800 on the SAT, and it’s not the test. Let’s not throw out academic data just because it is inconvenient to our sleight-of-hand effort to increase minority acceptance.
The reasons for the difference in test scores are, in fact, due to cultural bias, but not on the side of the test. There are deeply rooted socioeconomic conditions that both de-emphasize academics and create an aura of cynicism and distrust towards the educational process. The inner city is a culture that does not hold education in high regard — very little emphasis is placed on academic achievement...
The underlying problem is the dismal school systems and societal de-emphasis on educational merit. Blaming the test for the poor scores is essentially like shooting the messenger.
Yes, it most certainly is. We psychometricians strap on our metaphorical bulletproof vests every day, in fact; it helps us in dealing with the misguided and the mercenary who oppose any sort of objective testing.
Posted by kswygert at October 23, 2003 11:57 AM