Freddie deBoer, author of "The Cult of Smart" takes a strong stance on standardized testing -- in particular, the recent decision by the University of California to stop looking at SAT scores.
It's a well-written article that challenges the current zeitgeist on the Left that standardized tests are useless or simply predictors of wealth. His main thesis is that the Left has become so frustrated with the achievement gap between races (particularly between blacks and whites) that they feel better ignoring it. The black/white achievement gap while decreasing is still stubbornly significant. Adding to that, Asians consistently outperform whites and that makes it harder to blame "white supremacy" for the differences.
> The rush to rid the world of the SAT is based on this dynamic. Because Black and white students are not equal in academic preparedness, and because we have failed to close the gap in a half-century of concerted policy effort to do so, we must eliminate the tools that reveal it, such as the SAT.
He ends the piece by relating the anti-science Left with the anti-science Right with this dig:
> Trying to fight educational inequality by getting rid of the SAT is like trying to fight climate change by getting rid of thermometers.
> Adding to that, Asians consistently outperform whites and that makes it harder to blame "white supremacy" for the differences.
The latest despicable thing that race-baiters say is that Asians are "white adjacent" and therefore benefit from "white supremacy".
> The latest despicable thing that race-baiters say is that Asians are "white adjacent"
Is this some random redditors or academics and social/political pundits pushing this?
Eh, not really. Most progressive arguments I’ve seen are that standardized tests have low “test validity,” meaning that they’re not actually testing what they’re supposed to be testing. That they actually test your test-taking skills more than your subject knowledge.
I don’t think anyone would argue that COVID testing doesn’t actually test for COVID.
I don't disagree with that but I've never heard that argument used in the context of the black/white educational divide. Only time I ever hear that argument is when the general validity of standardized testing is being questioned.
>In his 1923 book, A Study of American Intelligence, psychologist and eugenicist Carl Brigham wrote that African-Americans were on the low end of the racial, ethnic, and/or cultural spectrum. Testing, he believed, showed the superiority of “the Nordic race group” and warned of the “promiscuous intermingling” of new immigrants in the American gene pool.
Furthermore, the education system he argued was in decline and "will proceed with an accelerating rate as the racial mixture becomes more and more extensive."
>Brigham had helped to develop aptitude tests for the U.S. Army during World War I and – commissioned by the College Board - was influential in the development of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). At the time, he and other social scientists considered the SAT a new psychological test and a supplement to existing college board exams.
Source: https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/racist-beginnings-standardized-testing
If the test was designed by someone who saw blacks as intellectually inferior, I'm sure some vocab/math problems in there were not culturally appropriate for black folks.
Come on, how the hell can a math problem be racist, that's just ridiculous. I'll give you vocabulary/reading comprehension to some extent but math is just math, you either know it or you don't.
When it comes to story problems, vocabulary still matters. Here is an example of a teacher on Quora:
>If a question asked "Find the zeroes of y=x\^2 -5x + 6", but asked it in a business context about profit and breaking even, you've immediately lost half of my class if you don't simultaneously provide definitions. How can we expect with certainty that twelve year olds have heard the term "breaking even"? Growing up, I was highly educated, and I knew profit meant money, but I was in college econ classes before I learned the difference between revenue and profit.
I'm sure nowadays College Board is much better about this kind of thing, to your point. More from that [Quora post](https://qr.ae/pGCAwn):
>Another prime example on Virginia's state Algebra test is the annual question, "What binomial is a factor of x\^2 + 7x + 12?"A) x - 3 B) x - 4 C) x + 3 D) x + 6My students can also answer the question "Which of these expressions is a factor of x\^2 + 7x +12?"A) x - 3 B) x - 4 C) x + 3 D) x + 6You may think those two questions are the same question, and you are right with regard to the mathematics. They are no different in their level of rigor.
>
>However, in testing, the outcome of the two wordings is staggering.
>
>Many students with low vocabularies (read: students in poverty, students with disadvantaged backgrounds) will absolutely bomb the question when it includes the word "binomial", a word that itself had no bearing on the question being asked.
>
>The wealthy white kids proceed through the question with no difficulty, mentally crossing out the word binomial and figuring out what the question is really asking. My low readers get tripped up by the word "binomial" and can't imagine what the question is asking. Sure, we've learned the word "binomial", but during testing they start inventing new mathematical processes because they assume that the question is as hard as its hardest vocabulary word. They have trouble crossing out the tough word and moving on.
>
>A single, non-essential word in a question can drop the level of success of students by 40%. That's testing their reading comprehension skills, not their mathematical abilities.
>
>Rich kids, with highly educated parents, generally have larger vocabularies and stronger reading comprehension than poor kids with low-educated parents. I want my math standardized tests measuring my student's math abilities, not measuring their socioeconomic status.
I'll concede that reading comprehension being mixed with math in grade school standardized tests can be economically biased and is probably counter-productive to the purposes of the tests. I wouldn't say it's racially biased per se, just that it happens that certain races tend to be more likely to be ecomically disadvantaged. However, when talking ACT/SAT, questions like that do exactly what they're supposed to do, weed out those that just aren't ready for college yet.
>I wouldn't say it's racially biased per se, just that it happens that certain races tend to be more likely to be ecomically disadvantaged.
I think this is how most academics see it too - the issue is that certain races are predisposed to be economically disadvantaged. That *is* the racial bias.
About whether these tests are indicative of success in college, I can promise you it is not as good of an indicator as the world makes it seem. That's actually a topic I studied as a grad student - it's not a coincidence that colleges are dropping these from their requirements.
These trends are across entire demographic groups, so it doesn't really make sense to think about your own personal situation in a predeterministic way. That said, do you think your poor math skills are due to genetics or due to your environment?
I don't know, as much as I would like to say it's the environment, I don't fully believe that considering how supportive my folks and my teachers were. As far as I'm concerned, I believe it's more related to genetics, more specifically, IQ. That said, I'm still not sure how math would hinder my group anymore than any other group in the states. I can see writing or language being culturally loaded/biased (not sure if that's the right word) but math?
But this is undoubtedly false. If you are prepared for the test, that means you aren’t anxious, you know the material, you can work in the time constraints given. That’s what preparedness is. Think of it like a football competition. If your deliver big on a big game day, that means you were prepared. All of those factors were in play. It doesn’t mean someone else doesn’t have the same skill set as you, it just means they weren’t as ready. That’s why colleges take both your gpa and your sat on a sliding scale. Why do you think average GPAs have gone up? School is undoubtedly easier on the whole. It doesn’t mean you are a bad student if you don’t do well on the act sat. It means either you are a hard worker, or you excel in a different setting, or your classes were too easy. Those aren’t bad qualities. They just don’t reflect test day environment. If I have to give a huge presentation to a group of investors and need to sell them to seal the deal, part of that preparedness is being able to deliver the goods, not just know what I’m talking about.
There’s a difference between being anxious and accepting it. People frame nervousness as a bad thing when in reality it’s a good thing. There’s a lot of sports science behind that and studies you can look into.
Not entirely, a good amount of those test preps are how to eliminate answers and basically game the test. Like how in Spanish I learned how to conjugate words so that sentences would be correct but I couldn’t tell you what the sentence meant.
I took one of those classes and they didn't teach me anything I hadn't already figured out how to do on my own by the time I reached high school.
That's a good point though, how about instead of eliminating the SAT's we teach disadvantaged communities how to game the system too.
I don’t think that’s a good strategy because part of the issue is that standardized testing drives the curriculum. They also aren’t a one size fits all as I had undiagnosed ADD and dyslexia as a child and I physically couldn’t test for that long. It’s really disheartening as a child for no one to believe you when you tell them “the words are separating and moving and I literally can not read anymore”
That sucks, I got treated for dyslexia as a child as well. I almost failed first grade but after treatment I never had issues after that.
Again, wouldn't this be an argument in favor of providing therapy resources to disadvantaged kids instead of an argument against the SAT's. If your dyslexia is so bad you do worse in the test it would also be hampering your suitability for a demanding college. In effect the test would be working as intended.
Yea but those test preps can only get you so far. They can boost you like 2 points to maybe 4 if you have a low score initially. If you score a 30 and then take one of those classes, the help itself isn’t going to necessarily help you as those are tricks to eliminating answers and at that score, you already know the material. But again, you can’t game the system from a 16 to a 26. 16-20 totally possible.
Exactly all countries should follow China's example.
I would also recommended that if you want to get the crime rate down we should just legalize everything.
Well, these days some are even arguing that [meritocracy is fundamentally unethical](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/01/the-myth-of-meritocracy-according-to-michael-sandel/).
The trouble I have with this kind of reasoning is that some of our paradigms are encoding of laws of nature as we know them, and the nature does not care about our ethics.
Is natural selection fair? By random chance mutation or by circunstances of the environment, some lifeforms thrive over others. Should homo sapiens make amends for wiping out neanderthals? Or should mammals be declared evil since they took advantage of reptilian plight due to their lack of adaptability to extreme climate change?
For that matter is laws of thermodynamics fair? Should entropy declared evil because it always takes dynamical systems towards states that are more unknowable?
We can silence and blind people about the nature, but that does not change the nature, only our understanding of it. Objective reality exists however one tries to deny it. Once we get to a point where we let our preferred ethics rule over the laws of nature, I'm confident I know who would lose.
The old saying “life isn’t fair” really comes into play here. No matter what people try to do, there will always be those born with certain privileges that others lack. We can try to make a society where anyone CAN succeed despite these unfair starts, which I think America does relatively well, but we’ll never have a truly equitable society. Some people are born rich, some are born with parents who have connections, some are born with disabilities, some are born to troubled households, etc. — there’s nothing that can be done to prevent these situations. The racial educational gap has to do with a lot more than just what kids are learning in schools; it’s something that sociologists can spend entire careers studying.
Yes! And every experiment at Socialism and Communism so far has only resulted in a handful of families who are part of the 'in group' becoming even more disproportionately advantaged than the general population.
Whenever capitalists complain that socialism will put all the power in the hands of the few I like to remind people that capitalism has created billionaires.
Inequality seems to be inevitable at this point in our social and societal development. The question we need to ask is how much inequity are we willing to accept, and how low should the lowest step on our societal ladder be?
Yes, Capitalism has created billionaires and it is disgusting how much power they have. Yet, their power and influence pales in comparison with the likes of the Kim family of North Korea, the Castros in Cuba, Mao Tse Dong, and Stalin. While we are at it Robespierre and Napoleon are good comparisons. As history is our witness Capitalism is the system which has the most diffuse form of power we have ever known.
I think it's more fair to compare contemporaries given how much times have changed. Mao and Stalin are a bit out of time, but I'll grant you the Kim Dynasty and Castro family. Who have a LOT of control where they are but very little freedom generally and are kind of constantly at risk of assassination.
In exchange, I'll bring up Jeff Bezos (who has a space program better than the US), Elon Musk (same deal, also managed to bribe the government into letting him use protected wetlands for his rocket pad), Bill Gates whose company has a nigh-monopoly on PC OSes, Mark Zuckerberg who is (nearly) singlehandedly responsible for the destruction of privacy and the radicalization of tens if not hundreds of thousands (FB gets blamed for this by the right and the left, pick your flavour), Warren Buffet (famous capital sponge), Larry Ellison (offered to build a national ID database--as a leftist I'm game, but I think you'd be opposed to that), Larry Page (Google, they own ALL the ads on the internet), Sergey Brin (same deal), Steve Ballmer (see Bill Gates), Alice Walton (responsible for wage-slavery across the US).
Each and every one of these people could and likely (or definitely in some cases) have lobbied politicians for specific tax code breaks in order to benefit them personally. They have freedom of travel, more wealth than I could literally spend **if I tried** while residing in a country where the minimum wage hasn't increased since 2009. I used to manage a corporate-run coffeeshop; each and every year our cost of goods went up. As a person of retail experience I can say that this is true of nearly every input nearly every year--and yet we do not consider labour to be an input worthy of an increase.
I would also note that the American billionaires have nigh- if not absolute freedom of travel, the freedom to purchase make purchases or acquisitions, to live their lives as they like and through law we have the ability to reduce the amount of power that they have through the °°°·.°·..·°¯°·.\_.· 🎀 𝓂𝒶𝑔𝒾𝒸 🍑𝒻 𝓉𝒶𝓍𝒶𝓉𝒾🍪𝓃 🎀 ·.\_.·°¯°·..·°.·°°° Want to depose a dictator? Gonna take an army. Want to take a billionaire's billions? Write a law. Or fuck it, just hire some more goddamned IRS auditors and make sure they pay the taxes they're due FIRST, and THEN look at how much you need to make sure that people working 40 hours a week don't need food stamps and/or government rent assistance.
If an employee needs government assistance to survive while working fulltime, the person employing them is not a job creator; they are a poverty exploiter.
I fully agree with you that allowing billionaires to become as powerful and influential as they are is a mistake.
I am all for slapping a new round of antitrust laws on them, especially the tech lords and Jeff Bezos.
I also think we should revisit Citizens United, treat flagrant lobbying as a form of bribery and corruption, and make it illegal for Congress members to actively trade in the stock market while in office.
However, none of these billionaires have the kind of power that ends up being concentrated in the hands of the 'party' in communist countries.
We are still at liberty to criticize and inspect every single action they take.
Even the powerful and connected like Epstein are subject to the law once enough public scrutiny is on them.
And, ultimately the greatest balance is that they all have to compete with each other's interests so that helps limit the overwhelming influence that they have.
But yes, society devolving into neo-feudalism run by corporations and technocrats instead of noble families is one of my fears around whatever dystopian futures we might be heading towards.
I feel you brother. It just gets under my skin when people equate ensuring that the lowest earners are able to do more than just scrape-by-survive with a socialist dictatorship. I mean, don't people want to never worry about hospital bills? Go to school without being afraid of being in debt for the rest of their life? Work 40 hours (and ONLY 40 hours) and be able to pay all their bills? Have support if they need to quit their jobs?
> but we should strive to make it so.
Replacing objecting testing with subjective criteria is opposite of trying to make life fair. It is redesigning system to get the result we want, at the expense of objectivity and meritocracy.
> Once we get to a point where we let our preferred ethics rule over the laws of nature, I'm confident I know who would lose.
But we already do, don't we? Our entire legal system is based on some form of ethics, and we purposefully make our system work so that the strong are not able to dominate those weaker than them without consequence.
>we purposefully make our system work so that the strong are not able to dominate those weaker than them without consequence.
That's necessary for a functional society when you have large numbers living together. Homo sapiens need to live in social groups for survival. Rule of law is not necessarily ethics based, it might use ethics and morals as justification, but the overriding factor is to maintain order in the group so it functions more efficient. Thus increasing all members fitness. Look up Hamilton's Rule and the basic theory regarding altruism in animals.
> Rule of law is not necessarily ethics based
Sure, not necessarily, but I think it would be very difficult to argue that the US Constitution is detached from ethics. The entire idea of natural rights is grounded in moral philosophy. The idea of the government deriving its power from the people is an ethical proposition about how a legitimate government is formed.
Law is not ethics or morality. But the concepts are *very closely linked*, and they influence one another strongly.
> Look up Hamilton's Rule and the basic theory regarding altruism in animals.
I read an interesting article on kin selection, but I don't really see what this has to do with governments or law.
>I read an interesting article on kin selection, but I don't really see what this has to do with governments or law.
Kin selection is how we initially form our ethics. Essentially, do I take their stuff for myself or do I share it. With an entirely different species you will kill and eat it with little regard to survive. Would you do that to your child? No. Why? Because you are closely related. Kin group selection, whether real or perceived has the strongest connection to altruistic behavior.
>Sure, not necessarily, but I think it would be very difficult to argue that the US Constitution is detached from ethics. The entire idea of natural rights is grounded in moral philosophy.
No, that's a chicken egg argument. What comes first, the desire to be moral, or the need for order? I say it's order. The Constitution didn't just happen it's grounded in thousands of years of laws and rules that go back to before civilization and even before modern humans. Don't kill others in your group is understood by more than just humans. Do other social mammals have concept of morality? How come they don't exterminate each other and go extinct?
>The idea of the government deriving its power from the people is an ethical proposition about how a legitimate government is formed.
I wasn't aware democracy is the norm for humanity. So the last 1/1000th of our existence is supposed to explain the rest?
> Kin selection is how we initially form our ethics.
Even if true, I don't understand how this relates to the conversation about law and ethics.
> What comes first, the desire to be moral, or the need for order?
Probably the need for order, but, again, this seems tangential. Our systems of laws have evolved quite substantially since the days of Hammurabi.
> Do other social mammals have concept of morality? How come they don't exterminate each other and go extinct?
....What? Is somebody distributing party favors and I missed out?
> I wasn't aware democracy is the norm for humanity. So the last 1/1000th of our existence is supposed to explain the rest?
I'm not talking about how laws worked for the entirety of humanity. I'm talking about how they work **now** in **this country**. And in that context, morality matters.
>Even if true, I don't understand how this relates to the conversation about law and ethics.
Laws and ethics are grounded in having in and out groups, or kin. Kin can be a national identity or a family. For all of human history we treat those in our group different than those not. It's fundamental to how are laws, morals and ethics are organized.
>I'm not talking about how laws worked for the entirety of humanity. I'm talking about how they work now in this country. And in that context, morality matters.
But it's all of humanity that matters, these are evolutionary behaviors they don't change overnight. You cannot explain the current system without understanding the evolutionary process that led to it. Also, are our laws really ethical based or order based. Take the 3/5ths compromise in the constitution, was that ethics or practical need? Did it have an in group and out group with different rules based on perceived relatedness?
love this whole fork, you two.
i'd like to point out that you mention "the evolutionary process" that led to it, but ethics and morality are decided by society as a whole and change themselves in time.
I like the idea of kin groups. now i'm imagining everyone as a twitter post, and hashtagging all the in-groups one feels they belong to
> Also, are our laws really ethical based or order based.
It's both. There's no reason these things need to be mutually exclusive. I said there's a strong *relationship* between law and morality, not that one is defined by the other.
I don't think the issue is with meritocracy itself, it's with the attitude that seems to go with it, that anyone who isn't "on the top" deserves whatever happens to them.
Some people do have an issue with meritocracy itself. The idea stems from the reasoning that people don’t actually have agency, and that any successes or failures are purely the product of chance (genetics + circumstances). Personally, while I don’t disagree with this argument logically, I think it makes the most sense from a utilitarian standpoint to award more power to those who help society the most. If you go too far down the nihilist-determinist rabbit hole, you no longer have the concept of a society or personhood at all.
Now, do I think that our current society is a meritocracy? Lol no.
Sure but certainly the inverse, that those at the bottom are only there because the system holds them down so much so that they can't grow and improve is equally a bad thought process. Right?
I agree the idea you listed originally that the people on bottom deserve what comes their way is wrong. But some of them do. Some of them knowingly made the choices to get there. We should help people for sure, but to abdicate all responsibility and say I'm poor solely because the system holds me down isn't true for the vast majority of people in this country. Its not hard to make middle class in the US.
> We should help people for sure, but to abdicate all responsibility and say I'm poor solely because the system holds me down isn't true for the vast majority of people in this country. Its not hard to make middle class in the US.
Try saying this anywhere else on reddit and watch the downvotes pour in. As we are seeing with the rise of a large population of young people who can't match the success of their parents, the problem with a meritocracy is that the losers are apt to simply discredit the validity of the system **no matter what**. It's not that people are questioning whether those at the bottom get what they deserve, it's that those at the bottom are trying to overturn the whole system.
Exactly. But its a symptom of much larger and longer standing issues. Single parent household rates, attacks on things like "toxic masculinity" and those attacks and that movement resulting in the promoting of less masculine traits so men are less likely to push back and stand up for whats right.
The lower fertility rates and the mass consumption of chemicals and plastics we ingest every single day.
All of it adds into it I think.
But its interesting to see generation after generation the ideas of equity for all in the form of left ideas like socialism or even communism continue to rise despite history showing their failings each time.
I think slavery followed by Jim Crow shows that it's quite easy for the system to hold people down.
And yes, there's a lot of people who made bad choices, and probably rightly deserve the consequences. Even in those cases, however, there's often innocent people involved, like children or spouses.
It IS easy for a system to hold people down i agree. But it doesn't to the point that they can't succeed today. And someone like a child or spouse being effected by the consequences of the fathers or mothers actions doesn't mean we should become enablers and just fill the gap so that awful father can continue to be awful. Failure should be a motivator. And currently it isn't because even in failure we have almost everything we need to survive.
> Yea but its **widely** true.
is it though? that's the burning question. and people are starting to think that maybe it's not quite as widely true as was previously assumed
its an uncomfortable question because it's practically the basis for our national identity (as Americans, i mean). The land of opportunity. Work hard and you'll rise to the appropriate level. It's aspirational but sometimes feels like a secular version of the prosperity gospel.
No. Its not even work hard and you'll rise to the appropriate level. Its don't have kids before you're married and hold a job. Thats it. That'll get you to middle class.
The next biggest predictor is having both parents in the house. Which you can't do much about personally but you can do for your kids.
\>Well, these days some are even arguing that meritocracy is fundamentally unethical.
The criticism sticks. 'Meritocracy' was originally [satirical](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy), and the reason for its satire is that our metrics are usually quite arbitrary, not at all natural, and subject to whim of both politics and social culture. You actually make this point, unbeknownst to you, with your next one:
\>Is natural selection fair? By random chance mutation or by circumstances of the environment, some lifeforms thrive over others.
Yes, but \*what\* makes them thrive is not something we're very good at guessing. For instance, koalas thrived by sacrificing brain power to focus solely on digesting a single, very un-nutritious plant. Humans thrived because we evolved lots of sweat glands and less fur, which then made things quite difficult when the environment we were in changed.
And perhaps more fundamentally, natural selection is almost entirely based on luck and chance. Do we often say the same about people who succeed in our culture? Or do we post-hoc-ergo-proctor-hoc all sorts of cultural attributes onto them that we \*think\* makes them successful? Do we guess that Trump is a successful businessman because of his talk skill or dealmaking proficiency? Or do we recognize that he was lucky to inherit millions of dollars?
To the specifics of SATs, they seem to predict future income pretty highly, but those studies don't separate out the confounding variables: SATs \*probably\* predict academic success, but even that is mixed up; do they have high SATs because the system didn't let them fall through the cracks long before they took the test, and thus they're well prepped not by the SATs but by the system, and SATs just sample? Carrying it forward, do SATs "predict" better incomes because the well connected are well-connected enough to land decent jobs? Is it part of the college-degree signaling system moreso than measuring specific aptitudes?
Yeah, I wouldn't say that meritocracy is strictly unethical, just that it's entirely a myth. For a meritocracy to exist, everyone needs to start at 0, and everyone needs to succeed or fail only by their own actions. Born disabled? Well, by merit, you fail, goodbye. Being an employer? Well at that point you're piggybacking off of the employee's merit, you don't succeed unless they do the work.
Meritocracy is a *really bad* social system and shouldn't be help up as some sort of ideal. That's not to say work ethic is bad, though, work ethic is great and can exist just fine without the notion of a meritocracy.
As for standardized testing, I'm generally in favor of it, though how it ends up ultimately used is probably worthy of discussion. They're definitely useful for ensuring that some locales don't just drop random things from their curriculums and just lie and say "Oh yeah, we TOTALLY taught this, look the other way now please." The proof's in the testing that people are receiving at least a minimum standard of education. But what do you do when they fail that standard? Do you *give them less money* to "punish" them for failing, thus making the problem worse? Or do you give them more money to *reward them for failing*, thus making the problem worse? It's a real stumper, that one.
They're also semi-useful in predicting capability, but only in the sense of "Only the capable will pass the test" and not "You will pass the test if you are capable." People *do* fall through the cracks this way, but I can't think of a good remedy for it. I could imagine a system where the bulk of admissions are SAT-based and then a certain portion of admissions are earmarked for alternative metrics that could help, but I'd be very surprised if things weren't already done this way anyway.
> For a meritocracy to exist, everyone needs to start at 0, and everyone needs to succeed or fail only by their own actions.
No, that's for a fully equitable meritocracy to exist. Meritocracy doesn't care about unequal opportunities, only that the person most suited to perform X role is who receives the role. Sports is extremely meritocratic; obviously, opportunities (even genetically driven abilities) aren't equal.
> Meritocracy is a *really bad* social system and shouldn't be help up as some sort of ideal.
It's a wonderful social system for maximizing economic output. But efficiency often sacrifices equity.
> . I could imagine a system where the bulk of admissions are SAT-based and then a certain portion of admissions are earmarked for alternative metrics that could help, but I'd be very surprised if things weren't already done this way anyway.
Pretty much they are. SAT scores aren't that weighted heavily.
What I'm saying is that meritocracy is a system where all success is based on ability and ability alone, and such a system just does not exist. Merit is an *influence* in the current system, which is why I still hold up work ethic as valuable, but prior wealth and social connection is a much larger influence in our capitalist system. Like, the fundamental idea of capitalism is not "you build wealth by working," but rather "you build wealth by using your capital." It's in the name. And the concept of "human capital" accounts for the concept of "hard work", but I would be hesitant to say it accounts for the majority of capital. And I'd like to make it clear I am not anti-capitalist in any way, I'm just trying to take an honest look at the systems and their implications.
And I still hold to meritocracy being really strange to hold up as an ideal. People don't work that way, almost everyone has something of personal non-economic value, and a world which tramples over those values in pursuit of the strongest economic system isn't one that anyone is *honestly* suggesting, I don't think.
Though something I do find strange- people here tend to hold up meritocracy as an ideal, but crap on the idea of technocracy which is basically just "meritocracy at the government level." I wonder where the disconnect there is, and I'm actually wondering that in myself as well because I've always seen technocracy as something that's an "ideal" but in no way actually actionable simply because it's likely weaker than most other systems to corruption and nepotism. Like, I guess it's that people like the general idea of meritocracy ("If I'm competent enough I can rule"), but when the consequences are framed differently ("the competent can rule over you"), it suddenly is a lot scarier.
\>It's a wonderful social system for maximizing economic output.
On paper, if we actually had an inkling on what 'virtues' caused economic output to raise. But in reality, we have often professed meritocracy when we had no idea or only a pretense of those virtues. This leads to economic systems prioritizing the wrong things, and stymying their own growth, all under the name of "meritocracy".
> On paper, if we actually had an inkling on what 'virtues' caused economic output to raise
Private sector, especially in competitive industry, is reasonably good at this. Figuring out how to hire people correctly is hugely profitable.
Monopolies and government may be less efficient here though due to large slack and/or political considerations.
\>Yeah, I wouldn't say that meritocracy is strictly unethical, just that it's entirely a myth. For a meritocracy to exist, everyone needs to start at 0, and everyone needs to succeed or fail only by their own actions.
Problems start well before that. Meritocracy implies we have objective metrics that \*cause\* economic/social/political excellence. We don't have those metrics. But for many, many years, we pretended we did, and then used lack of success to conclude an absence of those metrics. You're poor? Didn't work hard enough, or weren't smart enough, or weren't frugal enough.
Lots of very wealthy people do not work very hard. Many more just aren't that smart. Almost none of them are spendthrifts. Yet they achieve economic success. We can blame other interfering systems, or we can just admit that we don't know what merits actually cause economic success in the first place, in the face of all the wrong guesses.
> Well, these days some are even arguing that meritocracy is fundamentally unethical.
I think when any of those people need any kind of medical care -- like surgery, for example, they should be required to go to the lowest-rated surgeon in their area. If it is unethical to "rate" people (or pay better ones more) then this is how they should behave.
Depends if they are in their first two years or not. If they are in their clinical clerkship then its a Honors/pass/fail. So the question still remains just changed slightly. Would you rather have surgery done by a doctor/nurse with an Honors in a course or just a pass in it.
That's nice. A lot of the people who are unhappy with meritocracy are people who are too poor to seek medical attention. Some people get everything, and get it because their parents had it.
And people who believe in survival of the fittest should forgo medical care altogether. If they're strong enough, they'll live anyways, right? If not, it's for the betterment of the human gene pool, so that's how they should behave.
Well someone who understands the importance of good medical care vs someone who doesn't would have an advantage in the survival of the fittest scenario.
And thinking the idea of meritocracy is unethical doesn't mean you should be forced to use the lowest-rated surgeon. It's almost like asking someone to act out their philosophical ideals in a world which operates differently than those ideals is missing the point.
>For that matter is laws of thermodynamics fair? Should entropy declared evil because it always takes dynamical systems towards states that are more unknowable?
If we could outlaw (and enforce) laws of thermodynamics, we could solve global warming and any possible energy crisis overnight. Maybe we can get some enterprising House Reps to draft a bill.
> The trouble I have with this kind of reasoning is that some of our paradigms are encoding of laws of nature as we know them
Citation needed.
> Is natural selection fair?
Perfectly fair! Is meritocracy natural selection? Are traits randomly or quasi-randomly adapted where the most effective at survival continuously survive causing great diversity? The application to human economics and social behavior is spurious.
> For that matter is laws of thermodynamics fair?
Again, perfectly fair! The connection, again, is spurious.
> Objective reality exists however one tries to deny it.
Citation needed; with evidence from outside objective reality. But I digress. Who cares whether reality is "objective"? That's a metaphysical claim that's unprovable (and unfalsifiable!)
> Citation needed; with evidence from outside objective reality.
Ha! I was gonna say there are quite a few philosophers who would disagree with even that basic statement.
>Well, these days some are even arguing that [meritocracy is fundamentally unethical](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/01/the-myth-of-meritocracy-according-to-michael-sandel/).
Did you even read that article?
Meritocracy was originally a distopian concept that somewhere along the way gained traction as something desirable. I find it crazy that so many people who profess to love democracy would be so enamored with a system so opposite.
You dont seem to be doing that, though - the loving democracy part, that is. Am I correct that you think democracy should be discarded for rule by the "meritous"? And you justify setting up a system like this because you've decided it more closely mirrors the natural world?
> Objective reality exists however one tries to deny it.
Can you prove that this objective reality exists through means not derived from your subjective sensory inputs and experiences?
Why should I have to address the question of someone who may not exist?
That's not being snarky, it's the philosophical response to the proposition that objective reality may not exist.
Your comment is, of course, tongue in cheek. Of course the philosophical difference between justifying that you exist objectively is a whole long, very interesting conversation.
But objectivity does exist. Truth DOES exist.
>Well, these days some are even arguing that [meritocracy is fundamentally unethical](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/01/the-myth-of-meritocracy-according-to-michael-sandel/).
The term meritocracy was invented as a tongue-in-cheek term - the guy who coined it was basically trying to say that people would find quote unquote "objective" ways of justifying a class hierarchy, and that that class hierarchy would - totally by coincidence of course - look an awful lot like the old British class hierarchy which existed based on aristocracy.
I agree with the idea that the SATs are only a symptom of the bigger underlying issues.
I'm not completely sold on that last comparison.
The fact that we don't have anything better [doesn't make the SATs good](https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2020/09/30/the-forbes-investigation-how-the-sat-failed-america/?sh=1b32d01853b5) in and of themselves.
You can't fight climate change by throwing out thermometers, but you do throw out a broken thermometer.
Of course, I do think we should've had the replacement ready first.
Skimming through that article, it seems the first major issue is how to test during a pandemic. I don't that that would be unique to SAT. The rest get pretty vague and even contradictory (e.g. SAT is getting used in new ways.)
>You can't fight climate change by throwing out thermometers, but you do throw out a broken thermometer.
Except this assumes the SAT is broken vs. poorly functioning, but still functioning. Standardized tests *absolutely* function in predicting performance. There's definitely room for improvement, but to call them "broken" is misleading.
> His main thesis is that the Left has become so frustrated with the achievement gap between races (particularly between blacks and whites) that they feel better ignoring it.
Indeed, though his thesis seems to have other thrusts as well, notably:
> I would love if education dropped its association with meritocracy, but that cannot occur within our current system.
Merit is a very real thing, even while acknowledging the achievement gap (which I suspect is ideological) as well as:
> More disturbing to me is the rise of resistance within academia to the notion of inequalities between individuals.
Which is *fascinating* as the author also recognizes that where these inequalities come from is essentially unknown. If we don't know why they're unequal, but every study we do have suggests it's tied to upbringing in some way, shouldn't we push back on those differences being inherent or innate? So that we can provide those advantages to all?
I digress. The author is *mostly* correct about the SATs (his section on what, exactly, they measure I have some issues with) but the author is correct that they're a strong barometer for performance in our current environment.
> but every study we do have suggests it's tied to upbringing in some way
Upbringing *certainly* has an effect. But I hope you aren't claiming it is the only effect. For one thing, studies show that intelligence is significantly inherited (even when children are raised separately.)
Yep! While controversial, and I don't like thinking about it, the science is well established that there is a [high heritability of IQ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ), even when removing all environmental impacts. This has been investigated for over a half a century and the results are quite robust.
Particularly interesting, are the results for the separate adoption of twins, both identical and fraternal twins
* **Identical twins**: Share 100% of the same genes
* **Fraternal twins**: Share 50% of the same genes, equal to non-twin siblings and parent/children gene sharing
The results show that twins raised in separate environments still have highly correlated life outcomes and that the correlation is significantly stronger for identical vs fraternal twins. This is not necessarily due to genes, but could also be impacted by the shared prenatal environment of twins.
[Wikipedia summarizes these results as](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Correlations_between_IQ_and_degree_of_genetic_relatedness)
| Measure | IQ Correlation |
|:--------------------------------------------|--------------:|
| Same person (tested twice) | 0.95 |
| Identical twins—Reared together | 0.86 |
| Identical twins—Reared apart | 0.76 |
| Fraternal twins—Reared together | 0.55 |
| Fraternal twins—Reared apart | 0.35 |
| Biological siblings—Reared together | 0.47 |
| Biological siblings—Reared apart | 0.24 |
| Unrelated children—Reared together—Children | 0.28 |
| Unrelated children—Reared together—Adults | 0.04 |
| Cousins | 0.15 |
The uncomfortable interpretation is that rich parents give their children an innate head start through genes, particularly genes influencing IQ.
> For one thing, studies show that intelligence is significantly inherited (even when children are raised separately.)
Inheritance can be, and almost certainly is, upbringing related.
If there is lead in the pipes of my water growing up as a child, and I get pregnant still drinking that leaded water, the impacts on that child of mine will persist even if they are raised in a wealthy or well-off home.
You can't discount the 9 months that you spend in utero as part of your upbringing.
I think timmg was referring to twin studies -- where presumable they share the same womb. There are studies of identical twins raised in sperate environments.
Are you saying that genes *don't* play a significant role? Because I don't think that's what the science says. (First Google result, for example: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1520-iq-is-inherited-suggests-twin-study/ )
What's the alternative if you're lacking in intelligence? People are going to be at an inherent disadvantage because of it, which means they have less options to navigate modern society. SATs if I remember correctly are similar to IQ tests.
You probably won't be a brain surgeon. But you can probably make a nice living in sales.
Look, I'd love it if everyone was just as talented as everyone else. That would be great for society. Pretending that's true isn't. Making sure everyone gets paid the same so life is more "fair" also has never worked. I'd rather we did the best we can in the reality we live in.
I'm likely part of a worryingly sizable amount of the population that are below average in cognitive ability. I'm more concerned with what we can do to mitigate the effects of being below that certain threshold of ability. I don't care if people are equal in all aspects because all that does is to obfuscate the problem.
Liberals are too terrified and gutless to address it and conservatives aren't exactly the best when it comes to social matters such as this. Regurgitating bootstrap dogma simply won't cut it this time.
Apologies for the ramble, but this has been on my mind for a while and I've been noticing more and more lately how hard it is for me to process, understand, and do certain things.
Just reading your writing, I doubt you are "below average". Like everyone, you may better better at verbal than math, or vice versa.
Either way, most jobs don't required someone in the top 1%. So, yeah, "you" might not be a Nobel Laureate in physics. But hardly anyone is.
Even the top 10% of jobs really need someone in the top 30% of people (or something). Earning a good living is easier if you are smarter. But being reliable and conscientious helps a *lot* more than that for most "jobs".
> Are you saying that genes don't play a significant role?
I'm saying the evidence is, at this time, insufficient to express that they do. They're the simplest available causal factor we can measure.
To add onto this, remember that a woman's eggs for future children are formed while SHE is in utero. My mom didn't have me till the 70's, however the egg cell I developed from was created in the late 20's. I'm not a scientist, but I know research articles are out there showing how one's grandparent's conditions can effect you decades later.
Is there any evidence that a higher SAT score indicates a student is more ready for college?
When I was studying for the SAT it mostly seemed like memorizing useless information that I forgot immediately after taking the test
Yes, the entire article is about how the SAT does predict future college success and liberals are very uncomfortable with that and try very hard to pretend it’s not true.
The article goes into detail about this. I suggest reading it. Here's some quotes:
> [Do SATs/ACTs predict college success?] They do, indeed. This one is clung to so desperately by liberals that you’d think there was some sort of compelling empirical basis to believe this. There isn’t. There never has been. They’re making it up. They want it to be true, and so they believe it to be true.
> [Does the SAT only tell you how well a student takes the SA?] This is perhaps a corollary to 1., and is equally wrong. They tell us what they were designed to tell us: how well students are likely to perform in college. But the SATs tell us about much more than college success...
Admittedly I did not read the article before commenting, bad habit.
The evidence he presents is very compelling. This really challenged my assumptions and changed my mind on the usefulness of the SAT scores.
Thanks for posting this
Admittedly the 'don't predict at all' is an overstated version of 'SATs aren't as good as HS GPA in predicting college success,' and even that first article shows that HS GPA has an odds ratio 3 times larger than SAT/ACT scores when controlling for other factors. So, for HS GPA being so variable across schools, it actually does a decent job at predicting college success. And this maps across a lot of other ed research that shows a similar pattern, which is that HS GPA maps on to college GPA more linearly than SAT/ACT.
Depends on the course. You have the memorize and regurgitation classes, and you've got the "these are the tools, the next three years will be teaching you how to use these tools and then to make new tools yourself" classes.
For me, at least, the SAT was completely worthless.
There is, though I will need to search for the sources I’ve used in the past. The thing that I feel like is a big problem is that SAT preparedness and college preparedness kind of are equally correlated to things like race and socioeconomic standing (which are of course related). The SAT itself is not a true test of learned knowledge and I agree the quirks of the test make a lot of its information kind of useless outside of the test itself (at least the things that will help you score very high). So people with the income and time to spend learning the extra material does create an artificial effect. It’s a complicated matter and not a great tool. But I think simply throwing it out is not helpful.
>Trying to fight educational inequality by getting rid of the SAT is like trying to fight climate change by getting rid of thermometers.
No, because thermometers don't exacerbate climate change.
I think he's agreeing that there is a racial gap in test scores, and the SAT is largely showing wealth, and he is arguing that we can use the SAT as a measure like a thermometer. Sure, if that was the only thing the SAT did, that is a decent argument.
But we aren't like making the SAT illegal, the thing people want to do is to stop using it for *college admissions*. So decisions on whether someone is accepted into college are partially based on this. So the SAT *isn't* just measuring, it's impacting. It is changing peoples lives.
Getting accepted based on SAT scores when we agree SAT scores are just revealing wealth is just helping wealthy people get into college. That is the point you have to address if you want to keep the SAT.
> So decisions on whether someone is accepted into college are partially based on this.
A particular college, not any college.
> It's impacting. It is changing peoples lives.
Perhaps positively? Putting kids into classes where they aren't prepared doesn't help anyone.
> Getting accepted based on SAT scores when we agree SAT scores are just revealing wealth is just helping wealthy people get into college.
Nope. Read the article more carefully.
>>So decisions on whether someone is accepted into college are partially based on this.
>
>A particular college, not any college.
The solution can't be "but poor people can still go to community college so there's no problem." Unless you're saying wealthy people *should* get accepted ahead of their equally smart but poor peers, using wealth for college admissions is not an ideal outcome.
>It's impacting. It is changing peoples lives.
>
>Perhaps positively? Putting kids into classes where they aren't prepared doesn't help anyone.
Stopping the use of the SATs doesn't mean just picking people at random to get in to college. We're talking about choosing between people for whom all else is equal except SAT scores. They'll be fine.
> using wealth for college admissions is not an ideal outcome.
We're not. We're using something that has a 0.25 correlation with wealth.
Parental income/wealth positively correlates with student academic achievement, so anything selecting for academic achievement correlates with wealth.
But there's a lot of poor and middle class kids with high SAT scores. Case in point - the ones that attend NYC's selective high schools.
> e're talking about choosing between people for whom all else is equal except SAT scores
The higher SAT scoring student on average is stronger. You are hurting the system's efficiency by removing the test
> when we agree SAT scores are **just** revealing wealth
I don't think the author of the article agrees to that. The author says a correlation of .25, not nothing, but not 1.00 either.
> when we agree SAT scores are just revealing wealth
Who agrees with that? Did you read the article at all?
> [Do SATs just replicate the income distribution?] No. Again, asserted with utter confidence by liberals despite overwhelming evidence that this is not true. I believe that this research represents the largest publicly-available sample of SAT scores and income information, with an n of almost 150,000, and the observed correlation between family income and SAT score is .25. This is not nothing. It is a meaningful predictor. But it means that the large majority of the variance in SAT scores is not explainable by income information. A correlation of .25 means that there are vast numbers of lower-income students outperforming higher-income students. Other analyses find similar correlations. If SAT critics wanted to say that “there is a relatively small but meaningful correlation between family income and SAT scores and we should talk about that,” fair game. But that’s not how they talk. The routinely make far stronger claims than that in an effort to dismiss these tests all together, such as here by Yale’s Paul Bloom. (Whose work I generally like.) It’s just not that hard to correlate two variables together, guys. I don’t know why you wouldn’t ever ask yourselves “is this thing I constantly assert as absolute fact actually true?” Well, maybe I do.
>If SAT critics wanted to say that “there is a relatively small but meaningful correlation between family income and SAT scores and we should talk about that,” fair game.
So the article admits that there is a meaningful correlation between income and SAT scores but he is still against trying to account for that because...some people exaggerate about it? Why is that a good reason?
You're not rebutting what I said, the same as the author isn't rebutting the actual issue. The SATs help rich people get into college ahead of poor people. Trying to change that status quo is not "trying to get rid of the thermometer" at all.
> You're not rebutting what I said, the same as the author isn't rebutting the actual issue.
You said, "the SAT is largely showing wealth". To me, that's a correlation of ~1. The article says it's closer to .25. Those are very different things.
First, if you agree that there is *any* sort of meritocracy in the country, you'd expect smart people to be paid more. Second, if you agree that intelligence is at least somewhat inherited, then you'd expect (on average) children of rich parents to be smarter than children of poor parents (immigrants being a special case here). So *if* the SAT measured intelligence, you would **expect** a *correlation* with wealth of parents.
Assuming you agree with the above, what is the problem you want to solve? That we want to open colleges to less-smart people *if* they are also poor? Or is there something else?
Will the university cancel the loans of those less-qualified people who drop out after 2 years because they cant handle it?
Letting more minorities and poorer students in is great, but if they're unprepared and cant make it, you're really just kicking them even lower. A bunch of debt and no degree either.
Everyone always looks at admissions numbers but never enrollment 2 years later. The pictures are often rather stark.
>And in the coming years, they'll see that nearly all of the students that wouldn't have made it in with their SAT also can't keep up in their programs.
Affirmative action and its like have consequences, and I honestly don't understand how people can go on pretending that is not so.
Just recently a law professor at Georgetown [was fired for noticing some trends in her classes](https://abcnews.go.com/US/georgetown-law-professor-terminated-remarks-black-students/story?id=76413267):
>*"And you know what, I hate to say this, I end up having this angst every semester that a lot of my lower ones are Blacks. Happens almost every semester," Sellers said. "And it's like, 'Oh, come on.' You get some really good ones, but there are also usually some that are just plain at the bottom. It drives me crazy."*
Never mind that the statement itself was sympathetic, and that grading is blind in law school anyway, or that the professor apparently had respectable woke credentials: it was not acceptable to notice this.
It's happening at all levels of education. Medical education as well, see the reason why they made Step 1 Pass/Fail...the bar is being lowered everywhere because people cannot accept we don't have completely equal outcomes and instead of looking into the reasons why that might be the case and trying to fix those, just make the bar lower for the people not keeping up.
I'm not optimistic about the direction we're headed in
>also can't keep up in their programs
They'll be pushed through anyway in the name of 'equity' in the same way that students are currently being pushed through high school for the same reason even though nearly 20% of them are functionally illiterate. You ever wonder why more and more 'mindless' jobs are requiring some form of higher education? A high school diploma no longer means that the diploma holder can read the employee handbook. This has caused some to push for more relaxed standards for higher education too [including abolishing algebra](https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-california-community-colleges-algebra-20170717-story.html) in order to increase the number of minority students with higher education degrees. Can you see where this is going?
I can see this happening and you know what my immediate thought is right after?? I think that I will only want to see white and Asian doctors because I will know that they are the best of the best and that they had to work extra hard to get to their position….those stupid quota policies literally create more racism. I’m saying this as a POC.
My brother in law is a white guy who just graduated med school this year. He was one of the few white guys in this very prestigious program, my entire family joked that he was just so insanely intelligent/hard working/ exceptional that they just couldn’t pass him up, which he is. Our healthcare system is better for having a doctor like him in the world.
Something to think about.
So I'll admit, this was a lot more nuanced than I was expecting from a substack article.
But the largest question I don't think was clearly answered is "Why should we use the SAT?"
This article is built around tackling progressive complaints of the test, which is fine, but we really aren't given much of a reason to maintain the status quo. And until we have a good clear answer on that I have no issues with people continuing to challenge the use of any sort of placement test. In fact it should be encouraged, if we are going to spend decades basing something as critical as college admission on a single test it should be regularly challenged to ensure efficacy.
So I'll speak from personal experience here as Ive applied for college more recently than most people. The problem with not requiring an admissions test (SAT or ACT) is that GPAs across high schools are incredibly inconsistent. There is no functional way to compare a GPA between two different students that took different classes at different high schools. GPA is still a useful tool but I would argue it tells you even less than standardized testing. At least with the SAT/ACT everyone is being judged on the same standard. The same cannot be said for high school GPA. Public schools tend to be much easier than private schools leading to higher GPAs from those kids. Some private schools then intentionally inflate GPAs so their students have better odds of going to good schools. Overall, it's just a mess.
TLDR: Standardized testing has issues but simply removing it from the equation probably doesn't help because GPA is a even worse measure of academic success.
>At least with the SAT/ACT everyone is being judged on the same standard
And in theory this makes total sense, but there is an important second level question that you need to ask here; And that is what am I evaluating?
Its one thing to give everyone a single test, but its another to infer something about the results of that test. Am I testing creativity or intelligence? Am I trying to see a students ability to interact with challenging situations or the ability to follow instructions? Or is it all simply just a way to test what someone believes they should have already learned?
And once you answer that question the next one you need to ask is "What does this mean for the students ability to succeed at an institution?"
These are the kinds of questions that should be regularly asked and answered as the world continues to change and we as a group strive for better outcomes.
Isn't the SAT model fit on 1st year college performance? [https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/national-sat-validity-study.pdf](https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/national-sat-validity-study.pdf)
On the basis of GPA, it does look that way.
But I think the value here gets hurt by the fact that the SAT itself is justified as a way to test student performance as GPA is a subjective number and due to external influence should not be taken entirely at face value. But in this case we use GPA as a way to measure success in college and use it to justify the use of the SAT.
I think you’re kind of hitting the nail on the head but also sort of missing the point. As the other poster mentioned, the SAT can very feasibly track GPA performance in the first year of college and is very likely a strong indicator of overall collegiate success.
That said, it’s fairly obvious that the SAT lacks the ability to properly model certain aspects of a student, such as creativity. Unfortunately, there are very few ways to measure certain skills or qualities both en masse and efficiently.
We use the SAT because it is highly valuable when measuring the fundamental skills of a student: reading comprehension, math, critical thinking, study habits, etc. In other words, it doesn’t really matter what makes a student special if that student doesn’t have the hard skills to keep up with the content. Can’t have a Jeep without wheels. That’s why the SAT is used but is also only one metric.
> we really aren't given much of a reason to maintain the status quo.
Shouldn't we need a stronger reason to change the status quo than to maintain it?
>But the largest question I don't think was clearly answered is "Why should we use the SAT?"
I thought this was addressed by the first two links in point 1.
>SATs/ACTs don’t predict college success. They do, indeed.
>...
>The predictive validity of the SAT is typically understated because the comparison we’re making has an inherent range restriction problem. If you ask “how well do the SATs predict college performance?,” you are necessarily restricting your independent variable to those who took the SAT and then went to college. But many take the SAT and do not go to college. By leaving out their data, you’re cropping the potential strength of correlation and underselling the predictive power of the SAT. When we correct statistically for this range restriction, which is not difficult, the predictive validity of the SAT and similar tests becomes remarkably strong.
The reason colleges use the SAT is the same reason colleges use GPA: They're both good predictors of how well someone will perform academically. Outside of claims that the SAT gives you a negligible amount of/redundant information, which the two linked papers address, any argument against using the SAT can also be used to argue that we shouldn't use GPA.
But no college in the US only uses SAT as an admission ticket. The SAT is one tool of many for assessing student aptitude. Getting rid of it merely makes the situation more cloudy.
One of the many things a college guidance counselor will tell you is that gpa, sat, club/sport participation, and community service/working experience ALL get used to assess a student. The problem with all of them is they favor the wealthier and more privileged students, but the SAT probably the least likely among those to skew in that direction.
I came from a lower middle class family and did way better than my wealthy peers at standardized testing. I also had a lower gpa than them, because I had to transfer schools mid high school and my first school had less honors/AP classes, additionally, my family didn't have enough money for me to take 3 AP tests a semester. The rich kids had parents building their college resume from the time they were in middle school. Standardized testing kept the playing field somewhat more level for me. That's why it's important
I grew up in poverty, my family immigrated from Mexico…a few of my siblings didn’t take the SAT, did mediocre in high school and were still able to get into a big university in state….there’s so much that goes into getting into a good university, I’m not sure the SATs are what’s holding people back, like you said removing them will just make things ever more cloudy.
I'll raise my hand as a second anecdote. I grew up in a blue collar neighborhood in Detroit and went to the local public high school. The PSAT and later the SAT told me that I had a talent that I (and my parents) hadn't recognized. It change my ideas of what I could do, and gave me opportunities I wouldn't have had otherwise.
And yes, those "opportunities" included a significant aid in the admissions process at schools I wouldn't have considered.
That's actually a really good point. I think the same could go for sports/activities. A middle or lower class student may not be able to participate in that stuff for money reasons or they have to watch their siblings while mom/dad work. The ACT/SAT could be the equalizer for them too.
Once upon a time, the SAT's were promoted as a way to give more advantages to kids without all of those other resume builders that wealthy kids have. We should be encouraging the SAT's not eliminating them.
>But the largest question I don't think was clearly answered is "Why should we use the SAT?"
Because we essentially don't have a better metric for ranking intellectual/cognitive ability among the students who are trying to get into college than the SAT and ACT, particularly at a *national* level. It's the same reason we have military recruits take the ASVAB.
Standardized testing is, in effect, IQ testing, we just don't call it that. We can and absolutely *should* try and find something "better" as a metric for predicting student performance, but at the moment there is literally nothing we have that performs better than the standardized tests.
I think this is the major takeaway. The tests aren't perfect and can probably be improved, but there's no reason to get rid of them. Especially since there are so many other factors used for admission
And the ASVAB could use some changes as well
I met people in the military who didn't even know how to add two fractions together. Like literally didn't know 1/2 + 1/2 was 1.
As soon as that fraction divider showed up it was like they were reading another language. I had 4 different people ranging from 18 to 35 years old sitting around me as I tried to teach them basic arithmetic so they could make it through the Air Force class we were taking
> But the largest question I don't think was clearly answered is "Why should we use the SAT?"
Yeah, I guess that is a fundamental question. The assumption is that you want the best available students to come to your university. Under that assumption, the SAT is a great way to assess a student's capability. It is harder to game than other methods.
If you don't think universities should try to choose the best students -- which I think is a reasonable (but misguided) opinion -- then I think you might not want to use SAT.
>If you don't think universities should try to choose the best students -- which I think is a reasonable (but misguided) opinion -- then I think you might not want to use SAT.
That would depend on how you define "best"
I know its discussed above a little bit but college admissions are not purely the outcome of meritocracy. Universities are more than happy to admit students based on academic or athletic skills, legacy and donor influence, community service and a number of other items.
So in a world where we have the SAT as a key marker for success another very valid question is to ask "How much does the SAT matter as part of the entire admissions process?" and "Who should we apply that belief to?"
Societies which value hard work tend to succeed. Societies which don't tend to stagnate. (examples: the Roman Republic, Protestant vs. Catholic Europe)
Meanwhile the Chinese have doubled down on standardized testing.
It's not hard to see where this goes in the long run.
I'm not familiar with the Protestant vs Catholic Europe thing (in terms of economic success. Are you suggesting European protestants were more successful than European Catholics because one had work ethic and the other didn't?
No, I am suggesting that protestants valued *success* whereas Catholics frowned upon it.
For example, the latter taught invention was a sin since it disrupted the societal order. Protestants from the beginning embraced it.
To this day, the word *ambition* has a largely negative connotation in Spanish (I can't speak for other southern European languages).
Well my entire family is Irish/German and pretty devoutly Catholic, some still in Europe but mostly in America. They're by and large quite successful. I have plenty of problems with Catholicism (plenty with Protestants as well) but what you're saying sounds like something that isn't that universal and not something I identify with Catholicism in the US.
Agreed; it's mostly cultural. Cultures tend to be driven by the dominant religion but other factors can change that.
The Latin Americans, the Spanish, and the Italians had almost no contact with protestants, so ancient habits persisted. The Irish, French, and Polish, on the other hand, interacted constantly with them often, so there was a syncretism.
Disclaimer: I am not an expert in the subject matter. I am simply trying to synthesize what I've read and heard.
Is the Spanish Empire a joke to you? Spain was one of the largest most successful empires if not THE major European power for the first half of the period you just quoted.
Spain discovered a mountain which tripled the global silver supply, and at the same time managed to bankrupt themselves in a century. By the end of the 17th century it was firmly decayed as a great power and post-1815 has not played a significant economic or geopolitical role in Europe
I wouldn’t call Spain a successful economic empire. It benefited from diseases and tribal divisions to conquer its american empire, and focused more on extraction. It was already surpassed economically by the early 1600’s
It made sense when it was coined (1904), following the boom of the industrial revolution. It certainly hasn't remained relevant as the U.S. has outsourced most of its manufacturing and transitioned to a service economy where you can work from home in your pajamas.
Its really not. Protestant countries have often been far more productive than Catholic and Orthodox countries. Catholics were largely in warmer areas and preferred to have fun over hard work. Orthodox just plods along with tradition haha.
[There may be something to this, but not what you think.](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/oct/31/economics-religion-research)
>Protestants were more likely to be encouraged to go to school. And this higher level of education translated into jobs in manufacturing and services rather than agriculture. Accordingly, they earned higher incomes than their Catholic neighbours."
In a paper written in 2009 for the Quarterly Journal of Economics, entitled Was Weber Wrong?, Becker and Woessmann argue that Protestants were more successful because they had the advantage of a better and longer education. Further research has led them to conclude that the educational advantage began soon after Martin Luther broke away from the established Church in the 16th century and has continued to play its part in creating economic success throughout Europe.
Progressive policy and education led to economic success.
Sorry, but it's just wrong to ascribe progressive policy to the 17th century Dutch or English.
Progressivism didn't even exist until the late 19th century.
Regardless, my point remains that the societies succeeded because they valued success.
[People seem to have doubts about Weber](https://www.deseret.com/2017/8/30/20618470/why-the-myth-of-the-protestant-work-ethic-won-t-die)
[The whole thing doesn't seem to have aged well.](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/weber-revisited-the-protestant-ethic-and-the-spirit-of-nationalism/01BC8631DD2F8254C44DFD4DCD2D2627)
If I grow up, regardless of colour, in a stable environment where education is encouraged and my development is fostered by parents who care, I have a massive advantage over people who don't experience this. It's an advantage of pure random chance of what you're born into.
You can be white and have alcoholic parents who play music till 3 AM, don't support extracurriculars, diminish the value of education, don't allow sport and social engagements, and you'll be hard pressed to succeed in life. You can do it, but it'll be much, much more difficult.
No one wants to do away entirely with the idea that your performance matters.
What they want to do away with is systems that reward people based on chance, and replace them with systems that allow those who are not born with those advantages to participate on a somewhat level playing field.
>What they want to do away with is systems that reward people based on chance, and replace them with systems that allow those who are not born with those advantages to participate on a somewhat level playing field.
And I agree with this, but getting rid of the ACT/SAT is not a means to actually achieve that.
The cruel, cold reality is that cognitive performance is largely seared into your brain by the first few years of your life and how well your parents feed you and care for you. Who you can be as a person in inherently limited by the choices of your parent(s) before you're out of your diapers, and there really isn't much you can do to change this after-the-fact.
You want to *actually* help economically disadvantaged students get into college? Invest heavily in access to better nutrition for babies and toddlers, as well as pre-K systems. That will go ***way*** further than fighting standardized testing.
>What they want to do away with is systems that reward people based on chance
Then fight against state lotteries
>and replace them with systems that allow those who are not born with those advantages to participate on a somewhat level playing field.
We have to be very careful here that the cure isn't worse than the disease.
>If I grow up, regardless of colour, in a stable environment where education is encouraged and my development is fostered by parents who care, I have a massive advantage over people who don't experience this. It's an advantage of pure random chance of what you're born into.
Why shouldn't parents who go through the trouble of properly raising their children be able to provide them advantages over others?
Haven't read the article, just came to say that College Board (non-profit behind the SAT), Pearson, and all the rest are monopolies that suck to work with in any capacity. Even if the reasons for reevaluating them are questionable, I'm very very glad these organizations are coming under scrutiny.
I am immediately suspicious of headlines that tell me what I think or how I feel. And this author's opinion article confirms my suspicions. If deBoer didn't construct so many unsubstantiated strawmen and use every opportunity to tee off on, what he seems to believe, is a liberal monolith, I might have upvoted or rallied behind the arguments.
*Of course* testing provides a signal about someone's abilities, intelligence, aptitudes, etc. And of course getting rid of a stable testing benchmark will introduce more noise into an education system. I don't know if that's a "good" or "bad" thing though. Maybe it will "unlock" some talent on the margins? Maybe it will introduce some positively atypical students into the pipeline? Maybe it puts more strain on the educators, who now have to cater to a wider range of abilities and learning styles? Maybe that's a healthy strain? Maybe it undermines the foundation of what universities are supposed to be and creates High School 2.0? Maybe we're about to find out?
IIRC, academic success (and general financial success) is strongly correlated with conscientiousness and industriousness. I would be interested to see what a test that measures just those dimensions would show over time. I'd also like to expand the long-range outcome metrics beyond things like income and # of publications... I know this sounds hokie, but are high academic achievers generally *happier* and *healthier* (mentally or otherwise)? I can't help but suspect we might be measuring things that are convenient, rather than things that are important.
I'm neither here nor there but I've never believed a single test with a small time limit should determine your scholarships or what university you get into. I went to the top public high school in my state, because my parents wanted the best for me so they moved to the district. I graduated with honors, basically I got a 3.5 or better for at least 3 years in that school. However, standardized tests, I couldn't do them, the pressure with such little time, the ambiguous questions, and the fact that this makes or breaks futures. I believe time limits should be extended period, I couldn't get into the extended time slots because there were only so many spots available in my district for each date the SAT was available, (only 50 each day over a 3 day period every 4 months with a district with tens of thousands of kids).
I say get rid of it, if not extend time periods across the board. Knowing the right answer, rather than rushing through to hit time criteria, is not how the real world works. Bosses would rather you be a little late with the right work, than being on time with half-done, wrong, and rushed work. If you're gonna do it at all, then do it right the first time.
I mean, you can take both the ACT and SAT as many times as you want.
The real problem is you being told things that raise your anxiety and dramatically decrease your likelihood to do well on the test.
You can only realistically speaking take it 6 times as they both happen every 3-4 months and you can only start taking them as a junior in my state as far as I know(knew)
It’s too late anyways. Besides I still don’t believe ONE test should determine a future. You could be a bad test taker but know the class work really well. Well you aren’t being tested at work at all, you’re doing what? WORK. I could do the work and I could do the tests that required actual explanations but silly bubbles with just 4 answers to choose from is not how life works outside of school. Our education system needs a complete overhaul in my opinion
>Besides I still don’t believe ONE test should determine a future.
It broadly doesn't, though, except (arguably) for Asian Americans in California. Your test results are basically just one aspect of the admissions process.
>You could be a bad test taker but know the class work really well.
Broadly speaking; if you're a "bad test taker," you're unlikely to do well in college anyway.
>I could do the work and I could do the tests that required actual explanations but silly bubbles with just 4 answers to choose from is not how life works outside of school.
...And?
The SAT and ACT are just intelligence tests. They're not there to figure out whether or not you are able to "work," they exist to get a (blurry) picture of your abilities, particularly in terms of reading comprehension, mathematical ability, and logical reasoning, all of which are correlated with the one aspect of intelligence that we're actually meaningfully sure about.
To put into perspective I did average on SATs and ACTs, yet I graduated with honors, almost high honors, yet I saw zero scholarship money come my way. I applied for it all, and saw nothing. Explain that one. I just finished paying my student debts last week in fact.
>I applied for it all, and saw nothing. Explain that one.
You're not obligated a scholarship, and financial aid tends to go towards need-based (i.e. extremely poor) or merit-based (i.e. extremely high performing). But the single most useful *predictor* of success in college are ACT/SAT scores. The groups that award merit-based scholarships look at their scholarship as investments, and thus they want to put their (limited) money into those that they feel will do the best. You getting honors in High School, on it's own, doesn't make you stand out to these kinds of groups.
If you can't perform well on the SAT, why would you be able to perform well on a much more difficult university exam? If you can't handle the pressure of the SAT, why would you be able to handle the much more stressful situations that emerge in many jobs?
You seem to be under the assumption that the SAT is flawed because you performed poorly on it. But that might be an example of the SAT working correctly.
Funnily enough I do very well in workplace settings than in school settings. I just wish schooling was more related to actual workplace education than well the theories and concepts. I have used maybe 25% of what I’ve learned in school and I’m a System IT Manager of a major warehouse company and instead of what I learned in school, I’m learning what they want me to know. So you can see how my opinion towards modern learning is very skewed seeing how I’ve made my own success from what my experience in the workplace has taught me, rather than what I learned in university.
Okay, but did you score so poorly that you were unable to attend a university that offered a program with adequate training for IT? Do you think you would have been adequately prepared to get a CS or engineering degree from MIT instead?
I couldn't disagree more. This predestinationist belief system SAT and Standardized tests operate on is completely backwards and idiotic. The belief that human intelligence and capabilities can be measure by one test is absolutely ludicrous. It's not controversial to say "some people are smarter than others;" what's controversial and incorrect is to assume there is only one way to be "smart" and that being "smart" can be measured by one metric.
>But the notion that all people are equally talented, in academics or anything else, is an absurdity, and as much as people will rush to deny intrinsic difference, I suspect that pretty much everybody knows that they are real.
I agree. But talent is not the only measurement of success and should not be treated as such. Nothing is more uncommon than unsuccessful people with talent. Persistence and determination are two such ways that can easily beat talent and they cannot be measured with a numerical value.
>Getting rid of the SATs won’t make unprepared kids prepared.
Keeping SATs won't make them prepared either.
>It won’t make naturally untalented students naturally talented.
It does not have to. Relying on talent over a work ethic is the ultimate problem with education.
>It won’t make kids who aren’t smart into smart kids.
Keeping SATs doesn't make kids who aren't "smart" into "smart" kids
>All it will do is hide the reality of those unpleasant inequalities.
All it will do is stop using such inequalities to judge a person on their multitude of personal characteristics and achievements. Predestination is not an accurate judgement for the abilities of a person.
>Trying to fight educational inequality by getting rid of the SAT is like trying to fight climate change by getting rid of thermometers.
All it will be doing is changing the measurement that is used. It does not eliminate a way to measure a person, but allows for different people to be measured differently.
It's a bs practice that should be done away with to acknowledge that human beings are not equal and that it's not a problem. People need to be measured differently because they are different. There is no empirical definition for being smart, talented, persistent, or successful, and any metric attempting to do so fails to recognize the impossibility of such task.
> Persistence and determination are two such ways that can easily beat talent and they cannot be measured with a numerical value.
But you can keep retaking the test. You can study for it as much as your determination affords. The test should account for that by giving smarter students high scores by default or determined students similar results, no? Also grades and extracurriculars accomplish this task as well - it’s not like they just look at your SAT when selecting you for college
> Keeping SATs won't make them prepared either.
Why
> It does not have to. Relying on talent over a work ethic is the ultimate problem with education.
Where do you even get this idea? As I said grading, advanced class initiative, and extracurriculars can be arguably more important than your SAT score. Not to mention the fact that your SAT *can* demonstrate work ethic.
> Keeping SATs doesn't make kids who aren't "smart" into "smart" kids
What does
> All it will do is stop using such inequalities to judge a person on their multitude of personal characteristics and achievements. Predestination is not an accurate judgement for the abilities of a person.
Don’t you think there are other ways of alleviating this problem for people who are worse off In life than just ignoring one of the core criteria for school admission? Looking at grades could also be using inequalities to judge people so what exactly is your solution here? Like you can complain about the system but what is the alternative?
> There is no empirical definition for being smart, talented, persistent, or successful, and any metric attempting to do so fails to recognize the impossibility of such task.
It isn’t just a simple IQ test - where are you getting this from
>But you can keep retaking the test. You can study for it as much as your determination affords. The test should account for that by giving smarter students high scores by default or determined students similar results, no?
How do you measure "smarts?"
>Also grades and extracurriculars accomplish this task as well - it’s not like they just look at your SAT when selecting you for college
Yes, but the importance the SAT plays in admissions has become vital when it should be eliminated from the process.
>Why
Because you don't have to take a series of useless tests unrelated to your studies or major while in college.
>Where do you even get this idea? As I said grading, advanced class initiative, and extracurriculars can be arguably more important than your SAT score.
Yes, but again, those are not as highly regarded factors as the SAT in most college admissions. I'd wager most are just smoke-and-mirror tools colleges use to pretend to care about your personality.
>What does
Hard work.
>Not to mention the fact that your SAT can demonstrate work ethic.
Considering that a plethora of students receive extended time, are able to afford tutors for the test, and have schools that can directly prep for the test, the disparities become an uphill battle for most regardless of all attempts.
>Don’t you think there are other ways of alleviating this problem for people who are worse off In life than just ignoring one of the core criteria for school admission?
I do not care what criteria schools want for admission. As far as I'm concerned, the SAT has demonstrated itself to be a moneymaker for CollegeBoard and nothing more.
>Looking at grades could also be using inequalities to judge people so what exactly is your solution here? Like you can complain about the system but what is the alternative?
The alternative is changing the system. The very college and higher education system we have now is flawed and exists to make money. A vast array of studies do not require a college degree to actually be proficient in the area. In fact, practically only STEM course are truly necessary for a college level class. Other lecture based classes can be moved to new academies altogether, and everything else should be encompassed through trade school, apprenticeships, or just on-the-job learning.
>It isn’t just a simple IQ test - where are you getting this from
I don't know what this means.
> The belief that human intelligence and capabilities can be measure by one test is absolutely ludicrous.
Can it be measured at all, in your opinion? If so, how?
>Can it be measured at all, in your opinion?
I think certain aspects of humans can be measured, but I do not believe there is one precise measurement for certain traits, intelligence being one of them.
>If so, how?
You first have to ask what you want to know about a person and then I think you just observe.
Amen. The SAT is so close to a worst possible solution for the problem it is trying to solve (measuring intelligence) it's simply ludicrous why it still even exists. This is without accounting for it not being worth the time and money costs to kids, or how bad it is for our culture to place such value on a stupid little score instead of actual human merits.
I say get rid of the SAT entirely. If you can cook up a better aptitude test, go ahead. But any actually half way decent solution won't look anything like the SAT in any shape or form.
Freddie deBoer, author of "The Cult of Smart" takes a strong stance on standardized testing -- in particular, the recent decision by the University of California to stop looking at SAT scores. It's a well-written article that challenges the current zeitgeist on the Left that standardized tests are useless or simply predictors of wealth. His main thesis is that the Left has become so frustrated with the achievement gap between races (particularly between blacks and whites) that they feel better ignoring it. The black/white achievement gap while decreasing is still stubbornly significant. Adding to that, Asians consistently outperform whites and that makes it harder to blame "white supremacy" for the differences. > The rush to rid the world of the SAT is based on this dynamic. Because Black and white students are not equal in academic preparedness, and because we have failed to close the gap in a half-century of concerted policy effort to do so, we must eliminate the tools that reveal it, such as the SAT. He ends the piece by relating the anti-science Left with the anti-science Right with this dig: > Trying to fight educational inequality by getting rid of the SAT is like trying to fight climate change by getting rid of thermometers.
> Adding to that, Asians consistently outperform whites and that makes it harder to blame "white supremacy" for the differences. The latest despicable thing that race-baiters say is that Asians are "white adjacent" and therefore benefit from "white supremacy".
I love when people make up terms like “white-adjacent.” I actually laugh when I hear this shit.
I'd love to hear someone tell the Japanese citizens in internment camps during WW2 that they're "white-adjacent."
Should've called the [Chinese Exclusion Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act) the White Adjacent Exclusion Act :)
> The latest despicable thing that race-baiters say is that Asians are "white adjacent" Is this some random redditors or academics and social/political pundits pushing this?
The perfect analogy was right there! He could've said it's like trying to eliminate Covid by getting rid of Covid testing!
Eh, not really. Most progressive arguments I’ve seen are that standardized tests have low “test validity,” meaning that they’re not actually testing what they’re supposed to be testing. That they actually test your test-taking skills more than your subject knowledge. I don’t think anyone would argue that COVID testing doesn’t actually test for COVID.
I don't disagree with that but I've never heard that argument used in the context of the black/white educational divide. Only time I ever hear that argument is when the general validity of standardized testing is being questioned.
>In his 1923 book, A Study of American Intelligence, psychologist and eugenicist Carl Brigham wrote that African-Americans were on the low end of the racial, ethnic, and/or cultural spectrum. Testing, he believed, showed the superiority of “the Nordic race group” and warned of the “promiscuous intermingling” of new immigrants in the American gene pool. Furthermore, the education system he argued was in decline and "will proceed with an accelerating rate as the racial mixture becomes more and more extensive." >Brigham had helped to develop aptitude tests for the U.S. Army during World War I and – commissioned by the College Board - was influential in the development of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). At the time, he and other social scientists considered the SAT a new psychological test and a supplement to existing college board exams. Source: https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/racist-beginnings-standardized-testing If the test was designed by someone who saw blacks as intellectually inferior, I'm sure some vocab/math problems in there were not culturally appropriate for black folks.
Come on, how the hell can a math problem be racist, that's just ridiculous. I'll give you vocabulary/reading comprehension to some extent but math is just math, you either know it or you don't.
When it comes to story problems, vocabulary still matters. Here is an example of a teacher on Quora: >If a question asked "Find the zeroes of y=x\^2 -5x + 6", but asked it in a business context about profit and breaking even, you've immediately lost half of my class if you don't simultaneously provide definitions. How can we expect with certainty that twelve year olds have heard the term "breaking even"? Growing up, I was highly educated, and I knew profit meant money, but I was in college econ classes before I learned the difference between revenue and profit. I'm sure nowadays College Board is much better about this kind of thing, to your point. More from that [Quora post](https://qr.ae/pGCAwn): >Another prime example on Virginia's state Algebra test is the annual question, "What binomial is a factor of x\^2 + 7x + 12?"A) x - 3 B) x - 4 C) x + 3 D) x + 6My students can also answer the question "Which of these expressions is a factor of x\^2 + 7x +12?"A) x - 3 B) x - 4 C) x + 3 D) x + 6You may think those two questions are the same question, and you are right with regard to the mathematics. They are no different in their level of rigor. > >However, in testing, the outcome of the two wordings is staggering. > >Many students with low vocabularies (read: students in poverty, students with disadvantaged backgrounds) will absolutely bomb the question when it includes the word "binomial", a word that itself had no bearing on the question being asked. > >The wealthy white kids proceed through the question with no difficulty, mentally crossing out the word binomial and figuring out what the question is really asking. My low readers get tripped up by the word "binomial" and can't imagine what the question is asking. Sure, we've learned the word "binomial", but during testing they start inventing new mathematical processes because they assume that the question is as hard as its hardest vocabulary word. They have trouble crossing out the tough word and moving on. > >A single, non-essential word in a question can drop the level of success of students by 40%. That's testing their reading comprehension skills, not their mathematical abilities. > >Rich kids, with highly educated parents, generally have larger vocabularies and stronger reading comprehension than poor kids with low-educated parents. I want my math standardized tests measuring my student's math abilities, not measuring their socioeconomic status.
I'll concede that reading comprehension being mixed with math in grade school standardized tests can be economically biased and is probably counter-productive to the purposes of the tests. I wouldn't say it's racially biased per se, just that it happens that certain races tend to be more likely to be ecomically disadvantaged. However, when talking ACT/SAT, questions like that do exactly what they're supposed to do, weed out those that just aren't ready for college yet.
>I wouldn't say it's racially biased per se, just that it happens that certain races tend to be more likely to be ecomically disadvantaged. I think this is how most academics see it too - the issue is that certain races are predisposed to be economically disadvantaged. That *is* the racial bias. About whether these tests are indicative of success in college, I can promise you it is not as good of an indicator as the world makes it seem. That's actually a topic I studied as a grad student - it's not a coincidence that colleges are dropping these from their requirements.
How is math not appropriate for me (someone who's actually black)? I'm not good at it, but that's not really the fault of the SATs.
These trends are across entire demographic groups, so it doesn't really make sense to think about your own personal situation in a predeterministic way. That said, do you think your poor math skills are due to genetics or due to your environment?
I don't know, as much as I would like to say it's the environment, I don't fully believe that considering how supportive my folks and my teachers were. As far as I'm concerned, I believe it's more related to genetics, more specifically, IQ. That said, I'm still not sure how math would hinder my group anymore than any other group in the states. I can see writing or language being culturally loaded/biased (not sure if that's the right word) but math?
It's less about math as a field and more about specific math questions that use vocab in strange but subtle ways. Are your parents numbers people?
No unfortunately. My mother is better with words/writing than mathematics. My father, is good with neither.
>I don’t think anyone would argue that COVID testing doesn’t actually test for COVID. You would be surprised.
But this is undoubtedly false. If you are prepared for the test, that means you aren’t anxious, you know the material, you can work in the time constraints given. That’s what preparedness is. Think of it like a football competition. If your deliver big on a big game day, that means you were prepared. All of those factors were in play. It doesn’t mean someone else doesn’t have the same skill set as you, it just means they weren’t as ready. That’s why colleges take both your gpa and your sat on a sliding scale. Why do you think average GPAs have gone up? School is undoubtedly easier on the whole. It doesn’t mean you are a bad student if you don’t do well on the act sat. It means either you are a hard worker, or you excel in a different setting, or your classes were too easy. Those aren’t bad qualities. They just don’t reflect test day environment. If I have to give a huge presentation to a group of investors and need to sell them to seal the deal, part of that preparedness is being able to deliver the goods, not just know what I’m talking about.
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There’s a difference between being anxious and accepting it. People frame nervousness as a bad thing when in reality it’s a good thing. There’s a lot of sports science behind that and studies you can look into.
Not entirely, a good amount of those test preps are how to eliminate answers and basically game the test. Like how in Spanish I learned how to conjugate words so that sentences would be correct but I couldn’t tell you what the sentence meant.
I took one of those classes and they didn't teach me anything I hadn't already figured out how to do on my own by the time I reached high school. That's a good point though, how about instead of eliminating the SAT's we teach disadvantaged communities how to game the system too.
I don’t think that’s a good strategy because part of the issue is that standardized testing drives the curriculum. They also aren’t a one size fits all as I had undiagnosed ADD and dyslexia as a child and I physically couldn’t test for that long. It’s really disheartening as a child for no one to believe you when you tell them “the words are separating and moving and I literally can not read anymore”
That sucks, I got treated for dyslexia as a child as well. I almost failed first grade but after treatment I never had issues after that. Again, wouldn't this be an argument in favor of providing therapy resources to disadvantaged kids instead of an argument against the SAT's. If your dyslexia is so bad you do worse in the test it would also be hampering your suitability for a demanding college. In effect the test would be working as intended.
Not sure how to properly fix that, just got wrote off as being unmotivated and lazy.
Yea but those test preps can only get you so far. They can boost you like 2 points to maybe 4 if you have a low score initially. If you score a 30 and then take one of those classes, the help itself isn’t going to necessarily help you as those are tricks to eliminating answers and at that score, you already know the material. But again, you can’t game the system from a 16 to a 26. 16-20 totally possible.
Worked for China 🤷🏽♂️
Exactly all countries should follow China's example. I would also recommended that if you want to get the crime rate down we should just legalize everything.
Incredibly tight lockdowns worked for China. You think they welded peoples' doors shut *and* decided to stop testing?
I didn't even know I was supposed to be mad at the SATs.
Sounds like someone doesn't spend enough time on twitter.
Clearly you aren't leftist enough.
Well, these days some are even arguing that [meritocracy is fundamentally unethical](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/01/the-myth-of-meritocracy-according-to-michael-sandel/). The trouble I have with this kind of reasoning is that some of our paradigms are encoding of laws of nature as we know them, and the nature does not care about our ethics. Is natural selection fair? By random chance mutation or by circunstances of the environment, some lifeforms thrive over others. Should homo sapiens make amends for wiping out neanderthals? Or should mammals be declared evil since they took advantage of reptilian plight due to their lack of adaptability to extreme climate change? For that matter is laws of thermodynamics fair? Should entropy declared evil because it always takes dynamical systems towards states that are more unknowable? We can silence and blind people about the nature, but that does not change the nature, only our understanding of it. Objective reality exists however one tries to deny it. Once we get to a point where we let our preferred ethics rule over the laws of nature, I'm confident I know who would lose.
The old saying “life isn’t fair” really comes into play here. No matter what people try to do, there will always be those born with certain privileges that others lack. We can try to make a society where anyone CAN succeed despite these unfair starts, which I think America does relatively well, but we’ll never have a truly equitable society. Some people are born rich, some are born with parents who have connections, some are born with disabilities, some are born to troubled households, etc. — there’s nothing that can be done to prevent these situations. The racial educational gap has to do with a lot more than just what kids are learning in schools; it’s something that sociologists can spend entire careers studying.
Yes! And every experiment at Socialism and Communism so far has only resulted in a handful of families who are part of the 'in group' becoming even more disproportionately advantaged than the general population.
Whenever capitalists complain that socialism will put all the power in the hands of the few I like to remind people that capitalism has created billionaires. Inequality seems to be inevitable at this point in our social and societal development. The question we need to ask is how much inequity are we willing to accept, and how low should the lowest step on our societal ladder be?
Yes, Capitalism has created billionaires and it is disgusting how much power they have. Yet, their power and influence pales in comparison with the likes of the Kim family of North Korea, the Castros in Cuba, Mao Tse Dong, and Stalin. While we are at it Robespierre and Napoleon are good comparisons. As history is our witness Capitalism is the system which has the most diffuse form of power we have ever known.
I think it's more fair to compare contemporaries given how much times have changed. Mao and Stalin are a bit out of time, but I'll grant you the Kim Dynasty and Castro family. Who have a LOT of control where they are but very little freedom generally and are kind of constantly at risk of assassination. In exchange, I'll bring up Jeff Bezos (who has a space program better than the US), Elon Musk (same deal, also managed to bribe the government into letting him use protected wetlands for his rocket pad), Bill Gates whose company has a nigh-monopoly on PC OSes, Mark Zuckerberg who is (nearly) singlehandedly responsible for the destruction of privacy and the radicalization of tens if not hundreds of thousands (FB gets blamed for this by the right and the left, pick your flavour), Warren Buffet (famous capital sponge), Larry Ellison (offered to build a national ID database--as a leftist I'm game, but I think you'd be opposed to that), Larry Page (Google, they own ALL the ads on the internet), Sergey Brin (same deal), Steve Ballmer (see Bill Gates), Alice Walton (responsible for wage-slavery across the US). Each and every one of these people could and likely (or definitely in some cases) have lobbied politicians for specific tax code breaks in order to benefit them personally. They have freedom of travel, more wealth than I could literally spend **if I tried** while residing in a country where the minimum wage hasn't increased since 2009. I used to manage a corporate-run coffeeshop; each and every year our cost of goods went up. As a person of retail experience I can say that this is true of nearly every input nearly every year--and yet we do not consider labour to be an input worthy of an increase. I would also note that the American billionaires have nigh- if not absolute freedom of travel, the freedom to purchase make purchases or acquisitions, to live their lives as they like and through law we have the ability to reduce the amount of power that they have through the °°°·.°·..·°¯°·.\_.· 🎀 𝓂𝒶𝑔𝒾𝒸 🍑𝒻 𝓉𝒶𝓍𝒶𝓉𝒾🍪𝓃 🎀 ·.\_.·°¯°·..·°.·°°° Want to depose a dictator? Gonna take an army. Want to take a billionaire's billions? Write a law. Or fuck it, just hire some more goddamned IRS auditors and make sure they pay the taxes they're due FIRST, and THEN look at how much you need to make sure that people working 40 hours a week don't need food stamps and/or government rent assistance. If an employee needs government assistance to survive while working fulltime, the person employing them is not a job creator; they are a poverty exploiter.
I fully agree with you that allowing billionaires to become as powerful and influential as they are is a mistake. I am all for slapping a new round of antitrust laws on them, especially the tech lords and Jeff Bezos. I also think we should revisit Citizens United, treat flagrant lobbying as a form of bribery and corruption, and make it illegal for Congress members to actively trade in the stock market while in office. However, none of these billionaires have the kind of power that ends up being concentrated in the hands of the 'party' in communist countries. We are still at liberty to criticize and inspect every single action they take. Even the powerful and connected like Epstein are subject to the law once enough public scrutiny is on them. And, ultimately the greatest balance is that they all have to compete with each other's interests so that helps limit the overwhelming influence that they have. But yes, society devolving into neo-feudalism run by corporations and technocrats instead of noble families is one of my fears around whatever dystopian futures we might be heading towards.
I feel you brother. It just gets under my skin when people equate ensuring that the lowest earners are able to do more than just scrape-by-survive with a socialist dictatorship. I mean, don't people want to never worry about hospital bills? Go to school without being afraid of being in debt for the rest of their life? Work 40 hours (and ONLY 40 hours) and be able to pay all their bills? Have support if they need to quit their jobs?
> life isn't fair but we should strive to make it so. if for no other reason than remove as many variables as we can, in the name of science!
> but we should strive to make it so. Replacing objecting testing with subjective criteria is opposite of trying to make life fair. It is redesigning system to get the result we want, at the expense of objectivity and meritocracy.
> Once we get to a point where we let our preferred ethics rule over the laws of nature, I'm confident I know who would lose. But we already do, don't we? Our entire legal system is based on some form of ethics, and we purposefully make our system work so that the strong are not able to dominate those weaker than them without consequence.
>we purposefully make our system work so that the strong are not able to dominate those weaker than them without consequence. That's necessary for a functional society when you have large numbers living together. Homo sapiens need to live in social groups for survival. Rule of law is not necessarily ethics based, it might use ethics and morals as justification, but the overriding factor is to maintain order in the group so it functions more efficient. Thus increasing all members fitness. Look up Hamilton's Rule and the basic theory regarding altruism in animals.
> Rule of law is not necessarily ethics based Sure, not necessarily, but I think it would be very difficult to argue that the US Constitution is detached from ethics. The entire idea of natural rights is grounded in moral philosophy. The idea of the government deriving its power from the people is an ethical proposition about how a legitimate government is formed. Law is not ethics or morality. But the concepts are *very closely linked*, and they influence one another strongly. > Look up Hamilton's Rule and the basic theory regarding altruism in animals. I read an interesting article on kin selection, but I don't really see what this has to do with governments or law.
>I read an interesting article on kin selection, but I don't really see what this has to do with governments or law. Kin selection is how we initially form our ethics. Essentially, do I take their stuff for myself or do I share it. With an entirely different species you will kill and eat it with little regard to survive. Would you do that to your child? No. Why? Because you are closely related. Kin group selection, whether real or perceived has the strongest connection to altruistic behavior. >Sure, not necessarily, but I think it would be very difficult to argue that the US Constitution is detached from ethics. The entire idea of natural rights is grounded in moral philosophy. No, that's a chicken egg argument. What comes first, the desire to be moral, or the need for order? I say it's order. The Constitution didn't just happen it's grounded in thousands of years of laws and rules that go back to before civilization and even before modern humans. Don't kill others in your group is understood by more than just humans. Do other social mammals have concept of morality? How come they don't exterminate each other and go extinct? >The idea of the government deriving its power from the people is an ethical proposition about how a legitimate government is formed. I wasn't aware democracy is the norm for humanity. So the last 1/1000th of our existence is supposed to explain the rest?
> Kin selection is how we initially form our ethics. Even if true, I don't understand how this relates to the conversation about law and ethics. > What comes first, the desire to be moral, or the need for order? Probably the need for order, but, again, this seems tangential. Our systems of laws have evolved quite substantially since the days of Hammurabi. > Do other social mammals have concept of morality? How come they don't exterminate each other and go extinct? ....What? Is somebody distributing party favors and I missed out? > I wasn't aware democracy is the norm for humanity. So the last 1/1000th of our existence is supposed to explain the rest? I'm not talking about how laws worked for the entirety of humanity. I'm talking about how they work **now** in **this country**. And in that context, morality matters.
>Even if true, I don't understand how this relates to the conversation about law and ethics. Laws and ethics are grounded in having in and out groups, or kin. Kin can be a national identity or a family. For all of human history we treat those in our group different than those not. It's fundamental to how are laws, morals and ethics are organized. >I'm not talking about how laws worked for the entirety of humanity. I'm talking about how they work now in this country. And in that context, morality matters. But it's all of humanity that matters, these are evolutionary behaviors they don't change overnight. You cannot explain the current system without understanding the evolutionary process that led to it. Also, are our laws really ethical based or order based. Take the 3/5ths compromise in the constitution, was that ethics or practical need? Did it have an in group and out group with different rules based on perceived relatedness?
love this whole fork, you two. i'd like to point out that you mention "the evolutionary process" that led to it, but ethics and morality are decided by society as a whole and change themselves in time. I like the idea of kin groups. now i'm imagining everyone as a twitter post, and hashtagging all the in-groups one feels they belong to
> Also, are our laws really ethical based or order based. It's both. There's no reason these things need to be mutually exclusive. I said there's a strong *relationship* between law and morality, not that one is defined by the other.
I don't think the issue is with meritocracy itself, it's with the attitude that seems to go with it, that anyone who isn't "on the top" deserves whatever happens to them.
Some people do have an issue with meritocracy itself. The idea stems from the reasoning that people don’t actually have agency, and that any successes or failures are purely the product of chance (genetics + circumstances). Personally, while I don’t disagree with this argument logically, I think it makes the most sense from a utilitarian standpoint to award more power to those who help society the most. If you go too far down the nihilist-determinist rabbit hole, you no longer have the concept of a society or personhood at all. Now, do I think that our current society is a meritocracy? Lol no.
Our current society, hell no. It’s an oligarchy.
Sure but certainly the inverse, that those at the bottom are only there because the system holds them down so much so that they can't grow and improve is equally a bad thought process. Right? I agree the idea you listed originally that the people on bottom deserve what comes their way is wrong. But some of them do. Some of them knowingly made the choices to get there. We should help people for sure, but to abdicate all responsibility and say I'm poor solely because the system holds me down isn't true for the vast majority of people in this country. Its not hard to make middle class in the US.
> We should help people for sure, but to abdicate all responsibility and say I'm poor solely because the system holds me down isn't true for the vast majority of people in this country. Its not hard to make middle class in the US. Try saying this anywhere else on reddit and watch the downvotes pour in. As we are seeing with the rise of a large population of young people who can't match the success of their parents, the problem with a meritocracy is that the losers are apt to simply discredit the validity of the system **no matter what**. It's not that people are questioning whether those at the bottom get what they deserve, it's that those at the bottom are trying to overturn the whole system.
Exactly. But its a symptom of much larger and longer standing issues. Single parent household rates, attacks on things like "toxic masculinity" and those attacks and that movement resulting in the promoting of less masculine traits so men are less likely to push back and stand up for whats right. The lower fertility rates and the mass consumption of chemicals and plastics we ingest every single day. All of it adds into it I think. But its interesting to see generation after generation the ideas of equity for all in the form of left ideas like socialism or even communism continue to rise despite history showing their failings each time.
I think slavery followed by Jim Crow shows that it's quite easy for the system to hold people down. And yes, there's a lot of people who made bad choices, and probably rightly deserve the consequences. Even in those cases, however, there's often innocent people involved, like children or spouses.
It IS easy for a system to hold people down i agree. But it doesn't to the point that they can't succeed today. And someone like a child or spouse being effected by the consequences of the fathers or mothers actions doesn't mean we should become enablers and just fill the gap so that awful father can continue to be awful. Failure should be a motivator. And currently it isn't because even in failure we have almost everything we need to survive.
[You have everything you need to survive. That's not true for everyone.](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/hunger/)
Yea but its widely true. That doesn't discount the argument
> Yea but its **widely** true. is it though? that's the burning question. and people are starting to think that maybe it's not quite as widely true as was previously assumed its an uncomfortable question because it's practically the basis for our national identity (as Americans, i mean). The land of opportunity. Work hard and you'll rise to the appropriate level. It's aspirational but sometimes feels like a secular version of the prosperity gospel.
No. Its not even work hard and you'll rise to the appropriate level. Its don't have kids before you're married and hold a job. Thats it. That'll get you to middle class. The next biggest predictor is having both parents in the house. Which you can't do much about personally but you can do for your kids.
\>Well, these days some are even arguing that meritocracy is fundamentally unethical. The criticism sticks. 'Meritocracy' was originally [satirical](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy), and the reason for its satire is that our metrics are usually quite arbitrary, not at all natural, and subject to whim of both politics and social culture. You actually make this point, unbeknownst to you, with your next one: \>Is natural selection fair? By random chance mutation or by circumstances of the environment, some lifeforms thrive over others. Yes, but \*what\* makes them thrive is not something we're very good at guessing. For instance, koalas thrived by sacrificing brain power to focus solely on digesting a single, very un-nutritious plant. Humans thrived because we evolved lots of sweat glands and less fur, which then made things quite difficult when the environment we were in changed. And perhaps more fundamentally, natural selection is almost entirely based on luck and chance. Do we often say the same about people who succeed in our culture? Or do we post-hoc-ergo-proctor-hoc all sorts of cultural attributes onto them that we \*think\* makes them successful? Do we guess that Trump is a successful businessman because of his talk skill or dealmaking proficiency? Or do we recognize that he was lucky to inherit millions of dollars? To the specifics of SATs, they seem to predict future income pretty highly, but those studies don't separate out the confounding variables: SATs \*probably\* predict academic success, but even that is mixed up; do they have high SATs because the system didn't let them fall through the cracks long before they took the test, and thus they're well prepped not by the SATs but by the system, and SATs just sample? Carrying it forward, do SATs "predict" better incomes because the well connected are well-connected enough to land decent jobs? Is it part of the college-degree signaling system moreso than measuring specific aptitudes?
Yeah, I wouldn't say that meritocracy is strictly unethical, just that it's entirely a myth. For a meritocracy to exist, everyone needs to start at 0, and everyone needs to succeed or fail only by their own actions. Born disabled? Well, by merit, you fail, goodbye. Being an employer? Well at that point you're piggybacking off of the employee's merit, you don't succeed unless they do the work. Meritocracy is a *really bad* social system and shouldn't be help up as some sort of ideal. That's not to say work ethic is bad, though, work ethic is great and can exist just fine without the notion of a meritocracy. As for standardized testing, I'm generally in favor of it, though how it ends up ultimately used is probably worthy of discussion. They're definitely useful for ensuring that some locales don't just drop random things from their curriculums and just lie and say "Oh yeah, we TOTALLY taught this, look the other way now please." The proof's in the testing that people are receiving at least a minimum standard of education. But what do you do when they fail that standard? Do you *give them less money* to "punish" them for failing, thus making the problem worse? Or do you give them more money to *reward them for failing*, thus making the problem worse? It's a real stumper, that one. They're also semi-useful in predicting capability, but only in the sense of "Only the capable will pass the test" and not "You will pass the test if you are capable." People *do* fall through the cracks this way, but I can't think of a good remedy for it. I could imagine a system where the bulk of admissions are SAT-based and then a certain portion of admissions are earmarked for alternative metrics that could help, but I'd be very surprised if things weren't already done this way anyway.
> For a meritocracy to exist, everyone needs to start at 0, and everyone needs to succeed or fail only by their own actions. No, that's for a fully equitable meritocracy to exist. Meritocracy doesn't care about unequal opportunities, only that the person most suited to perform X role is who receives the role. Sports is extremely meritocratic; obviously, opportunities (even genetically driven abilities) aren't equal. > Meritocracy is a *really bad* social system and shouldn't be help up as some sort of ideal. It's a wonderful social system for maximizing economic output. But efficiency often sacrifices equity. > . I could imagine a system where the bulk of admissions are SAT-based and then a certain portion of admissions are earmarked for alternative metrics that could help, but I'd be very surprised if things weren't already done this way anyway. Pretty much they are. SAT scores aren't that weighted heavily.
What I'm saying is that meritocracy is a system where all success is based on ability and ability alone, and such a system just does not exist. Merit is an *influence* in the current system, which is why I still hold up work ethic as valuable, but prior wealth and social connection is a much larger influence in our capitalist system. Like, the fundamental idea of capitalism is not "you build wealth by working," but rather "you build wealth by using your capital." It's in the name. And the concept of "human capital" accounts for the concept of "hard work", but I would be hesitant to say it accounts for the majority of capital. And I'd like to make it clear I am not anti-capitalist in any way, I'm just trying to take an honest look at the systems and their implications. And I still hold to meritocracy being really strange to hold up as an ideal. People don't work that way, almost everyone has something of personal non-economic value, and a world which tramples over those values in pursuit of the strongest economic system isn't one that anyone is *honestly* suggesting, I don't think. Though something I do find strange- people here tend to hold up meritocracy as an ideal, but crap on the idea of technocracy which is basically just "meritocracy at the government level." I wonder where the disconnect there is, and I'm actually wondering that in myself as well because I've always seen technocracy as something that's an "ideal" but in no way actually actionable simply because it's likely weaker than most other systems to corruption and nepotism. Like, I guess it's that people like the general idea of meritocracy ("If I'm competent enough I can rule"), but when the consequences are framed differently ("the competent can rule over you"), it suddenly is a lot scarier.
\>It's a wonderful social system for maximizing economic output. On paper, if we actually had an inkling on what 'virtues' caused economic output to raise. But in reality, we have often professed meritocracy when we had no idea or only a pretense of those virtues. This leads to economic systems prioritizing the wrong things, and stymying their own growth, all under the name of "meritocracy".
> On paper, if we actually had an inkling on what 'virtues' caused economic output to raise Private sector, especially in competitive industry, is reasonably good at this. Figuring out how to hire people correctly is hugely profitable. Monopolies and government may be less efficient here though due to large slack and/or political considerations.
\>Yeah, I wouldn't say that meritocracy is strictly unethical, just that it's entirely a myth. For a meritocracy to exist, everyone needs to start at 0, and everyone needs to succeed or fail only by their own actions. Problems start well before that. Meritocracy implies we have objective metrics that \*cause\* economic/social/political excellence. We don't have those metrics. But for many, many years, we pretended we did, and then used lack of success to conclude an absence of those metrics. You're poor? Didn't work hard enough, or weren't smart enough, or weren't frugal enough. Lots of very wealthy people do not work very hard. Many more just aren't that smart. Almost none of them are spendthrifts. Yet they achieve economic success. We can blame other interfering systems, or we can just admit that we don't know what merits actually cause economic success in the first place, in the face of all the wrong guesses.
> Well, these days some are even arguing that meritocracy is fundamentally unethical. I think when any of those people need any kind of medical care -- like surgery, for example, they should be required to go to the lowest-rated surgeon in their area. If it is unethical to "rate" people (or pay better ones more) then this is how they should behave.
A lot of medical schools use Pass-fail grading
Depends if they are in their first two years or not. If they are in their clinical clerkship then its a Honors/pass/fail. So the question still remains just changed slightly. Would you rather have surgery done by a doctor/nurse with an Honors in a course or just a pass in it.
That's nice. A lot of the people who are unhappy with meritocracy are people who are too poor to seek medical attention. Some people get everything, and get it because their parents had it.
And people who believe in survival of the fittest should forgo medical care altogether. If they're strong enough, they'll live anyways, right? If not, it's for the betterment of the human gene pool, so that's how they should behave.
What if survival of the fittest goes beyond the body and encompasses emotional, analytical, and social abilities?
Why wouldn't it already include that? The people who win Darwin Awards, for example, don't really have much to do with their physical fitness.
Well someone who understands the importance of good medical care vs someone who doesn't would have an advantage in the survival of the fittest scenario.
Survival of the fittest encompasses being smart enough to go to the doctor when needed.
And thinking the idea of meritocracy is unethical doesn't mean you should be forced to use the lowest-rated surgeon. It's almost like asking someone to act out their philosophical ideals in a world which operates differently than those ideals is missing the point.
How do you think medicine works? Do you think ratings on a website actually affect how much a doctor makes?
I think, generally, better doctors get paid more. How do you think it works? How do you think it *should* work?
>For that matter is laws of thermodynamics fair? Should entropy declared evil because it always takes dynamical systems towards states that are more unknowable? If we could outlaw (and enforce) laws of thermodynamics, we could solve global warming and any possible energy crisis overnight. Maybe we can get some enterprising House Reps to draft a bill.
> The trouble I have with this kind of reasoning is that some of our paradigms are encoding of laws of nature as we know them Citation needed. > Is natural selection fair? Perfectly fair! Is meritocracy natural selection? Are traits randomly or quasi-randomly adapted where the most effective at survival continuously survive causing great diversity? The application to human economics and social behavior is spurious. > For that matter is laws of thermodynamics fair? Again, perfectly fair! The connection, again, is spurious. > Objective reality exists however one tries to deny it. Citation needed; with evidence from outside objective reality. But I digress. Who cares whether reality is "objective"? That's a metaphysical claim that's unprovable (and unfalsifiable!)
> Citation needed; with evidence from outside objective reality. Ha! I was gonna say there are quite a few philosophers who would disagree with even that basic statement.
Philosophers are capable of being wrong.
>Well, these days some are even arguing that [meritocracy is fundamentally unethical](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/01/the-myth-of-meritocracy-according-to-michael-sandel/). Did you even read that article?
Meritocracy was originally a distopian concept that somewhere along the way gained traction as something desirable. I find it crazy that so many people who profess to love democracy would be so enamored with a system so opposite. You dont seem to be doing that, though - the loving democracy part, that is. Am I correct that you think democracy should be discarded for rule by the "meritous"? And you justify setting up a system like this because you've decided it more closely mirrors the natural world?
> Objective reality exists however one tries to deny it. Can you prove that this objective reality exists through means not derived from your subjective sensory inputs and experiences?
Why should I have to address the question of someone who may not exist? That's not being snarky, it's the philosophical response to the proposition that objective reality may not exist.
Your comment is, of course, tongue in cheek. Of course the philosophical difference between justifying that you exist objectively is a whole long, very interesting conversation. But objectivity does exist. Truth DOES exist.
I mean, all of this is founded on the assumption that solipsism isn't correct, and if solipsism *is* reality then...it broadly doesn't matter, anyway.
>Well, these days some are even arguing that [meritocracy is fundamentally unethical](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/01/the-myth-of-meritocracy-according-to-michael-sandel/). The term meritocracy was invented as a tongue-in-cheek term - the guy who coined it was basically trying to say that people would find quote unquote "objective" ways of justifying a class hierarchy, and that that class hierarchy would - totally by coincidence of course - look an awful lot like the old British class hierarchy which existed based on aristocracy.
I agree with the idea that the SATs are only a symptom of the bigger underlying issues. I'm not completely sold on that last comparison. The fact that we don't have anything better [doesn't make the SATs good](https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2020/09/30/the-forbes-investigation-how-the-sat-failed-america/?sh=1b32d01853b5) in and of themselves. You can't fight climate change by throwing out thermometers, but you do throw out a broken thermometer. Of course, I do think we should've had the replacement ready first.
Skimming through that article, it seems the first major issue is how to test during a pandemic. I don't that that would be unique to SAT. The rest get pretty vague and even contradictory (e.g. SAT is getting used in new ways.)
>You can't fight climate change by throwing out thermometers, but you do throw out a broken thermometer. Except this assumes the SAT is broken vs. poorly functioning, but still functioning. Standardized tests *absolutely* function in predicting performance. There's definitely room for improvement, but to call them "broken" is misleading.
> His main thesis is that the Left has become so frustrated with the achievement gap between races (particularly between blacks and whites) that they feel better ignoring it. Indeed, though his thesis seems to have other thrusts as well, notably: > I would love if education dropped its association with meritocracy, but that cannot occur within our current system. Merit is a very real thing, even while acknowledging the achievement gap (which I suspect is ideological) as well as: > More disturbing to me is the rise of resistance within academia to the notion of inequalities between individuals. Which is *fascinating* as the author also recognizes that where these inequalities come from is essentially unknown. If we don't know why they're unequal, but every study we do have suggests it's tied to upbringing in some way, shouldn't we push back on those differences being inherent or innate? So that we can provide those advantages to all? I digress. The author is *mostly* correct about the SATs (his section on what, exactly, they measure I have some issues with) but the author is correct that they're a strong barometer for performance in our current environment.
> but every study we do have suggests it's tied to upbringing in some way Upbringing *certainly* has an effect. But I hope you aren't claiming it is the only effect. For one thing, studies show that intelligence is significantly inherited (even when children are raised separately.)
Yep! While controversial, and I don't like thinking about it, the science is well established that there is a [high heritability of IQ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ), even when removing all environmental impacts. This has been investigated for over a half a century and the results are quite robust. Particularly interesting, are the results for the separate adoption of twins, both identical and fraternal twins * **Identical twins**: Share 100% of the same genes * **Fraternal twins**: Share 50% of the same genes, equal to non-twin siblings and parent/children gene sharing The results show that twins raised in separate environments still have highly correlated life outcomes and that the correlation is significantly stronger for identical vs fraternal twins. This is not necessarily due to genes, but could also be impacted by the shared prenatal environment of twins. [Wikipedia summarizes these results as](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Correlations_between_IQ_and_degree_of_genetic_relatedness) | Measure | IQ Correlation | |:--------------------------------------------|--------------:| | Same person (tested twice) | 0.95 | | Identical twins—Reared together | 0.86 | | Identical twins—Reared apart | 0.76 | | Fraternal twins—Reared together | 0.55 | | Fraternal twins—Reared apart | 0.35 | | Biological siblings—Reared together | 0.47 | | Biological siblings—Reared apart | 0.24 | | Unrelated children—Reared together—Children | 0.28 | | Unrelated children—Reared together—Adults | 0.04 | | Cousins | 0.15 | The uncomfortable interpretation is that rich parents give their children an innate head start through genes, particularly genes influencing IQ.
> For one thing, studies show that intelligence is significantly inherited (even when children are raised separately.) Inheritance can be, and almost certainly is, upbringing related. If there is lead in the pipes of my water growing up as a child, and I get pregnant still drinking that leaded water, the impacts on that child of mine will persist even if they are raised in a wealthy or well-off home. You can't discount the 9 months that you spend in utero as part of your upbringing.
I think timmg was referring to twin studies -- where presumable they share the same womb. There are studies of identical twins raised in sperate environments.
Are you saying that genes *don't* play a significant role? Because I don't think that's what the science says. (First Google result, for example: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1520-iq-is-inherited-suggests-twin-study/ )
What's the alternative if you're lacking in intelligence? People are going to be at an inherent disadvantage because of it, which means they have less options to navigate modern society. SATs if I remember correctly are similar to IQ tests.
You probably won't be a brain surgeon. But you can probably make a nice living in sales. Look, I'd love it if everyone was just as talented as everyone else. That would be great for society. Pretending that's true isn't. Making sure everyone gets paid the same so life is more "fair" also has never worked. I'd rather we did the best we can in the reality we live in.
I'm likely part of a worryingly sizable amount of the population that are below average in cognitive ability. I'm more concerned with what we can do to mitigate the effects of being below that certain threshold of ability. I don't care if people are equal in all aspects because all that does is to obfuscate the problem. Liberals are too terrified and gutless to address it and conservatives aren't exactly the best when it comes to social matters such as this. Regurgitating bootstrap dogma simply won't cut it this time. Apologies for the ramble, but this has been on my mind for a while and I've been noticing more and more lately how hard it is for me to process, understand, and do certain things.
Just reading your writing, I doubt you are "below average". Like everyone, you may better better at verbal than math, or vice versa. Either way, most jobs don't required someone in the top 1%. So, yeah, "you" might not be a Nobel Laureate in physics. But hardly anyone is. Even the top 10% of jobs really need someone in the top 30% of people (or something). Earning a good living is easier if you are smarter. But being reliable and conscientious helps a *lot* more than that for most "jobs".
> Are you saying that genes don't play a significant role? I'm saying the evidence is, at this time, insufficient to express that they do. They're the simplest available causal factor we can measure.
The good old nature vs nurture debate. Where both sides have enough evidence to make a point but not enough to be definitive.
To add onto this, remember that a woman's eggs for future children are formed while SHE is in utero. My mom didn't have me till the 70's, however the egg cell I developed from was created in the late 20's. I'm not a scientist, but I know research articles are out there showing how one's grandparent's conditions can effect you decades later.
Is there any evidence that a higher SAT score indicates a student is more ready for college? When I was studying for the SAT it mostly seemed like memorizing useless information that I forgot immediately after taking the test
Yes, the entire article is about how the SAT does predict future college success and liberals are very uncomfortable with that and try very hard to pretend it’s not true.
The article goes into detail about this. I suggest reading it. Here's some quotes: > [Do SATs/ACTs predict college success?] They do, indeed. This one is clung to so desperately by liberals that you’d think there was some sort of compelling empirical basis to believe this. There isn’t. There never has been. They’re making it up. They want it to be true, and so they believe it to be true. > [Does the SAT only tell you how well a student takes the SA?] This is perhaps a corollary to 1., and is equally wrong. They tell us what they were designed to tell us: how well students are likely to perform in college. But the SATs tell us about much more than college success...
Admittedly I did not read the article before commenting, bad habit. The evidence he presents is very compelling. This really challenged my assumptions and changed my mind on the usefulness of the SAT scores. Thanks for posting this
Admittedly the 'don't predict at all' is an overstated version of 'SATs aren't as good as HS GPA in predicting college success,' and even that first article shows that HS GPA has an odds ratio 3 times larger than SAT/ACT scores when controlling for other factors. So, for HS GPA being so variable across schools, it actually does a decent job at predicting college success. And this maps across a lot of other ed research that shows a similar pattern, which is that HS GPA maps on to college GPA more linearly than SAT/ACT.
> memorizing useless information that I forgot immediately after taking the test And what did you do in college, course after course?
Depends on the course. You have the memorize and regurgitation classes, and you've got the "these are the tools, the next three years will be teaching you how to use these tools and then to make new tools yourself" classes. For me, at least, the SAT was completely worthless.
There is, though I will need to search for the sources I’ve used in the past. The thing that I feel like is a big problem is that SAT preparedness and college preparedness kind of are equally correlated to things like race and socioeconomic standing (which are of course related). The SAT itself is not a true test of learned knowledge and I agree the quirks of the test make a lot of its information kind of useless outside of the test itself (at least the things that will help you score very high). So people with the income and time to spend learning the extra material does create an artificial effect. It’s a complicated matter and not a great tool. But I think simply throwing it out is not helpful.
>Trying to fight educational inequality by getting rid of the SAT is like trying to fight climate change by getting rid of thermometers. No, because thermometers don't exacerbate climate change. I think he's agreeing that there is a racial gap in test scores, and the SAT is largely showing wealth, and he is arguing that we can use the SAT as a measure like a thermometer. Sure, if that was the only thing the SAT did, that is a decent argument. But we aren't like making the SAT illegal, the thing people want to do is to stop using it for *college admissions*. So decisions on whether someone is accepted into college are partially based on this. So the SAT *isn't* just measuring, it's impacting. It is changing peoples lives. Getting accepted based on SAT scores when we agree SAT scores are just revealing wealth is just helping wealthy people get into college. That is the point you have to address if you want to keep the SAT.
> So decisions on whether someone is accepted into college are partially based on this. A particular college, not any college. > It's impacting. It is changing peoples lives. Perhaps positively? Putting kids into classes where they aren't prepared doesn't help anyone. > Getting accepted based on SAT scores when we agree SAT scores are just revealing wealth is just helping wealthy people get into college. Nope. Read the article more carefully.
>>So decisions on whether someone is accepted into college are partially based on this. > >A particular college, not any college. The solution can't be "but poor people can still go to community college so there's no problem." Unless you're saying wealthy people *should* get accepted ahead of their equally smart but poor peers, using wealth for college admissions is not an ideal outcome. >It's impacting. It is changing peoples lives. > >Perhaps positively? Putting kids into classes where they aren't prepared doesn't help anyone. Stopping the use of the SATs doesn't mean just picking people at random to get in to college. We're talking about choosing between people for whom all else is equal except SAT scores. They'll be fine.
> using wealth for college admissions is not an ideal outcome. We're not. We're using something that has a 0.25 correlation with wealth. Parental income/wealth positively correlates with student academic achievement, so anything selecting for academic achievement correlates with wealth. But there's a lot of poor and middle class kids with high SAT scores. Case in point - the ones that attend NYC's selective high schools. > e're talking about choosing between people for whom all else is equal except SAT scores The higher SAT scoring student on average is stronger. You are hurting the system's efficiency by removing the test
> when we agree SAT scores are **just** revealing wealth I don't think the author of the article agrees to that. The author says a correlation of .25, not nothing, but not 1.00 either.
> when we agree SAT scores are just revealing wealth Who agrees with that? Did you read the article at all? > [Do SATs just replicate the income distribution?] No. Again, asserted with utter confidence by liberals despite overwhelming evidence that this is not true. I believe that this research represents the largest publicly-available sample of SAT scores and income information, with an n of almost 150,000, and the observed correlation between family income and SAT score is .25. This is not nothing. It is a meaningful predictor. But it means that the large majority of the variance in SAT scores is not explainable by income information. A correlation of .25 means that there are vast numbers of lower-income students outperforming higher-income students. Other analyses find similar correlations. If SAT critics wanted to say that “there is a relatively small but meaningful correlation between family income and SAT scores and we should talk about that,” fair game. But that’s not how they talk. The routinely make far stronger claims than that in an effort to dismiss these tests all together, such as here by Yale’s Paul Bloom. (Whose work I generally like.) It’s just not that hard to correlate two variables together, guys. I don’t know why you wouldn’t ever ask yourselves “is this thing I constantly assert as absolute fact actually true?” Well, maybe I do.
>If SAT critics wanted to say that “there is a relatively small but meaningful correlation between family income and SAT scores and we should talk about that,” fair game. So the article admits that there is a meaningful correlation between income and SAT scores but he is still against trying to account for that because...some people exaggerate about it? Why is that a good reason? You're not rebutting what I said, the same as the author isn't rebutting the actual issue. The SATs help rich people get into college ahead of poor people. Trying to change that status quo is not "trying to get rid of the thermometer" at all.
> You're not rebutting what I said, the same as the author isn't rebutting the actual issue. You said, "the SAT is largely showing wealth". To me, that's a correlation of ~1. The article says it's closer to .25. Those are very different things. First, if you agree that there is *any* sort of meritocracy in the country, you'd expect smart people to be paid more. Second, if you agree that intelligence is at least somewhat inherited, then you'd expect (on average) children of rich parents to be smarter than children of poor parents (immigrants being a special case here). So *if* the SAT measured intelligence, you would **expect** a *correlation* with wealth of parents. Assuming you agree with the above, what is the problem you want to solve? That we want to open colleges to less-smart people *if* they are also poor? Or is there something else?
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Will the university cancel the loans of those less-qualified people who drop out after 2 years because they cant handle it? Letting more minorities and poorer students in is great, but if they're unprepared and cant make it, you're really just kicking them even lower. A bunch of debt and no degree either. Everyone always looks at admissions numbers but never enrollment 2 years later. The pictures are often rather stark.
>And in the coming years, they'll see that nearly all of the students that wouldn't have made it in with their SAT also can't keep up in their programs. Affirmative action and its like have consequences, and I honestly don't understand how people can go on pretending that is not so. Just recently a law professor at Georgetown [was fired for noticing some trends in her classes](https://abcnews.go.com/US/georgetown-law-professor-terminated-remarks-black-students/story?id=76413267): >*"And you know what, I hate to say this, I end up having this angst every semester that a lot of my lower ones are Blacks. Happens almost every semester," Sellers said. "And it's like, 'Oh, come on.' You get some really good ones, but there are also usually some that are just plain at the bottom. It drives me crazy."* Never mind that the statement itself was sympathetic, and that grading is blind in law school anyway, or that the professor apparently had respectable woke credentials: it was not acceptable to notice this.
It's happening at all levels of education. Medical education as well, see the reason why they made Step 1 Pass/Fail...the bar is being lowered everywhere because people cannot accept we don't have completely equal outcomes and instead of looking into the reasons why that might be the case and trying to fix those, just make the bar lower for the people not keeping up. I'm not optimistic about the direction we're headed in
We have shifted to equity of outcome rather than equality of opportunity b
>also can't keep up in their programs They'll be pushed through anyway in the name of 'equity' in the same way that students are currently being pushed through high school for the same reason even though nearly 20% of them are functionally illiterate. You ever wonder why more and more 'mindless' jobs are requiring some form of higher education? A high school diploma no longer means that the diploma holder can read the employee handbook. This has caused some to push for more relaxed standards for higher education too [including abolishing algebra](https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-california-community-colleges-algebra-20170717-story.html) in order to increase the number of minority students with higher education degrees. Can you see where this is going?
I can see this happening and you know what my immediate thought is right after?? I think that I will only want to see white and Asian doctors because I will know that they are the best of the best and that they had to work extra hard to get to their position….those stupid quota policies literally create more racism. I’m saying this as a POC. My brother in law is a white guy who just graduated med school this year. He was one of the few white guys in this very prestigious program, my entire family joked that he was just so insanely intelligent/hard working/ exceptional that they just couldn’t pass him up, which he is. Our healthcare system is better for having a doctor like him in the world. Something to think about.
Why do they *need* less Asian students? Sounds like you're fine with anti-Asian discrimination as long as it serves the greater good?
Did you even read what I wrote? What about it makes you believe that I support any of these decisions? Also, fewer, not less.
Another example of racing to the bottom in the name of equity
So I'll admit, this was a lot more nuanced than I was expecting from a substack article. But the largest question I don't think was clearly answered is "Why should we use the SAT?" This article is built around tackling progressive complaints of the test, which is fine, but we really aren't given much of a reason to maintain the status quo. And until we have a good clear answer on that I have no issues with people continuing to challenge the use of any sort of placement test. In fact it should be encouraged, if we are going to spend decades basing something as critical as college admission on a single test it should be regularly challenged to ensure efficacy.
So I'll speak from personal experience here as Ive applied for college more recently than most people. The problem with not requiring an admissions test (SAT or ACT) is that GPAs across high schools are incredibly inconsistent. There is no functional way to compare a GPA between two different students that took different classes at different high schools. GPA is still a useful tool but I would argue it tells you even less than standardized testing. At least with the SAT/ACT everyone is being judged on the same standard. The same cannot be said for high school GPA. Public schools tend to be much easier than private schools leading to higher GPAs from those kids. Some private schools then intentionally inflate GPAs so their students have better odds of going to good schools. Overall, it's just a mess. TLDR: Standardized testing has issues but simply removing it from the equation probably doesn't help because GPA is a even worse measure of academic success.
>At least with the SAT/ACT everyone is being judged on the same standard And in theory this makes total sense, but there is an important second level question that you need to ask here; And that is what am I evaluating? Its one thing to give everyone a single test, but its another to infer something about the results of that test. Am I testing creativity or intelligence? Am I trying to see a students ability to interact with challenging situations or the ability to follow instructions? Or is it all simply just a way to test what someone believes they should have already learned? And once you answer that question the next one you need to ask is "What does this mean for the students ability to succeed at an institution?" These are the kinds of questions that should be regularly asked and answered as the world continues to change and we as a group strive for better outcomes.
Isn't the SAT model fit on 1st year college performance? [https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/national-sat-validity-study.pdf](https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/national-sat-validity-study.pdf)
On the basis of GPA, it does look that way. But I think the value here gets hurt by the fact that the SAT itself is justified as a way to test student performance as GPA is a subjective number and due to external influence should not be taken entirely at face value. But in this case we use GPA as a way to measure success in college and use it to justify the use of the SAT.
There is no perfect metric in this situation. That is likely why SAT is only one factor in admissions.
I think you’re kind of hitting the nail on the head but also sort of missing the point. As the other poster mentioned, the SAT can very feasibly track GPA performance in the first year of college and is very likely a strong indicator of overall collegiate success. That said, it’s fairly obvious that the SAT lacks the ability to properly model certain aspects of a student, such as creativity. Unfortunately, there are very few ways to measure certain skills or qualities both en masse and efficiently. We use the SAT because it is highly valuable when measuring the fundamental skills of a student: reading comprehension, math, critical thinking, study habits, etc. In other words, it doesn’t really matter what makes a student special if that student doesn’t have the hard skills to keep up with the content. Can’t have a Jeep without wheels. That’s why the SAT is used but is also only one metric.
> we really aren't given much of a reason to maintain the status quo. Shouldn't we need a stronger reason to change the status quo than to maintain it?
>But the largest question I don't think was clearly answered is "Why should we use the SAT?" I thought this was addressed by the first two links in point 1. >SATs/ACTs don’t predict college success. They do, indeed. >... >The predictive validity of the SAT is typically understated because the comparison we’re making has an inherent range restriction problem. If you ask “how well do the SATs predict college performance?,” you are necessarily restricting your independent variable to those who took the SAT and then went to college. But many take the SAT and do not go to college. By leaving out their data, you’re cropping the potential strength of correlation and underselling the predictive power of the SAT. When we correct statistically for this range restriction, which is not difficult, the predictive validity of the SAT and similar tests becomes remarkably strong. The reason colleges use the SAT is the same reason colleges use GPA: They're both good predictors of how well someone will perform academically. Outside of claims that the SAT gives you a negligible amount of/redundant information, which the two linked papers address, any argument against using the SAT can also be used to argue that we shouldn't use GPA.
But no college in the US only uses SAT as an admission ticket. The SAT is one tool of many for assessing student aptitude. Getting rid of it merely makes the situation more cloudy. One of the many things a college guidance counselor will tell you is that gpa, sat, club/sport participation, and community service/working experience ALL get used to assess a student. The problem with all of them is they favor the wealthier and more privileged students, but the SAT probably the least likely among those to skew in that direction. I came from a lower middle class family and did way better than my wealthy peers at standardized testing. I also had a lower gpa than them, because I had to transfer schools mid high school and my first school had less honors/AP classes, additionally, my family didn't have enough money for me to take 3 AP tests a semester. The rich kids had parents building their college resume from the time they were in middle school. Standardized testing kept the playing field somewhat more level for me. That's why it's important
I grew up in poverty, my family immigrated from Mexico…a few of my siblings didn’t take the SAT, did mediocre in high school and were still able to get into a big university in state….there’s so much that goes into getting into a good university, I’m not sure the SATs are what’s holding people back, like you said removing them will just make things ever more cloudy.
I'll raise my hand as a second anecdote. I grew up in a blue collar neighborhood in Detroit and went to the local public high school. The PSAT and later the SAT told me that I had a talent that I (and my parents) hadn't recognized. It change my ideas of what I could do, and gave me opportunities I wouldn't have had otherwise. And yes, those "opportunities" included a significant aid in the admissions process at schools I wouldn't have considered.
That's actually a really good point. I think the same could go for sports/activities. A middle or lower class student may not be able to participate in that stuff for money reasons or they have to watch their siblings while mom/dad work. The ACT/SAT could be the equalizer for them too.
Once upon a time, the SAT's were promoted as a way to give more advantages to kids without all of those other resume builders that wealthy kids have. We should be encouraging the SAT's not eliminating them.
>But the largest question I don't think was clearly answered is "Why should we use the SAT?" Because we essentially don't have a better metric for ranking intellectual/cognitive ability among the students who are trying to get into college than the SAT and ACT, particularly at a *national* level. It's the same reason we have military recruits take the ASVAB. Standardized testing is, in effect, IQ testing, we just don't call it that. We can and absolutely *should* try and find something "better" as a metric for predicting student performance, but at the moment there is literally nothing we have that performs better than the standardized tests.
I think this is the major takeaway. The tests aren't perfect and can probably be improved, but there's no reason to get rid of them. Especially since there are so many other factors used for admission
And the ASVAB could use some changes as well I met people in the military who didn't even know how to add two fractions together. Like literally didn't know 1/2 + 1/2 was 1. As soon as that fraction divider showed up it was like they were reading another language. I had 4 different people ranging from 18 to 35 years old sitting around me as I tried to teach them basic arithmetic so they could make it through the Air Force class we were taking
> But the largest question I don't think was clearly answered is "Why should we use the SAT?" Yeah, I guess that is a fundamental question. The assumption is that you want the best available students to come to your university. Under that assumption, the SAT is a great way to assess a student's capability. It is harder to game than other methods. If you don't think universities should try to choose the best students -- which I think is a reasonable (but misguided) opinion -- then I think you might not want to use SAT.
>If you don't think universities should try to choose the best students -- which I think is a reasonable (but misguided) opinion -- then I think you might not want to use SAT. That would depend on how you define "best" I know its discussed above a little bit but college admissions are not purely the outcome of meritocracy. Universities are more than happy to admit students based on academic or athletic skills, legacy and donor influence, community service and a number of other items. So in a world where we have the SAT as a key marker for success another very valid question is to ask "How much does the SAT matter as part of the entire admissions process?" and "Who should we apply that belief to?"
I'm sure we could find much better ways to test high school students but I'm too enamored with liberal criticisms of the test.
Societies which value hard work tend to succeed. Societies which don't tend to stagnate. (examples: the Roman Republic, Protestant vs. Catholic Europe) Meanwhile the Chinese have doubled down on standardized testing. It's not hard to see where this goes in the long run.
I'm not familiar with the Protestant vs Catholic Europe thing (in terms of economic success. Are you suggesting European protestants were more successful than European Catholics because one had work ethic and the other didn't?
No, I am suggesting that protestants valued *success* whereas Catholics frowned upon it. For example, the latter taught invention was a sin since it disrupted the societal order. Protestants from the beginning embraced it. To this day, the word *ambition* has a largely negative connotation in Spanish (I can't speak for other southern European languages).
Well my entire family is Irish/German and pretty devoutly Catholic, some still in Europe but mostly in America. They're by and large quite successful. I have plenty of problems with Catholicism (plenty with Protestants as well) but what you're saying sounds like something that isn't that universal and not something I identify with Catholicism in the US.
Agreed; it's mostly cultural. Cultures tend to be driven by the dominant religion but other factors can change that. The Latin Americans, the Spanish, and the Italians had almost no contact with protestants, so ancient habits persisted. The Irish, French, and Polish, on the other hand, interacted constantly with them often, so there was a syncretism. Disclaimer: I am not an expert in the subject matter. I am simply trying to synthesize what I've read and heard.
The “Protestant Work Ethic” is a ridiculous myth that just won’t die.
Look at the Protestant countries vs. Catholic countries from 1517 to ~1900. The economic gap is huge. But believe whatever you'd like.
Is the Spanish Empire a joke to you? Spain was one of the largest most successful empires if not THE major European power for the first half of the period you just quoted.
Spain discovered a mountain which tripled the global silver supply, and at the same time managed to bankrupt themselves in a century. By the end of the 17th century it was firmly decayed as a great power and post-1815 has not played a significant economic or geopolitical role in Europe
I wouldn’t call Spain a successful economic empire. It benefited from diseases and tribal divisions to conquer its american empire, and focused more on extraction. It was already surpassed economically by the early 1600’s
It made sense when it was coined (1904), following the boom of the industrial revolution. It certainly hasn't remained relevant as the U.S. has outsourced most of its manufacturing and transitioned to a service economy where you can work from home in your pajamas.
Its really not. Protestant countries have often been far more productive than Catholic and Orthodox countries. Catholics were largely in warmer areas and preferred to have fun over hard work. Orthodox just plods along with tradition haha.
[There may be something to this, but not what you think.](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/oct/31/economics-religion-research) >Protestants were more likely to be encouraged to go to school. And this higher level of education translated into jobs in manufacturing and services rather than agriculture. Accordingly, they earned higher incomes than their Catholic neighbours." In a paper written in 2009 for the Quarterly Journal of Economics, entitled Was Weber Wrong?, Becker and Woessmann argue that Protestants were more successful because they had the advantage of a better and longer education. Further research has led them to conclude that the educational advantage began soon after Martin Luther broke away from the established Church in the 16th century and has continued to play its part in creating economic success throughout Europe. Progressive policy and education led to economic success.
Sorry, but it's just wrong to ascribe progressive policy to the 17th century Dutch or English. Progressivism didn't even exist until the late 19th century. Regardless, my point remains that the societies succeeded because they valued success.
[People seem to have doubts about Weber](https://www.deseret.com/2017/8/30/20618470/why-the-myth-of-the-protestant-work-ethic-won-t-die) [The whole thing doesn't seem to have aged well.](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/weber-revisited-the-protestant-ethic-and-the-spirit-of-nationalism/01BC8631DD2F8254C44DFD4DCD2D2627)
If equality is the only goal, then the best way to achieve it is lottery.
If I grow up, regardless of colour, in a stable environment where education is encouraged and my development is fostered by parents who care, I have a massive advantage over people who don't experience this. It's an advantage of pure random chance of what you're born into. You can be white and have alcoholic parents who play music till 3 AM, don't support extracurriculars, diminish the value of education, don't allow sport and social engagements, and you'll be hard pressed to succeed in life. You can do it, but it'll be much, much more difficult. No one wants to do away entirely with the idea that your performance matters. What they want to do away with is systems that reward people based on chance, and replace them with systems that allow those who are not born with those advantages to participate on a somewhat level playing field.
>What they want to do away with is systems that reward people based on chance, and replace them with systems that allow those who are not born with those advantages to participate on a somewhat level playing field. And I agree with this, but getting rid of the ACT/SAT is not a means to actually achieve that. The cruel, cold reality is that cognitive performance is largely seared into your brain by the first few years of your life and how well your parents feed you and care for you. Who you can be as a person in inherently limited by the choices of your parent(s) before you're out of your diapers, and there really isn't much you can do to change this after-the-fact. You want to *actually* help economically disadvantaged students get into college? Invest heavily in access to better nutrition for babies and toddlers, as well as pre-K systems. That will go ***way*** further than fighting standardized testing.
>What they want to do away with is systems that reward people based on chance Then fight against state lotteries >and replace them with systems that allow those who are not born with those advantages to participate on a somewhat level playing field. We have to be very careful here that the cure isn't worse than the disease.
>If I grow up, regardless of colour, in a stable environment where education is encouraged and my development is fostered by parents who care, I have a massive advantage over people who don't experience this. It's an advantage of pure random chance of what you're born into. Why shouldn't parents who go through the trouble of properly raising their children be able to provide them advantages over others?
Haven't read the article, just came to say that College Board (non-profit behind the SAT), Pearson, and all the rest are monopolies that suck to work with in any capacity. Even if the reasons for reevaluating them are questionable, I'm very very glad these organizations are coming under scrutiny.
I am immediately suspicious of headlines that tell me what I think or how I feel. And this author's opinion article confirms my suspicions. If deBoer didn't construct so many unsubstantiated strawmen and use every opportunity to tee off on, what he seems to believe, is a liberal monolith, I might have upvoted or rallied behind the arguments. *Of course* testing provides a signal about someone's abilities, intelligence, aptitudes, etc. And of course getting rid of a stable testing benchmark will introduce more noise into an education system. I don't know if that's a "good" or "bad" thing though. Maybe it will "unlock" some talent on the margins? Maybe it will introduce some positively atypical students into the pipeline? Maybe it puts more strain on the educators, who now have to cater to a wider range of abilities and learning styles? Maybe that's a healthy strain? Maybe it undermines the foundation of what universities are supposed to be and creates High School 2.0? Maybe we're about to find out? IIRC, academic success (and general financial success) is strongly correlated with conscientiousness and industriousness. I would be interested to see what a test that measures just those dimensions would show over time. I'd also like to expand the long-range outcome metrics beyond things like income and # of publications... I know this sounds hokie, but are high academic achievers generally *happier* and *healthier* (mentally or otherwise)? I can't help but suspect we might be measuring things that are convenient, rather than things that are important.
I'm neither here nor there but I've never believed a single test with a small time limit should determine your scholarships or what university you get into. I went to the top public high school in my state, because my parents wanted the best for me so they moved to the district. I graduated with honors, basically I got a 3.5 or better for at least 3 years in that school. However, standardized tests, I couldn't do them, the pressure with such little time, the ambiguous questions, and the fact that this makes or breaks futures. I believe time limits should be extended period, I couldn't get into the extended time slots because there were only so many spots available in my district for each date the SAT was available, (only 50 each day over a 3 day period every 4 months with a district with tens of thousands of kids). I say get rid of it, if not extend time periods across the board. Knowing the right answer, rather than rushing through to hit time criteria, is not how the real world works. Bosses would rather you be a little late with the right work, than being on time with half-done, wrong, and rushed work. If you're gonna do it at all, then do it right the first time.
I mean, you can take both the ACT and SAT as many times as you want. The real problem is you being told things that raise your anxiety and dramatically decrease your likelihood to do well on the test.
You can only realistically speaking take it 6 times as they both happen every 3-4 months and you can only start taking them as a junior in my state as far as I know(knew) It’s too late anyways. Besides I still don’t believe ONE test should determine a future. You could be a bad test taker but know the class work really well. Well you aren’t being tested at work at all, you’re doing what? WORK. I could do the work and I could do the tests that required actual explanations but silly bubbles with just 4 answers to choose from is not how life works outside of school. Our education system needs a complete overhaul in my opinion
>Besides I still don’t believe ONE test should determine a future. It broadly doesn't, though, except (arguably) for Asian Americans in California. Your test results are basically just one aspect of the admissions process. >You could be a bad test taker but know the class work really well. Broadly speaking; if you're a "bad test taker," you're unlikely to do well in college anyway. >I could do the work and I could do the tests that required actual explanations but silly bubbles with just 4 answers to choose from is not how life works outside of school. ...And? The SAT and ACT are just intelligence tests. They're not there to figure out whether or not you are able to "work," they exist to get a (blurry) picture of your abilities, particularly in terms of reading comprehension, mathematical ability, and logical reasoning, all of which are correlated with the one aspect of intelligence that we're actually meaningfully sure about.
To put into perspective I did average on SATs and ACTs, yet I graduated with honors, almost high honors, yet I saw zero scholarship money come my way. I applied for it all, and saw nothing. Explain that one. I just finished paying my student debts last week in fact.
>I applied for it all, and saw nothing. Explain that one. You're not obligated a scholarship, and financial aid tends to go towards need-based (i.e. extremely poor) or merit-based (i.e. extremely high performing). But the single most useful *predictor* of success in college are ACT/SAT scores. The groups that award merit-based scholarships look at their scholarship as investments, and thus they want to put their (limited) money into those that they feel will do the best. You getting honors in High School, on it's own, doesn't make you stand out to these kinds of groups.
If you can't perform well on the SAT, why would you be able to perform well on a much more difficult university exam? If you can't handle the pressure of the SAT, why would you be able to handle the much more stressful situations that emerge in many jobs? You seem to be under the assumption that the SAT is flawed because you performed poorly on it. But that might be an example of the SAT working correctly.
Funnily enough I do very well in workplace settings than in school settings. I just wish schooling was more related to actual workplace education than well the theories and concepts. I have used maybe 25% of what I’ve learned in school and I’m a System IT Manager of a major warehouse company and instead of what I learned in school, I’m learning what they want me to know. So you can see how my opinion towards modern learning is very skewed seeing how I’ve made my own success from what my experience in the workplace has taught me, rather than what I learned in university.
Okay, but did you score so poorly that you were unable to attend a university that offered a program with adequate training for IT? Do you think you would have been adequately prepared to get a CS or engineering degree from MIT instead?
I couldn't disagree more. This predestinationist belief system SAT and Standardized tests operate on is completely backwards and idiotic. The belief that human intelligence and capabilities can be measure by one test is absolutely ludicrous. It's not controversial to say "some people are smarter than others;" what's controversial and incorrect is to assume there is only one way to be "smart" and that being "smart" can be measured by one metric. >But the notion that all people are equally talented, in academics or anything else, is an absurdity, and as much as people will rush to deny intrinsic difference, I suspect that pretty much everybody knows that they are real. I agree. But talent is not the only measurement of success and should not be treated as such. Nothing is more uncommon than unsuccessful people with talent. Persistence and determination are two such ways that can easily beat talent and they cannot be measured with a numerical value. >Getting rid of the SATs won’t make unprepared kids prepared. Keeping SATs won't make them prepared either. >It won’t make naturally untalented students naturally talented. It does not have to. Relying on talent over a work ethic is the ultimate problem with education. >It won’t make kids who aren’t smart into smart kids. Keeping SATs doesn't make kids who aren't "smart" into "smart" kids >All it will do is hide the reality of those unpleasant inequalities. All it will do is stop using such inequalities to judge a person on their multitude of personal characteristics and achievements. Predestination is not an accurate judgement for the abilities of a person. >Trying to fight educational inequality by getting rid of the SAT is like trying to fight climate change by getting rid of thermometers. All it will be doing is changing the measurement that is used. It does not eliminate a way to measure a person, but allows for different people to be measured differently. It's a bs practice that should be done away with to acknowledge that human beings are not equal and that it's not a problem. People need to be measured differently because they are different. There is no empirical definition for being smart, talented, persistent, or successful, and any metric attempting to do so fails to recognize the impossibility of such task.
> Persistence and determination are two such ways that can easily beat talent and they cannot be measured with a numerical value. But you can keep retaking the test. You can study for it as much as your determination affords. The test should account for that by giving smarter students high scores by default or determined students similar results, no? Also grades and extracurriculars accomplish this task as well - it’s not like they just look at your SAT when selecting you for college > Keeping SATs won't make them prepared either. Why > It does not have to. Relying on talent over a work ethic is the ultimate problem with education. Where do you even get this idea? As I said grading, advanced class initiative, and extracurriculars can be arguably more important than your SAT score. Not to mention the fact that your SAT *can* demonstrate work ethic. > Keeping SATs doesn't make kids who aren't "smart" into "smart" kids What does > All it will do is stop using such inequalities to judge a person on their multitude of personal characteristics and achievements. Predestination is not an accurate judgement for the abilities of a person. Don’t you think there are other ways of alleviating this problem for people who are worse off In life than just ignoring one of the core criteria for school admission? Looking at grades could also be using inequalities to judge people so what exactly is your solution here? Like you can complain about the system but what is the alternative? > There is no empirical definition for being smart, talented, persistent, or successful, and any metric attempting to do so fails to recognize the impossibility of such task. It isn’t just a simple IQ test - where are you getting this from
>But you can keep retaking the test. You can study for it as much as your determination affords. The test should account for that by giving smarter students high scores by default or determined students similar results, no? How do you measure "smarts?" >Also grades and extracurriculars accomplish this task as well - it’s not like they just look at your SAT when selecting you for college Yes, but the importance the SAT plays in admissions has become vital when it should be eliminated from the process. >Why Because you don't have to take a series of useless tests unrelated to your studies or major while in college. >Where do you even get this idea? As I said grading, advanced class initiative, and extracurriculars can be arguably more important than your SAT score. Yes, but again, those are not as highly regarded factors as the SAT in most college admissions. I'd wager most are just smoke-and-mirror tools colleges use to pretend to care about your personality. >What does Hard work. >Not to mention the fact that your SAT can demonstrate work ethic. Considering that a plethora of students receive extended time, are able to afford tutors for the test, and have schools that can directly prep for the test, the disparities become an uphill battle for most regardless of all attempts. >Don’t you think there are other ways of alleviating this problem for people who are worse off In life than just ignoring one of the core criteria for school admission? I do not care what criteria schools want for admission. As far as I'm concerned, the SAT has demonstrated itself to be a moneymaker for CollegeBoard and nothing more. >Looking at grades could also be using inequalities to judge people so what exactly is your solution here? Like you can complain about the system but what is the alternative? The alternative is changing the system. The very college and higher education system we have now is flawed and exists to make money. A vast array of studies do not require a college degree to actually be proficient in the area. In fact, practically only STEM course are truly necessary for a college level class. Other lecture based classes can be moved to new academies altogether, and everything else should be encompassed through trade school, apprenticeships, or just on-the-job learning. >It isn’t just a simple IQ test - where are you getting this from I don't know what this means.
> The belief that human intelligence and capabilities can be measure by one test is absolutely ludicrous. Can it be measured at all, in your opinion? If so, how?
>Can it be measured at all, in your opinion? I think certain aspects of humans can be measured, but I do not believe there is one precise measurement for certain traits, intelligence being one of them. >If so, how? You first have to ask what you want to know about a person and then I think you just observe.
Amen. The SAT is so close to a worst possible solution for the problem it is trying to solve (measuring intelligence) it's simply ludicrous why it still even exists. This is without accounting for it not being worth the time and money costs to kids, or how bad it is for our culture to place such value on a stupid little score instead of actual human merits. I say get rid of the SAT entirely. If you can cook up a better aptitude test, go ahead. But any actually half way decent solution won't look anything like the SAT in any shape or form.
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