In a welcomed move, Dartmouth has reversed its decision to stop using Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores in admissions. Many universities have yielded to claims that standardized testing is racist or inimical to diversity, including the entire California college system. This push has ignored ample research showing that these scores are the most reliable predictor of success. Instead, they rely on grade point averages (GPA), which are dubious given grade inflation and radical differences in grading systems.
Dartmouth issued a statement reinstating the SAT as an unsuccessful test-optional policy implemented during the pandemic: “Nearly four years later, having studied the role of testing in our admissions process as well as its value as a predictor of student success at Dartmouth, we are removing the extended pause and reactivating the standardized testing requirement for undergraduate admission, effective with the Class of 2029.”
What is alarming is how academics have ignored research showing that these scores are reliable predictors of success in college. Diversity policies have been given the priority over academic excellence. The result is that many students are being placed into schools where they are less likely to thrive and succeed.
As noted by the New York Times, studies at Ivy League schools show that GPAs hold limited value as predictors of success while test scores are highly indicative of success.
It does not matter in today’s academic environment. Then University of California President Janet Napolitano caved to this movement.
Notably, academics in the California system came to the same conclusion as Dartmouth years ago. Napolitano, however, overrode those conclusions.
Napolitano responded to the claims of racism in the use of SAT scores with a Standardized Testing Task Force in 2019. Many people expected the task force to recommend the cessation of standardized testing. The task force did find that 59 percent of high school graduates were Latino, African-American or Native American but only 37 percent were admitted as UC freshman students. The Task Force did not find standardized testing to be unreliable or call for its abandonment, however.
Instead, its final report concluded that “At UC, test scores are currently better predictors of first-year GPA than high school grade point average (HSGPA), and about as good at predicting first-year retention, [University] GPA, and graduation.”
Not only that, it found: “Further, the amount of variance in student outcomes explained by test scores has increased since 2007 … Test scores are predictive for all demographic groups and disciplines … In fact, test scores are better predictors of success for students who are Underrepresented Minority Students (URMs), who are first generation, or whose families are low-income.” In other words, test scores remain the best indicator for continued performance in college.
That clearly was not the result Napolitano or some others wanted. So, she simply announced a cessation of the use of such scores in admissions. The system will go to a “test-blind” system until or unless it develops its own test.
Even the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) yielded to this movement during the pandemic by dropping the use of standardized testing requirements. However, MIT later reversed that decision and reinstated the use of the tests as key to preserving its elite status as an educational institution.
Despite these studies, most academics are likely to remain silent over the deemphasis of standardized scores. Few want to be accused of being hostile to diversity goals. Instead, the National Education Association (NEA) and other groups simply repeat claims of the inherent racism of standardized scores by figures like Kendi X. Figures like Kendi X are routinely called to campuses to hold forth on how “standardized tests have become the most effective racist weapon ever devised to objectively degrade Black and Brown minds and legally exclude their bodies from prestigious schools.”
Former Barnard College mathematics professor Cathy O’Neil has written a column calling for “random selection” of all college graduates to guarantee racial diversity. It is ever so simple: “Never mind optional standardized tests. If you show interest, your name goes in a big hat.”
I have long argued against this movement.
The elimination of scores has a pronounced impact on students. While it will likely allow for greater diversity in admissions, it also removes a way for students to distinguish themselves in actual testing of their knowledge of math, English and other subjects. Yes, there are other ways to distinguish themselves, like community service and high school projects. Yet, as found by the UC task force, these tests do have a predictive value of success. Indeed, at a time when the United States is losing ground in math and science, the elimination of such testing could undermine our competitive position in a global economy; countries like China demand high levels of objective performance in areas like math and science.
There is an alternative. Rather than eliminate standardized scores due to the disparity in performance of racial groups, we should focus on improving the performance of minority high school students in these areas.
Testing results reflect a continuing failure of our public schools. The top-spending public school districts are also some of the worst-performing districts. New York topped the per capita spending, at $24,040 per kid. Yet, according to a 2019 study, over half of New York City public school kids cannot handle basic math or English. On tests, Asian kids shows a 74.4 percent proficiency in math, with a 66.6 percent proficiency for whites, 33.2 percent proficiency for Hispanics and 28.2 percent proficiency for African Americans.
Eliminating standardized scores does not erase true racial disparities in our educational system. Indeed, it exacerbates them.
The test scores are much worse, NY state tests are watered down. Look at NAEP test scores for 12th graders. I used to post the percentages for those who are proficient and higher but it’s more illuminating to post the percentage of those who are below BASIC. Here are the scores by race for 2019.
Reading
W 21%
A 21%
B 50%
H 39%
Math
W 29%
A 20%
B 66%
H 54%
We cannot continue to have a successful country when we now have not just one but TWO massive underclasses who don’t value education not personal responsibility. And we are importing millions more every year. And progressive demand equity for these low IQ leeches to be put into high positions.
When do actual American taxpayers receive reparations for the unconstitutional “War on Poverty,” the unconstitutional “Great Society,” etc., which have cost taxpayers $25+ trillion since 1965.
Article 1, Section 8, provides Congress the power to tax for ONLY debt, defense, and general Welfare (i.e. basic infrastructure), not individual welfare, not specific welfare, not particular welfare, favor, or charity.
On another matter, it is evident from the recent DOJ report and from Biden’s habit of talking to dead people, that Biden isn’t really running anything.
But who is?
Is the country in the hands of one dominant person, or a single clique of several people, or perhaps several cliques that sometimes cooperate and sometimes compete?
The Chinese likely know but they won’t tell us. Why ruin a good thing?
Maybe nobody is really in charge and different departments and agencies just bounce along. That would explain a lot.
But the administration, whatever it is, doesn’t seem very pro American.
Then this:
https://www.mattmargolis.com/p/doj-concludes-biden-is-too-senile?publication_id=238232&utm_campaign=email-post-title&r=131lq
Let these “elite” colleges destroy themselves. I can’t really get too excited about it either way. Those who don’t want to embrace woke ideologies become the new “elite” colleges and they get the money and the good students while the wokies get memory holed. Darwinism meets capitalism. I call it a win-win.
Don’t let them destroy the Constitution and America.
I always wondered how long it would take university admissions to conclude that abandoning objective national tests at the same time that during the pandemic high schools were giving out As for attendance. In the pandemic, as a parent of a teen, I could observe 1st hand the degradation of the quality and quantity of instruction coupled with the rising generosity of grading. Thus there was the obvious challenge that university admissions needed to address was the increasing unreliability of GPAs across large numbers of school districts at the same time abandoning their primary national objective predictor for academic success. Now we have the answer – 4 years. Some well educated people apparently are slow learners to adopt even proven solutions to foreseeable and obvious issues. Perhaps we can hope that more learning will occur in our academic institutions.
“IT’S OK TO BE WHITE.”
– Rasmussen
_______________
Only 53% of blacks agree while 47% disagree.
__________________________________________________
“Blacks are a hate group.”
“As you know, I’ve been identifying as Black for a while – years now – because I like – you know, I like to be on the winning team.”
“The best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people.”
“Just get the f*** away.”
“Wherever you have to go, just get away because there’s no fixing this.”
“You just have to escape, so that’s what I did.”
– Scott Adams, “Dilbert”
__________________________
“THERE’S NO FIXING THIS!” “There’s no fixing this” even for the deranged, hysterical, incoherent, bleeding-heart, liberal, progressive, socialist, democrat, RINO, AINO communists.
Man, I hate to say it, but Scott Adams was right. There is no fixing this. Maybe, unless there is a complete collapse of the economy. I don’t see anything short of that waking blacks up. Metaphorically, they have already hit rock bottom, and are passed out drunk on the streets clutching an empty bottle of Thunderbird.
Good Olde Thunderbird, eh?
________________________________
“What’s the word?
Thunderbird. How’s it sold?
Good and cold.
What’s the jive?
Bird’s alive.
What’s the price?
Thirty twice.”
Thinking of racial quotas, blacks are about 14% of the population and shouldn’t be in 100% of the commercial advertising. Equity.
Or we could just end the racial spoils system and treat people as individuals and as fellow Americans without hyphens.
when 14% of college and pro sports were representative of the population things might be different. Maybe some diversity and equity in the
NBA? if the teams did that then what would the makeup be according to population stats?
Oil and water do not mix.
Political emulsifiers are required to forcibly effect that impossible mixture.
Affirmative action, quotas, financial assistance welfare, public housing, admissions affirmative action, grade inflation, standards reduction, etc. are irrefutably unconstitutional.
Merit and accomplishment matter and constitute the sole values that bear.
I am surprised that the little black kids are as high as 28% proficient.
It’s the wholly unconstitutional affirmative action of proficiency inflation.
You are probably right. I note that the proficiency scores for whites and blacks, roughly tracks the “legitimate in-wedlock” birth rate of both races, which is 27% for blacks and 66% for whites.
They aren’t.
“It’s the [merit], stupid!”
– James Carville
As a retired professor I assure you that SAT scores are better predictors of college success than high school transcripts & especially average grades.
It would have to be. Can you imagine the reading level of the average black high school graduate in Baltimore, or Chicago? Or just about any predominantly black high school in the country. The game there is to pass them to the next grade as a function of age. It would be bad if black kids were passed on merit only. You would have a lot of black 12 year-old kids still back in First Grade trying to master, “See Spot run! Run, Spot! Run!”
Dunbar High School in Wash DC was the predictable “exception” to the rule (actually it supported the rule): if you don’t tolerate evil or nonsense in the classroom, your kids do well. And Dunbar excelled in every way. Until the social justice warriors got ahold of it in the 1960s, whereupon it quickly deteriorated into the usual violent under-achieving level that we unfortunately have come to expect of black high schools. What a huge, multi-generational waste.
Is it not racism to say minorities cannot achieve high standards or high test scores?
Japan had the lost decade in the 1990s. I believe already can forecast the 21st century will be the lost century for Western Civilization.
NO, IT IS NOT RACISM, IT IS UNIVERSAL BASIC SCIENCE
American biologist James Watson and English physicist Francis Crick discovered DNA in the 1950s.
“Dr. [James] Watson was correct on all accounts: (1) Intelligence tests do reveal large differences between European and sub-Saharan African nations, (2) the evidence does link these differences to universally valued outcomes, both within and between nations, and (3) there is data to suggest these differences are influenced by genetic factors.”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“James Watson tells the inconvenient truth: faces the consequences”
Jason Malloy
PMID: 18440722 DOI: 10.1016/j.mehy.2008.03.041
Abstract
Recent comments by the eminent biologist James Watson concerning intelligence test data from sub-Saharan Africa resulted in professional sanctions as well as numerous public condemnations from the media and the scientific community. They justified these sanctions to the public through an abuse of trust, by suggesting that intelligence testing is a meaningless and discredited science, that there is no data to support Dr. Watson’s comments, that genetic causes of group differences in intelligence are falsified logically and empirically, and that such differences are already accounted for by known environment factors. None of these arguments are correct, much less beyond legitimate scientific debate. Dr. Watson was correct on all accounts: (1) Intelligence tests do reveal large differences between European and sub-Saharan African nations, (2) the evidence does link these differences to universally valued outcomes, both within and between nations, and (3) there is data to suggest these differences are influenced by genetic factors. The media and the larger scientific community punished Dr. Watson for violating a social and political taboo, but fashioned their case to the public in terms of scientific ethics. This necessitated lying to the public about numerous scientific issues to make Watson appear negligent in his statements; a gross abuse of valuable and fragile public trust in scientific authority. Lies and a threatening, coercive atmosphere to free inquiry and exchange are damaging to science as an institution and to scientists as individuals, while voicing unfashionable hypotheses is not damaging to science. The ability to openly voice and argue ideas in good faith that are strange and frightening to some is, in fact, integral to science. Those that have participated in undermining this openness and fairness have therefore damaged science, even while claiming to protect it with the same behavior.
Next question?
@Mary:
You asked, “Is it not racism to say minorities cannot achieve high standards or high test scores?”
I think that it would have been a racist statement years ago, maybe back in the 1970s. But since then, it has simply become a reality. Just like a lot of other formerly-racist stereotypes and tropes. The black community has lived down to every bad stereotype about them. Meanwhile, we have Black History month, where we all do our best to ignore what is going on.
JT writes: “There is an alternative. Rather than eliminate standardized scores due to the disparity in performance of racial groups, we should focus on improving the performance of minority high school students in these areas.” Maybe we should start in woke kindergarten.
The statistics prove that Asians are systematically discriminating against everyone else. Those of us who are of European descent can now make a legitimate claim to victimhood. When will the Democrats help us?
Our children and grandchildren’s educations are being sacrificed on the altar of Diversity, attended by priests like Kendi.
It’s good to see some resistance finally surfacing against this nonsense. I saw too much of it during a forty plus year college
teaching career.
“Our children and grandchildren’s educations are being sacrificed on the altar of Diversity,”??? Are you kidding?
I can assure you that the person in the white coat with the stethoscope wrapped around her/his neck, the person sitting across the desk from you in a law office, the teacher instructing children and even the government bureaucrat mumbling nonsense to you on the phone is likely a product of a compromised education system. The problem, as you note, has been going on for decades. And you saw it for forty years.
The restoration of standardized testing is only a minor but significant step along the path of what must be followed if any credibility to the US education system is to be recovered. As it is, professionals in all areas should be considered suspect and recommendations or plans from them must be considered with great skepticism. Too brutal? Who would have thought that the president of Harvard not only sheltered antisemitic activities and herself a plagiarist, Harvard itself has been systematically carrying out racist activities for decades. And you think they are alone? How about Stanford, as a government ‘partner’,engaging in censorship?
And what do you expect of their ‘product’ under such circumstances. Racism, bigotry, plagiarism and cronyism are much more likely to originate and be sustained by those with compromised educations thus leading to the spiraling down of the entire system. Beware! The credentials themselves have lost their meaning.
The silliness started back in the 1960s, when schools started getting forcibly integrated. There is an iconic Norman Rockwell painting of little black girls being escorted to school by armed troops in Little Rock. That was probably the high point of the idea, but things went down hill from there. Kids in a neighborhood pretty much all went to the same school, and parents got to know each other, and the teachers, and the systems worked. Then, the Great Society happened, and instead of sweet little black girls in the white schools, you began to get a ton of little black heathen spawn of unwed mothers in the schools, and white people rebelled. Whites moved to new neighborhoods, or started sending their kids to private schools. Integration destroyed neighborhoods, public education and any sort of racial amity on the part of whites. As one of my high school teachers pointed out, when our high school was about to be blessed with integration, there was at least a four year educational gap between white and black students at the time. You simply could not put a black ninth grader into a white ninth grade class, and expect anything good to happen. Because the black kid was operating, on average, at a fifth grade level. Either standards were going to fall for all, or the black kids were going to fail, and become disenchanted with education. I think the gap has gotten far worse since then. Even with much relaxed standards, too many little black kids are not proficient at grade level. So, that reality gets reflected in the marketplace, and even DEI companies can not make silk purses out of pigs, so they have clever ways to NOT hire black people. I am not sure how this result could have been avoided, but ramping up the unwed birth rate and doing away with standards certainly made it far worse.