"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Friday, March 07, 2014

David Coleman's New SAT: Still Racist, Still Classist

It should come as no surprise that the head of the College Board, David Coleman, has made the new SAT more in line with the Common Core.  One thing he can't change, even with efforts to provide some online tutorials to those who can't afford $5000 SAT prep courses, is the fact that students from poor backgrounds score lower than those with higher incomes.   

It has always been the case, ever since Carl Brigham took the work of his eugenicist pal, Robert Yerkes, to turn the Alpha A test for sorting GIs in WWI into as a college admissions test for keeping the poor out of the best colleges after the War. 

Coleman has the audacity to claim that his cheap online tutorials for the poor will relieve the moral bankruptcy of promulgating another generation of a racist and classist screening test that, even by his own admission, is less effective in predicting college success than student grades issued by teachers.

“It is time for the College Board to say in a clearer voice that the culture and practice of costly test preparation that has arisen around admissions exams drives the perception of inequality and injustice in our country,” Mr. Coleman said Wednesday. “It may not be our fault, but it is our problem.”
How much will the chart below change next year?  Want to take any bets?

1 comment:

  1. Approximately 50% of all students ended up better than the given threshold of 1000-1500.Unfortunately, the other half failed, have a peek at this site to read the article.

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