New Mainstream Research on Racist, Classist ACT and SAT

New research shows us what the old research has been saying for decades: wealth is its own qualification for getting the best education, just as poverty is its own disqualification.  Text clip and chart below from New York Times:

From the Times:

New data shows, for the first time at this level of detail, how much students’ standardized test scores rise with their parents’ incomes — and how disparities start years before students sit for tests.

One-third of the children of the very richest families scored a 1300 or higher on the SAT, while less than 5 percent of middle-class students did, according to the data, from economists at Opportunity Insights, based at Harvard. Relatively few children in the poorest families scored that high; just one in five took the test at all.

The researchers matched all students’ SAT and ACT scores for 2011, 2013 and 2015 with their parents’ federal income tax records for the prior six years. Their analysis, which also included admissions and attendance records, found that children from very rich families are overrepresented at elite colleges for many reasons, including that admissions offices give them preference. But the test score data highlights a more fundamental reason: When it comes to the types of achievement colleges assess, the children of the rich are simply better prepared.

The disparity highlights the inequality at the heart of American education: Starting very early, children from rich and poor families receive vastly different educations, in and out of school, driven by differences in the amount of money and time their parents are able to invest. And in the last five decades, as the country has become more unequal by income, the gap in children’s academic achievement, as measured by test scores throughout schooling, has widened.

“Kids in disadvantaged neighborhoods end up behind the starting line even when they get to kindergarten,” said Sean Reardon, the professor of poverty and inequality in education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education.

“On average,” he added, “our schools aren’t very good at undoing that damage.”

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision ending race-based affirmative action, there has been revived political momentum to address the ways in which many colleges favor the children of rich and white families, such as legacy admissions, preferences for private school students, athletic recruitment in certain sports and standardized tests.

Yet these things reflect the difference in children’s opportunities long before they apply for college, Professor Reardon said. To address the deeper inequality in education, he said, “it’s 18 years too late.” . . . .

TN Drops to 46th in ACT Scores

In 2014, Arne Duncan's favorite corporate education experimental state soared from 46th to 43rd among states on composite ACT scores.

This year Tennessee has returned to its previous cellar level at 46th.  The average composite score, which is 19.8, is 0.1 of a point above where it was in 2012, and it is far below the 21 needed to apply for a Hope Scholarship or to attend the University of Tennessee--which requires and ACT of 24.

ASD's Mentor, the RSD, Is Near the Bottom in ACT Scores, Even in Louisiana

Mercedes Schneider recently took a brief furlough from plumping Diane Ravitch's pillows and celebrating their many accomplishments to do what Mercedes does best when she is not, otherwise, preoccupied with imagining herself as the next grande dame of anti-reformy talk groups.  

Mercedes provided us with a version of the state's Excel file on all of Louisiana's ACT scores, including the corporate Recovery School District--which is comprised of charters, the majority of which are in New Orleans.  The same information is provided here, with a bit more detail.

Tennessee, Michigan, and Virginia have devised state takeover/privatization plans based on the Recovery School District Model, which "celebrated" a decade of damage to the idea of humane public education in 2014, ten years after Katrina.  So it is interesting to look now at how these chain gang are doing with their testing, since they have now had a chance to move kids from 2nd to 11th grade, where they take the ACT.  

Even in Louisiana, which usually occupies a place somewhere between Guam and Mississippi in educational accomplishment, the RSD is near the bottom--fifth from the bottom, in fact.  

The RSD ranked 66th out of 70 systems in the state!  

The Louisiana state average ACT was 19.2, and the RSD average was 15.6.  

As you can see, too, the local rock star, KIPP, scored below average among the worst scoring schools of the fifth worst scoring system in one of the worst scoring states in the U. S and its territories.  

Are you listening, Tennessee?  Can you see this, Memphis?

Tennessee's No-Growth Model for Minorities: 4% of Black Students Meet All ACT Benchmarks in 2014

 

As shown above, 8 percent of black students met 3 or more benchmarks in 2013.  

Below is the chart showing the percentages of students meeting all four benchmarks in 2014 (click to enlarge):

Tennessee Schools Soar to 43rd in ACT National Standings

Tennessee's now in its 22th year of a failed experiment that began in 1992 to use value-added assessment to improve Tennessee schools.  In 2013 Tennessee ranked 46th among states for composite ACT scores.

This year Tennessee is 43rd for the ACT composite score, but the state still ranks 48th in math, with only Mississippi and Hawaii behind the proud home state of the Sanders Model.  The other long-time experimenter with the Sanders Model of value-added testing is North Carolina, which ranks 47th this year in ACT scores.

Huffman and Haslam, however, have bought the headlines, with this one in the Tennessean:  "Tennessee students make big gains in ACT scores."

You be the judge.  Charts enlarge when you click them.  From the ACT Profile 2014:

Temple Goes SAT-ACT Optional

From http://articles.philly.com/2014-07-30/news/52192626_1_temple-university-minority-students-standardized-test-scores:

In an effort to cultivate talented students who don't test well, Temple University says it will become the first national public research university in the Northeast to make standardized test scores optional for admission.

The university expects as many as 150 to 200 students who likely would not have been accepted because of low SAT and ACT scores, but who exhibit other promising attributes, will be admitted for fall 2015. Many of them could come from the Philadelphia School District.

Students who opt not to submit test scores will have to answer written questions designed to assess attributes such as leadership, self-awareness, goal-setting, determination, and "grit," Temple officials said

For years, critics have called the SAT an unreliable predictor of college readiness that discriminates against minority students and those from low-income families.

"We cannot ignore the mounting evidence that standardized test scores inject socio-economic bias into the admissions and financial-aid equations," said Hai-Lung Dai, Temple's provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. . . . .