Time to dump the SATs?

External Since: Aug 28, 2004 Posts: 23

"Gary Schnabl" wrote in message

>
> "Bob LeChevalier" wrote in message
>
> > >Face it Bob, education in this country has long been considered a
> feminine
> > >issue unlike Europe and Asia.
> >
> > I have no idea what you mean by that, but it sounds like whatever it
> > is, is something I will find offensive.
>
> Nothing for you to take offense over. Education here is primarily a
feminine
> activity which rarely excites men enough to vote on educational or school
> issues unless it hits the pocketbooks. Men don't vote much on school board
> elections which ultimately affects school and education policies. It's
just
> the way it is in the US. And that trend keeps going that way.
>
> Notice the scarcity of male teachers outside of physical education. I
> consider this problematic, but again I don't have any agenda to conceal...
>
> And even that doesn't have any connection with Vietnam.
>
I suggest you look at secondary schools and universities before you name
education a "feminine issue". Rather, it is that this culture has deemed
that anything dealing with children is women's work. In my field, almost all
beginning music teachers are women, but at the university and professional
level, a majority of those in the field are men. In fact, there is a strong
prejudice against women in some areas of music, to the point that my faculty
advisor suggested that I apply under my initials, rather than my name, for
graduate study in musicology, because there are so few females in the field.
My saxophone professor at the graduate level later told me he had never seen
a female student finish an academic music program at that school. Either
they switched to music education, where it was possible for a woman to get
assistanceships and be taken seriously, or they switched schools, or they
left entirely.

> Gary
>
>

External Since: Aug 28, 2004 Posts: 23

"bhanwara" wrote in message

> LeMod Pol wrote in message
...
>
> > by Joe Rodriguez
> ...
> > Oh well, an essay question can't hurt, can it? I wish
>
> Yes it can. It introduces an element of subjectivity
> and unfairness. The exact same essay will be given
> wildly different scoring by a number of different
> graders. So now "luck" is part of the scoring process.
> Some people will get unfairly high grades, and
> some people will get unfairly low grades.
>
> While "luck" is a part of everything, so in a way
> SAT adding "luck" to its testing is not so out-of-the-world,
> it does make me sadder to see something fall that was
> previously not heavily dependent upon the human element.
>
> With the previous version, assuming the administration
> was not corrupt and dishonest (a very reasonable assumption
> for something as widely scrutinized as the SAT,) the SAT
> grades were fair.
>
> The fundamental problems is, some people were unable
> to do very well at SATs, but had enough "luck"
> and people-skills to end up in influential
> positions. These people then attacked SATs which didn't
> validate their people-skills.
>
> The student who has spent his whole life getting
> A's because he/she spends hours thinking about
> the teacher's likes/dislikes, has no clue how
> to tackle an SAT where there is no teacher
> whose likes and dislikes matter. So after
> he/she is a high-ranking CEO, they still hold
> lingering hatred and decide "SAT is bad and should
> be scrapped" or at least should have essays (with
> essays, likes/dislikes enter the picture, as
> general patterns will emerge. Unpopular
> viewpoints will be scored harshly, because
> graders are human beings, so the point of
> the essays would be to find the most
> "acceptable" viewpoints. This will have the
> effect of penalizing followers of truth
> and conscience, and rewarding the
> appeasers and people-pleasers.)
>
> Maybe a better solution would have been a
> separate test that measured people-skills
> instead, and validated the people-skill people.
> Because it's true that the earlier SAT's didn't
> measure the complete picture. But the
> newer one's don't either, and the change
> is for the worse.

Actually, computerized grading for essay tests is now being tested on
several state tests. Given the sheer number of SAT tests taken every year,
It wouldn't surprise me to find the development of this technology is what
is spurring ETS to add the essay now, since I KNOW it's been considered
since the late 1980's (I was part of the norming group for a new trial SAT,
which included an essay-so obviously they were considering it at that time,
if not earlier.)