Guest Post by John Stossel
Did you take the SATs to try to get into college? Your kids may not have to.
More than 1,300 schools have become “test optional,” meaning students need not submit SAT scores. Some, like the entire University of California system, now won’t even look at scores.
There are seemingly legitimate reasons to oppose the tests. Richer kids often get tutoring that gives them an advantage.
Critics claim the tests are culturally biased and say that’s why Blacks and Latinos don’t score as well. But that doesn’t explain why Asians do so well. In fact, Asians get the best SAT scores.
I assume it’s more about culture and parenting. Kids raised in front of the TV do poorly. Those encouraged to read do better. Kids who spend time talking to adults do better.
Bob Schaeffer, executive director at FairTest, an advocacy group that helped persuade colleges to dump tests, says testing companies just want to make money.
“These are businesses selling products,” Schaeffer says in my new video. “The College Board is a billion-dollar a year business.”
I ask him what’s wrong with the tests themselves. He replies, “The SAT and ACT are inferior predictors of college performance.”
It is true that high school grades predict 33% of college grades, while tests predict 32%. But that is just barely “inferior.” Combining grades and SATs predicts 42% of college grades, which makes the tests useful.
Also, tests can help the smart student who, for whatever reason, doesn’t do well in high school.
“It’s the diamond in the rough argument,” Schaeffer responds. “There are actually very few examples of that being true.”
I believed him until I looked at College Board data. It shows that students with C grades in high school, but great SAT scores, do better in college than A+ students with low SAT scores.
Without tests, schools often choose students based on parental connections or donations.
Tiwalayo Aina, a Black student at MIT, got good SAT scores. He tweeted, “The SAT is fairer than the alternative: needing my parents to connect me with a … professor.”
I say to FairTest’s Schaeffer, “By eliminating tests, you’re screwing the minority student who is really smart, but goes to a lousy high school, has family problems and got low grades.”
“That student would have shown brilliantly in her high school classes,” is Schaeffer’s reply.
Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley says colleges scrapped tests to make it easier for administrators to control how many people from each racial group attend their college. Without an objective standard, who’s to say an administrator’s admission picks are wrong?
“It really is about making these campuses look right. … It’s not about learning,” says Riley.
“If you want more diversity,” he adds, “Open up more of these charter schools (like the ones that are) able to prepare kids for these tests.”
Some charters, the Success Academies, do that well. Sadly, those charters are criticized and limited by politicians because they are not under the control of teachers unions.
Ending limits on charters and allowing school choice, says Riley, would do much more to close the race gap than dropping SATs. “Eliminate the test, you’re just going to delay where it shows up elsewhere in this child’s life. You’re not doing that child any favor.”
What’s wrong with these schools saying we want a more diverse student body?
“There’s this assumption,” says Riley, “We just get these kids in the door and they’ll be fine. No, they won’t! They’re being set up to fail. I see no progress in getting a bunch of Black kids admitted to MIT, and then having them flunk out or struggle. They don’t need to be struggling. They could go be going to another school and doing quite well.”
But woke educators want to eliminate tests.
And these days, what the woke want, the woke get.
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Dumbing down America to the level of the black man. Sounds like a hell of a plan.
Let’s set back evolution a few hundred thousand years….
Quit beating around the bush. Just sent the school $135,000 and in return you get a diploma in what ever you want. Plus, you save 4 years worth of time and hepatic damage. Your liver will really appreciate that.
Win, win, win.
Best of all, the black kids are now as smart as the Asians and Whites! Quadruple win!!!
First, you eliminate using the SAT and grades to gain admittance to college so all the dumbshits can get in.
Second, when the dumbshits start to fail in college because, you know, they are dumbshits, you eliminate grades in college classes. Then everyone can graduate.
Third, with degrees in hand the dumbshits want to practice law or engineering or be a doctor. But since they are dumbshits they can’t pass the professional licensing exams. So, you eliminate the licensing exams, like the Oregon Bar did for new lawyers last year.
Now the dumbshits don’t have to settle for a job as a barista, they can be a lawyer, doctor, or engineer.
God help us when we have to go to court, have surgery, or drive over a newly constructed bridge.
Government controls 90% of K-12 schools, the majority of colleges/universities, accreditation, licensing, loan funding, labor laws related to hiring practices, hundreds of billions in contracts that dictate education levels of employees, and so, so, so, so much more. One simply cannot look at any single aspect of this much bigger problem and ever hope to find either the root cause or a solution (other than freedom obviously). One can hope that the abject failure to education for huge tuition costs over the past year has woken millions up to the scam, and that the mass increase in qualified online educators will be the great beneficiaries. Short of that, ONLY getting the government 100% out of education at ALL LEVELS, will fully address the problems THEY have created.
No, you fucken maff moran …. it means 58% of students COULD be successful in college, but won’t get the opportunity.
Fuck the SAT. I have ZERO problems with getting rid of that crap.
#AintBullshiting
Stuck – pretty sure that does not mean what you think it means. It certainly does not mean that the 58% did not get in.
And just how would you go about finding the best students, if not with tests and by using their grades? Maybe use tarot cards? Or by tossing coins? Eenie meanie minee moe?
Test the crap out of them and eliminate grade inflation where you get an A just for turning up.
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Yea, testing is a real good indicator. /s
I don’t have a solution. I just know testing ain’t it.
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Testing in a critical piece of the puzzle. The other is to ban remedial math and English. You can’t cut it, you’re gone from the college. Let the K-12 instructional cabal be targeted for their grift.
I don’t believe that has been settled.
See article link at bottom – “High school GPA five times more likely to predict college success than ACT scores”.
Granted, doing a search on “indicators of success in college”, and you’ll get a bunch of articles touting the SAT as a proven fact …. and an equal amount saying that ain’t so. Not settled, imho.
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Let me very briefly bore you with my personal story.
I was a “C” and “D” student in high school … mostly “D’s”. For fuksakes, I couldn’t even get an “A” in German!! Four years in the USAF, and jump right into college. How did a below average high school student get almost straight “A’s” in college … an I majored in Computer Science, not Austrian Studies.
Two things as far as I can tell. Drive and Motivation. I was determined to do whatever it took to succeed no matter what obstacles I had. If it meant studying 10 times as long as the other guy — and that did happen — so be it. My motivation was to be a good provider for my future family. I wasn’t there to party, meet chicks, get high, fuck around, etc … I was there to learn, end of story.
Now, determination and motivation are “soft” things which are hard to measure (much like Llpoh’s wee wee) … but, I think it’s clear that there is much much more to graduating college than a nice SAT score.
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https://www.k12dive.com/news/high-school-gpa-5-times-more-likely-to-predict-college-success-than-act-sco/571287/
GPA inflation is a real issue, especially among the Urban school districts. Valedictorians who can’t muster college…or top 10% of their class, and still not college material.
My wee wee is not so hard to measure. Just gotta stop trying to use the five yard tapes and move up to the ten.
Honest to God real story’
“Plastics, other chemical pollutants are SHRINKING PENIS SIZES”
I don’t know why, but I thought of you when I read the article. Just trying to be a good friend ….
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https://www.rt.com/news/519078-penis-sizes-fall/
Bwaaaaa!
Don’t finish within one year of anticipated four year graduation date, you’re out!
By the way, nice strawman. In most schools, a ham sandwich can get in. There are far, far too many kids going to college. There is no point. It is a scheme that needs to be stopped.
In my high school, back before grade inflation, tests and grades perfectly identified the smartest kids. Maybe a couple such as yourself fell through the cracks, but the top 20 out of 250 all were identified, and of those I have kept some track of all did well, becoming successful engineers, accountants, doctors, business owners. Of course, there were numerous successes from those that did not do as well academically. It is not a perfect system, but it works pretty well at the high end, in general.
Yes, cheating is a problem. Just shoot the bastards. It will stop then. 😊
I don’t think I presented a strawman argument at all …. unless you’re talking about the wee-wee comment.
I like the article about GPA being 5x more effective than SATs. OTOH, you are absolutely correct about grade inflation. Grades are fake too these days. So, throw that out the window, I suppose.
You are also correct about far too many kids going to college. But, that’s to be expected once colleges stopped being places of higher learning, and became Big Business. Gotta have customers!!
There are no easy answers.
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One possible solution is to make all those who want to go to a 4 year college make comments on TBP for a month or two. We can weed out the dumbfuks in a heartbeat. Sell our “transcripts” to Admissons Officers for ten bucks a piece. Admin would become richer than Elon.
Mr. Stucky,
You nailed it with your third paragraph. Most colleges are business and they want all the revenue that they can get. There’s plenty of money to be made with just getting warm bodies into seats or on Zoom lectures. And now the governments going to pay for it by giving out lots and lots of student loans and , then, forgiving the loans. (Joe Biden is so generous.)
SATs and ACTs are now obstacles that shrink a colleges market. Time to get rid of them. We’ll let the PR people deal with the issue low graduation rates and useless degrees.
5 times more than ACTs. Get your story straight. ACT is for special kids.
Count me in!
Yes, wee-wee was straw man argument. In South America wanker is Pajero, so Mitsubishi had a hard time selling their car as it meant maker of straws, masturbator. Mitsubishi said it was named for the straw cat or pampas cat. They changed the name to Montero, hunter in the mountains. Which makes me recall George Carlin. “Who are you? I am FUCK, FUCK OF THE MOUNTAIN”.
Proud member of the 30%. 1 year of college was the worst year of my life and beyond a complete waste. Got a real job and became quite successful.
Chief, two other things I don’t like about SATs.
1. Wide Spread Cheating. The recent Rich Bitch / Pretty Boy scandals are the tip of the iceberg. It’s been going on a lot longer than that. Almost impossible to stop a determined cheater.
2. Teaching to the test. Books and Guides on how to get a great score on the SAT is big business. Teachers in high schools now teach specifically to the test … well, the three high schools left in America that still teach. Those who can afford it hire out SAT tutors. Check out some of their web pages … GUARANTEEING a 100, 200, whatever increase in scores. Now, is such a person really smarter, suddenly? Of course not. They just know how to take the test. Personally, I think that’s cheating as well.
Stuck, last time I looked, the claim was that studying for the SATs had very little impact. Taking practice tests helped by getting students familiar with the test and help reduce panick.
Re dropouts, that has little to do with the test, in my opinion. It has a lot to do with 1) far too many kids going to university, and 2) the old joke about my eight years in college being the best years of my life.
Take a look at dropout rates at the top schools. Dropout rates are very low, and a lot of those not very many would be the blacks, Native Americans, etc. who get in due to reverse discrimination policies, only to find they cannot cut the mustard.
As I said, just how are you going to select the best students? It is essential that top students be found and educated. We do not need fifty percent of the population going to university. Maybe 1/4, and trade/tech type schools need to make a resurgence.
And here is but another reason why China will rule the world. They ruthlessly search out the best and brightest. They compete.
What do these gov’t schools care, taxpayer monies on top of the loan money, has grossly enriched these rent seeking pieces of shiite. It’s hard to know what institutions need to be burned down the most.
Speaking of colleges …
… the Fags are in a real battle. Tie score with 15 minutes left. Go Bruins!!!!!!!
Good game by sounds of it. Would have loved to see the Bruins win.
When your rejection letter specifies you having the genitalia you were born with as the reason you weren’t accepted.
Retards all of you. The best of the best are those who succeed in life. I know some who did not even go high school and succeed.
College is a waste for 99% of those who go.
A cruel accountant is an idiot. An absolute moron by the looks of it. 99%? The stupid runs all the way to the bone with this clown.
What demographic makes the highest average income? Asian Indians. What group has the highest average education attained? Asian Indians.
Men with bachelor’s degrees make $900,000 more in a lifetime than those with high school only, on average. Men with advanced degrees make $1.5 million more. But this imbecile suggests 99% of those that go are wasting their time. That is simply too stupid for words, and the facts are indisputable. The median income is twice as high with a degree as those with a HS in diploma. The median income with a professional degree is four times that of someone with a HS diploma.
We really need to check IQs before people are allowed to post on TBP, because there are some monumentally stupid things being posted at times.
https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/research-summaries/education-earnings.html
Seriously, how do people come to believe such horseshit?