The SAT is gonna change big time real soon.

The reasons?

1) To get away from the evil of trying to measure or estimate "intelligence" - that's an obscene word in our dumbed-down, hypersensitive, self-esteem-centered PC world now.
2) To make poor blacks look better by hopefully closing the enormous test score gap between blacks and whites.
3) To keep the SAT's monopoly on the major Universities - especially the UC college system.

Well if an IQ test doesn't measure "reasoning and developed skill", then what does it test???

And what the hell is "developed skill" anyway??

Apparently by adding more math, grammar and writing, what they mean by "academic preparedness" is the three 'Rs'. So is this the liberal, teach-nothing, educational elite's version of admitting all their meddling, navel-picking efforts over the last 40 years have been a failure and now they want to return to the basics?
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   Hello!? McFly!?
MAYBE... economic disadvantage is often a RESULT of weak intellectual abilities?? MAYBE... some people are poor BECAUSE they are inherently stupid and can't get or hold a decent job but still manage to procreate and pass their "stupid" genes on to their myriad of stupid offspring who then score low on IQ tests in school.

And as far as blacks and lower test scores, what do you suppose they'll do if it turns out that blacks still score lower on this new and improved "reasoning and developed skill" SAT test? Are they gonna just spot the blacks a few hundred points to "level the playing field"? (again)
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   AHHH!!! NOW we are getting somewhere!!

"Follow the money! "

"Never ask me about my business."
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   So... throw out the higher standards rather than throw out shitty teachers? Gotta be a liberal to understand that logic.
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   Dickens? Shakespeare? Don't they mean Angelou, Du Bois and Chomsky?
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   Yeah, well I'm not holding my breath for that to happen.

Odds are when some students (especially minorities) continue to fail miserably compared to others, they'll discard this version of the SAT just like the last one and then maybe switch to an even MORE important measure of a person's academic potential - like [b]community service and multicultural sensitivity[/b].

And people wonder why I think teachers are scum as a general rule.

I'm not a teacher - I'm a researcher who is required to teach as part of my contract (so you can't mean me [:D] ).

Actually, there are some reasons for why minorities (particularly blacks) may do worse on tests like the SAT than their IQ/Intelligence/whatever warrants.  It is not because the SAT is "culturally biased" or was "normed on white kids in the 60's" or some of the many explanations that black people often believe - BUT it is precisely because there is a widespread BELIEF in the black commuinity that it is an unfair test that it ends up being a problem.  Self-fulfilling prophecies commonly occur (much research exists on this), and so some blacks do not bother to study as hard as they might, because they think the test is unfairly biased against them, and how hard are you really going to try to play agame that is rigged against you?

If you were applying for a job where you KNEW the cmpany was under enormous pressure to hire a black person, would you really try as hard as if you thought you had an even playing field.

I'm not saying the SAT is biased, but the widespread BELIEF in a group that it is, can create the problem, and ultimately result in a mean difference between that group and others as some members become less committed.

Just my $.02 - it is actually a somewhat tangled and complex problem.

No, I don't wonder. I hate teachers too.

Though there are some EXCELLENT teachers in public school, MOST are scraped from the bottom of the collegiate barrel of academics.

The nearly perfect inverse correlation between falling SAT scores and rising high school GPA prove to me that teachers are becoming nothing more than blowhards causing rampant grade inflation across the board.

When I think back on all my teachers in all my subjects throughout school, I think there were maybe five that I thought were really good teachers. They knew their material like the back of their hand, they had clear and high standards and they modeled the intellectual behavior and attitudes that exceeded their standards.



The few good teachers that are out there are vastly underpaid because the majority of teachers are incompetent hacks that aren't even worth half their salary.