The Test From Hell

Parents Forum
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<p><a href=“calmom:”>quote</a> The point is that the SAT test has essentially become a barrier and neither the test format nor the content is particularly related to the demands of college.

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<p>Complaints about the SAT are off-topic, but: the content is (either itself or as a proxy) quite relevant to college. Try teaching low and high scorers and report back on the difference. So is the SAT metacontent including test-taking, preparation, time allocation, accuracy, dealing with pressure, checking work before it is submitted, speed, concentration and coping with distractions, disambiguation of questions, among other things.</p>

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<p>It obviously probes all of those things, and is an excellent predictor of college success. People with 500 per section on the SAT are, as a group, much less likely to succeed at MIT than people with 780 per section, which is one reason why even the Jones era of MIT admission took few from the first category and many from the second.</p>

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<p>I hope you are not “confusing correlation with causation”, a phrase that some statistical ignoramuses on CC like to pronounce with great pomp. Higher income of the parents can be driven by many of the same non-monetary factors that drive the children’s higher test scores. It is difficult to purchase many SAT points, even having the money. More people have high test scores derived from parental intelligence, parental education and an affinity for books (or for libraries, if they are poor), than from parental money. </p>

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<p>Most countries that have subject-matter tests also have tutoring for the exams, the quality and availability of which, not to mention time for studying, are all connected to wealth. Whatever the game, wealth will be deployed in playing it. What stratum of income in the USA do you think the takers of 8-10 subject matter AP exams come from?</p>

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<p>CTTC: since you asked me (the originator of the quote you ‘boxed’), I don’t think parents should do their kids work. It can be hard to define the line, but reading a college essay for clarity or spelling seems reasonable to me. I wouldn’t get any more involved than that. </p>

<p>Students whose parents are consistently and heavily involved in their school work (in high school or college) might grow to think they can’t do it on their own and that isn’t what I believe about my kids, nor is it how I want them to view themselves. Their professors/teachers are the people they should go to for help - that’s the kind of act that they will repeat when they’re in the workforce. Running everything through Mom or Dad just strikes me as sad. Of course there are exceptions and I see nothing wrong with parents and children discussing shared academic interests - that can be one of the joys of having a college aged student.</p>

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<p>I’m beginning to think that, given enough info and the right doctor, most people can be diagnosed with some kind of LD. The problem with trying to “level the playing field” is that we can never get it level. People are not the same and real life isn’t going to be accommodating. People cope and do what they can with what they have. Wherever the cut off point is in making “special accommodations” someone is going to benefit and someone else is not.</p>

<p>I know about frustration. My D has a diagnosed reading disability and we had her tutored, at our expense, for years… but it’s still an issue in college. My S has dysgraphia and fortunately his school has a laptop program that allows students to type most of their classwork. Neither will receive any special accommodations and each will live up their potential in LIFE, even if their SAT scores or college admittance letters don’t reflect it.</p>

<p>The only reason we see “disadvantage” and “unfairness” is because we are trying to view everyone through the same lens. That is our real problem.</p>

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<p>What do you mean, your S does not receive special accommodation? He is allowed to type most of his classwork. Doesn’t happen in most schools; doesn’t happen at the SAT, doesn’'t happen in in-class tests in college (unless requested).</p>

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<p>Everyone is allowed to type in this program so he is fortunate. He won’t receive any special accommodations for his SAT or college but he will be fine. That’s what I’m telling you.</p>

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<p>“The only reason we see “disadvantage” and “unfairness” is because we are trying to view everyone through the same lens. That is our real problem.”</p>

<p>Speak for yourself. Perhaps <em>you</em> are trying to “view everyone through the same lens.” I am not.</p>

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<p>^^agree with epiphany. Your S’s dysgraphia cannot be that much of an impediment if you think he’ll be fine. Others may have much more serious disabilities.</p>

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<p>I think some of you ladies are a little too sensitive. My post NOT saying anything about you, your kids, their accommodations, or anything else. It was my opinion, and my kids, and they will be fine regardless of what you think. And oh, the “seeing everyone through the same lens” comment was regarding standardized testing in general so whatever you had to do to feel insulted by that is beyond me. Have fun being bitter :)</p>

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<p>I’m not bitter. I don’t have kids who need accommodations. But I have plenty of experience with people who do. I often hear someone with Tourette syndrome barking as he walks down my street. He’s a graduate student. He’s had accommodation for the fact that he can’t really control his movements. Accommodations such as computers were not available many years ago. That does not mean they should not be made available to those who need one in order to be able to function to the best of their abilities.
My S has got astigmatism and is short sighted. His accommodation consists of a pair of glasses (something that many people in the world cannot afford, by the way). Last semester, he and other students got an email asking if they could help a blind student with his math final. Perhaps that blind student should not have gotten any help? Perhaps he should not have been admitted to Harvard or indeed any college if he could not read or do math on his own without accommodations?</p>

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How does a college teacher know what their students scored? I wouldn’t be surprised if the the profs’ assumptions about their students are off base. My daughter has SAT scores in the bottom 25% for her class; she enrolled in several advance-level courses her first semester, and she is on Dean’s list. She is not a URM or an athlete, so I doubt that any of her profs are aware of her below-median scores. My guess is that her college profs all assume that she had high end scores, simply because she is a very capable student who expresses herself well in writing.</p>

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<p>LOL, re “have fun being bitter.” Not bitter at all. Engaging in an intellectual debate, not a personal argument. I don’t buy the argument made earlier, and implied by your post & those of some others. I just don’t see everyone through the same lens, & that is part of the point about accommodations in the first place. Since you didn’t address any particular issues about anyone’s child, I hardly think you were talking about me personally, or my family. Sorry for the misunderstanding, though.:)</p>

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<p>We started this thread by discussing the problems with extra time accommodations for the SAT, and people are now equating those with the accommodations for blind students. Huh?</p>

<p>The SAT is a timed test. As such, it should be taken under timed conditions or thrown out as a measure of anything. </p>

<p>Because there is no absolute way of determining processing speed issues (and because their discovery is so dependent upon the individual doing the testing…there is no blood test, eye test, brain test), these diagnoses are often worth no more than the paper upon which they are written. </p>

<p>Determining whether or not someone is blind, or has Tourette’s Syndrome is quite easy, and every examiner will agree with the diagnosis, and how to arrive at it. </p>

<p>But determinations of a number of “softer” diagnoses (including organization or executive function deficits, ADD, processing speed, etc), which are draining huge moneys in our schools (not to mention contributing to cheating and hoodwinkery in college admissions) have no easy diagnostic tools. A diagnostician can connect two dots that really should not be connected, and school systems are often required to abide by those findings, at a drain to the budget.</p>

<p>In the days of dwindling school budgets and ballooning class sizes, parents are finding swell ways to get more individualized help for their children, and that is in the form of special education and accommodations, which by law are not subject to budget cuts. I have seen it happen countless times. Most of these kids do not have needs like the blind student, the dyslexic, the Tourette’s boy. They are “disorganized” or linear thinkers, or slow processors…or so someone says. </p>

<p>The point is not just whether or not some people do things slowly and get the right answer, and should be afforded more time as a result. The point is that there is no clear and definitive way of determining who these children or people are, and as a result, there is a lot of cheating to get the advantage that the diagnosis allows.</p>

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<p>I recall(my memory isn’t as good as it once was) that after the first college year, the SAT 1 is a relatively poor predictor of academic performance.</p>

<p>Having said this, it seems obvious that large differences in SAT scores will be predictive of academic achievement, ie a student with a 1500 score will be more successful than a student with an 800 score. But the differences between 1500 and 1400 scorers will probably be far, far less, if there is any difference at all.</p>

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<p>mladyd,</p>

<p>Welcome to the NEW College Confidential. The comments of the kind you received are one of the reasons I rarely get sucked into discussion on these boards. Way too often, the discussion degenerates from a discussion of an issue and the sharing of opinion to attacks on posters who disagree with someone. At least many of the posts seem like that.</p>

<p>CC was not always like this. But the tone started shifting about 3 years ago when some particularly active and polemical posters came on board. The tone also shifted when the approach to moderation (i.e. the activities of the moderators) changed from active, public chiding of problem posts to something else (private or absent I can’t say - don’t know).</p>

<p>At any rate, discussions like this probably belong in the Parent’s Cafe, a place I avoid like the plague, where the arguing is fast and furious (at least it was when I was last there 9 months ago!). These forums have been a great place to exhange information of a more factual nature, but a terrible place to discuss controversial topics, IMHO.</p>

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<p>Guess I am more stubborn that you are NMD! ;)</p>

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<p>Allmusic:</p>

<p>Of course it is easy to detect if someone has Tourette syndrome or is blind. But some of the counterarguments seemed to suggest that NO accommodation should be provided–period. And one of the bones of contention had to do with dyslexia, which you classify with Tourette syndrome or blindness, but which others suggest is no more deserving of accommodation than carelessness.</p>

<p>I have had at least three dyslexic colleagues. They each learned coping strategies, and interestingly enough, learned several foreign languages. I also believe that some of the coping strategies were arrived at or at least refined while in college. They would not have done well on a test where time was of the essence.</p>

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<p>If you read my posts, Marite, you will see that I am not in the camp that doesn’t buy that dyslexia exists (I know it does), since I see hard data points for that diagnosis. </p>

<p>I don’t doubt that some children do better with accommodations, including those with ‘soft’ diagnoses. The issue I have is that many kids, including those who have not had evaluations, would also benefit from additional teacher time, more direct instruction, additional modifications.</p>

<p>Just seems like common sense to me, and like good teaching, to offer such accommodations to anyone who might need it.</p>

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Calmom, I have a friend who teaches at the local state U. She has her students SAT scores. She only checks them when she has a struggling student who seems really out of place in a college classroom. Every time she has been astounded that the student gained admission with the low scores.</p>

<p>I have no idea if SAT scores are accessible to profs at all colleges.</p>

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<p>This is actually the crux of the problem. No, teachers are not about to go out of their way to provide “accommodations to anyone who might need it.” That is actually LOL funny.</p>

<p>I’m bringing this stuff forth from eight years ago, but I lived on the internet visiting various advocacy sites and ld and gifted sites. </p>

<p>Wouldn’t it be great if a parent could waltz into a school and have a marvelous little chat with ones’ son’s English teacher in which you both agreed that your son should have access to a computer and a spell check for his work!! That will NEVER happen. No teacher is able to make that call. They have to refer for testing, and then, and only then, IF the testing documents a problem, the teacher MIGHT (assuming she is not biased against any sort of accommodation for kids, as many, many are) make sure one’s kid will get the help he needs.</p>

<p>Even then, don’t count your chickens, because he may have a new teacher the next year who feels like ignoring the IEP. This happens more often than not.</p>

<p>You are for the most part dealing with teachers who barely scored a 500 on their SAT’s before heading to the local teachers’ college–but who unfortunately have had it drummed into their heads that they’re omniscient when it comes to anything to do with education. For instance, one of them told me–“all he needs is a 2.0 to graduate” (this was the special education director of the district).</p>

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<p>“The issue I have is that many kids, including those who have not had evaluations, would also benefit from additional teacher time, more direct instruction, additional modifications.”</p>

<p>I could not agree more with this, and I believe I mentioned the importance of teaching methodology earlier in the thread. It is particularly true of borderline LD’ers (some of the highly compensating variety that may have one or few manifestations of LD). Excellent teaching helps to cross that border. One of the ironies or contradictions with the emphasis on LD/Spec Ed which I know frustrates (justifiably so) many parents who see the $$ spent on Spec Ed seemingly exclusively, is that, when SpEd was not a formal educational “field,” many moons ago when I began teaching & obtained my own training, the teaching methodology was far superior, in my own State, to what it is now. Will try not to hijack the thread here, but I do not see the attention to the comprehensive training of the teacher today that I saw in my own day. Many of the more recent teachers produced, particularly those in the last 5-8 years, know all the buzz words & all the “specialty” training (emphasis on administration, btw, not classroom teaching) but not Basic Training. (Capitalized deliberately for the military parallel.)</p>