Does it ever occur to you, as it does to me each year, that our state average SAT score looks like a typo?
I mean, it only has three digits. So right away, you think this is the score on one part of the test or the other, verbal or math.
But that can’t be right, either, because it’s higher than 800. And it can’t be a matter of a digit left off, because it can’t be, say 1,985. That’s also impossible.
Then you realize the truth of what it represents — a whole lot of kids taking a college-bound test who are not ready to go to any kind of college — and the sadness descends once again.
The national average of 1,017 is pretty pitiful — and not much higher — but at least it doesn’t look like a typo.
Related Posts
First, the math portion of the test is highly overvalued. The type of math required for the SAT is rarely used in the real world. Who among us ever has to compute a sine/cosine/tangent, a quadratic equation, multiply exponents, calculate the volume of a sphere, etc? So much school time is wasted on rote learning of unneeded skills. We have kids taking Algebra and Geometry who should be learning more useful math skills related to personal finance, basic statistics, computer programming.
Second, we can raise the SAT average considerably if we stop having kids take the tests unless a) they plan to go to a four year college and b) they have an academic record that would suggest they can succeed in college. Testing people who you already know cannot do well is pointless. The numbers are meaningless. Especially when you test kids in schools that have been considered failures for many years. Those schools should only do SAT tests for kids who score at a certain level on the PSAT. Otherwise, let’s quit playing the game and start teaching kids enough to be productive members of society.
Yeah, I got a higher score on the math portion of the test, and what good has it done me?
For a short period in my life, I could calculate related rates, or plot complex shapes in three dimensions. Not any more. And I don’t need to, either. The formulas that I struggle to remember in real life are from, oh, Algebra I — at the most. Sure, we all use some geometry, but I seem to recall having learned the really useful formulas (like “pie are square,” to cite a joke that kids actually thought funny at that age) much earlier, like before algebra.
The verbal portion covered material I use in real life.
The problem with using SAT scores for comparison lies in who takes the test in each state, as Doug more or less pointed out.
That’s old news, I know, but in many states, unlike in South Carolina, people who won’t need a SAT score don’t take the test, which gives those states better scores. Here, we administer the SAT as though it were a vaccine, so our scores don’t compare favorably.
By the way, I got a higher score on the math portion, too, but I never have thought that part of the SAT didn’t relate to anything.
Some people, after all, do go into sciences that rely on complex math disciplines. And math is pretty much the framework for everything, language included.
There’s also something to be said for learning how to think, and math is probably the basis for that, too.
Still, I’m glad grammar doesn’t rely on calculus.
The value of education is hardly for utilitarian purposes only. We don’t read novels for career training. We don’t study history because we’ll be politicians (not that it did W much good). We don’t have P.E. to train future professional athletes. Math is not merely for future scientists.
Education broadens our awareness of the world around us and increases our ability to relate to others.
Trigonometry can make us aware of angles. The video of the Concorde that crashed in the 90s showed that its angle of elevation was much too low.
3D complex shapes, in this computerized world, are much more common.
In algebra 2 there is a focus on maximizing functions. Ask anyone in the business world if this is of any interest.
My teenage students are hampered by this simplistic notion that most education must be explicitly and directly applicable in their lives or it’s worthless.
I use the following analogy to explain it to them: football players use the bench press a great deal in their training. Are they going to run on the football field and bench press something during a game?
Weldon
Re: In many states, unlike in South Carolina, people who won’t need a SAT score don’t take the test, which gives those states better scores. Here, we administer the SAT as though it were a vaccine, so our scores don’t compare favorably.
Arrrrrrrgh. We have got to quit making excuses. We’re in denial: The better educated a SC student’s parents, the further he trails peers nationally. The gap is larger at the bottom than it is at the top. The public education system in South Carolina is obsolete and nothing short of reinventing it will prepare our children to be competitive in a global economy in the 21st century.
I agree with you, Randy. And has the SAT been made that much harder since the ’60’s (that’s slightly before the last ice age for a lot of you)? I averaged C’s and D’s in arithmetic/mathematics, but still managed better than 500 on the math part of the SAT. I thought the English part was easy.
Obsolete? It’s antiquated? How so?
John,
Re: The better educated a SC student’s parents, the further he trails peers nationally. The gap is larger at the bottom than it is at the top.
Those two statements seem inconsistent. Wouldn’t the gap be larger at the top if the first sentence is true?
Your link showed me that good S.C. students trail their peers nationwide by about 40 points, no matter how you slice the cake.
I’d rather those two groups stood even, or S.C. students stood ahead, but if we looked at incomes nationwide compared to S.C. incomes, wouldn’t we see even a greater disparity?
I myself can’t see how a 40-point differential on a 1,200-point test (that’s statistically the same as 87 compared to 90) is all that significant, particularly when you consider how many people in S.C. live in poverty.
At the same time, I’d be willing to bet you the school board in my county couldn’t average 800 on the SAT, and the students don’t do much better.
The solution? Better parents, better teachers and better students, in whatever order necessary.
I’d say Judge Cooper hit the nail on the head by saying money should be thrown at very early education, if anywhere. That should counteract the effect of deadbeat parents as nimbly as possible.
Our legislature, however, is much more concerned with dragging its feet and bettering itself.