Reading scores on the SAT for the high school class of 2012 reached a four-decade low, putting a punctuation mark on a gradual decline in the ability of college-bound teens to read passages and answer questions about sentence structure, vocabulary and meaning on the college entrance exam.Here.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
DOOM, no surprise
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29 comments:
The question is, of course, which punctuation mark. One presumes that with SAT scores so low, it could be anything!
I am taking a break from grading papers written by just these chuckleheads (high school seniors in May 2012, college first years in September 2012). Based on what I see in their essays, the report is no surprise.
So what do you suggest we do to reform our high schools?
Hmm 9:41pm: perhaps we should start a petition?
I'm boycotting petitions
Here here 12:56am: shall we get a petition together in support?
How are their math scores?
I spend at least one-quarter of my time teaching argumentative writing skills and how to identify arguments, regardless of the course. I sheepishly believe I am making a diff, though I don't know if it's appreciated by the students.
YFNA
8:05:
"The average reading score for the 2012 graduating class was 496, down one point from the previous year and 34 points since 1972. The average score on the writing portion of the exam was 488, down nine points since that subject was first tested in 2006. Math scores were flat, compared with 2011."
That's... abysmally low.
These scores are dropping because more students are taking the test - even ones who neither want to take the test nor want to go to college.
Why should we be surprised that those students aren't doing well?
9:15
Presumably because, if that's the case, then it points to a serious problem with the quality of HS education. And because, if it's true, one should probably be worries about the demographics at play--"more students who neither want to take the test nor go to college" probably means students from lower-income backgrounds, or of a certain set of racial profiles. And that's not good, because it means that K-12 education is failing them especially hard when it comes to these basic skills.
And then there's this...
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/09/14/new-research-finds-sat-equally-predictive-those-high-and-low-socioeconomic-status
I'm starting a petition to boycott all petitions that do not boycott themselves.
9:02,
As I understand it, the SAT is scaled so that the median score on each section is (close to) 500. So those averages aren't as "abysmally low" as they seem. They're by design. Small comfort, I know, but worth remembering.
It's also worth noting, though, that the test was "recentered" in 1995 because average scores had fallen too far. According to Wikipedia, which is never wrong, this recentering gives post-1995 test takers a 70-point advantage on the Verbal/Reading section. So when the article compares current scores to those from 1972, that comparison is already skewed in favor of current scores. And still current test takers come out looking badly....
How is it possible for average scores to decline so much when the test is calibrated to have an average of 500 per section? I don't know. But I suspect it has something to do with the author of that Post article not distinguishing between means and medians.
The philosophy profession is hardly immune from the decline. I myself had to look up 'periwig' in the 3AM interview of the great historian Frederick Beiser. My SAT scores were a disgrace, and I assure you that I would have flunked every one of your introductory philosophy and critical thinking courses. Nevertheless, I am tenured philosophy professor at a prestigious institution. My example should offer some hope for others. Not much hope, but some.
The question is, of course, which punctuation mark.
Well, the semi-colon seems out of reach of most students (except as a winky-face emoticon), so I'm betting that it's not that.
I teach in a humanities department at a state school that has a large Education program, which means that I teach gen-ed courses involving writing and argumentation to future teachers. There are 3 problems, as I see the situation:
1. National efforts to "improve education" have everything to do with assessment and nothing to do with learning. And because assessment is always done with standardized forms and never with written expression, essay writing is quickly becoming a lost art. Teachers won't teach it at HS because, quite frankly, it's not something their students will be assessed by.
2. Education programs are increasingly less interested in content, and more interested in teaching pedagogy. At my university, you only need a 6-course minor to get certified in an area, and many Education faculty complain about even that being too rigorous. Education majors at my university who want to teach HS English need only ever take 2 writing-intensive classes in their entire college career.
3. Many students who want to be teachers "love kids," but have a painful fear of learning. And when they declare a major in Education, they enter a department that is often apathetic toward - or openly hostile toward - those of us teaching anything other than empty pedagogy courses.
I'm fearful for the future of K-12 education in large part because I am watching a system slowly dismantle the mechanisms by which writing, argumentation, and analysis are stripped away in favor of bubble sheets and scantron-able information.
The Education curriculum has been enamored of the "Theory of the Theory" since time immemorial. Occasionally one sees empirical research on learning, such as Sweller's theory of cognitive load, but this has been more influential in industry than in higher education.
The same cognitive declines we have been seeing among students are reflected among the professoriate and among the senior administurbation.
It is mistaken to conclude that we self-selected out of the mess we have created for ourselves and our students. On the contrary, the attitude is that if you aren't at a top school, you have no business instituting reforms that the smarter guy at the top school can get away with. Who is telling us this? We internalize the expectations of our administrators--the least academically prepared among us.
Glaucon, are you saying that the winky face button can also be used for some kind of punctuation.
More doom: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2012/09/25/bacon-shortage-pigs.html
7:10,
Shouldn't your sentence have ended with a question mark?
10:49
Did you mean to assert? Shouldn't your question have ended with a period instead? Such as: shouldn't your question have ended with a period instead.
7:10 -- Strange but true! And ironcially enough, it can be used for the very thing 10:49 is asking about.
I think we should ask this guy.
Wow, that really is ironcial, Glaucon. I think.
Great to see the return of DOOM to Philosophers Anonymous. I was starting to worry Spiros had acquired some kind of sunny disposition. Now if only we can get him to start engaging in PUBLIC PHILOSOPHY again, which in my books was always the best kind of DOOM.
Hopefully, more schools will focus on analytic writing. See http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/10/the-writing-revolution/309090/
JFP doom predictions Spiros?
Someone out to teach these young "hip-hoppers" how to write.
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