MATT SMITH spoke of Re: Aft News to DAN TRIPLETT on 12-30-96
MS>DT> RM>CB>SAT scores rose modestly in 1996, an improvement AFT
MS>DT> RM>CB>president Albert Shanker attributes to a renewed emphasis
MS>DT> in schools on  the
MS>DT> RM>CB>academic core curriculum. The average math score rose two 
MS>DT> points,
MS>DT> RM>CB>to 508, while verbal scores were up a point, to 505.
MS>DT> RM>This, of course, is silly... A 1 or 2 point change is just
MS>DT> RM>background "noise", as it only represents something like a
MS>DT> RM>0.2% - 0.4% change - Random fluctuation.....
MS>DT> Beats dropping.......How significantly do individual scores have
MS>DT> to  improve for the overall score to show any improvement?  
MS>    A _lot_ more.  Would you consider your kid's grades
MS>"significantly"  improved if his average moved up from 68% to 69%?
Of course not.  The AFT reported "an improvement."  I asked (for you 
mathematicians out there) how much (significantly) do individual scores 
have to improve to show an increase in aggregate scores?  I did not say 
this 1 or 2 points represents a "significant" increase.  At the same 
time, the idea that an improvement in the SAT scores can be connected to 
a renewed emphasis in schools on the academic core curriculum is 
stretching one's faith in the SAT as a predictor of anything.  Small 
shifts in SAT scores (as far as I understand) are not very meaningful. 
And by themselves, aggregate SAT scores provide no information about the 
performance of American schools.
The SAT's do not examine student knowledge of history, sciences, the 
arts, humanities, foreign languages, social sciences, or other important 
subjects.  It concerns itself with verbal materials and mathematics.  
The scoring of an SAT is somewhat complicated (to the layman) since the 
number of right answers are converted to a scale so that a student SAT 
score could range from 400 - 1600 points.  Even a very talented student 
who only misses one question on the verbal could lose 50 scale points 
(and get a scaled score of 750 instead of 800).  The scoring is not 
straight forward in the slightest sense.  I don't think we can honestly 
look at the SAT and presume anything (positive or negative) regarding 
educational practices or use it to evaluate the success/failure of our 
educational system.
  ÖÄÄÄÄÄ¿  
  º     ³   
  º     ³ ÖÄÄ¿ ÖÄÄ¿
  º     ³ ÇÄÄ´ º  ³
  ÓÄÄÄÄÄÙ Ð  Á Ð  Á
* ++++++  *
     _   /|    ACK!
     \'o.O'   /
     =(__)+
       U
Educator'sCn Dan Triplett 12/31/96
--- WILDMAIL!/WC v4.12 
---------------