"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Thursday, March 06, 2014

Do we need the SAT?


Sent to USA Today

Not mentioned in the discussion of changes in the SAT ("Sharpen those pencils: The SAT test is getting harder," March 6) is the question of whether we need SAT-type examinations.

In two different studies, researchers from UC Berkeley, Harvard and Princeton reported that high school grades were a good predictor of college success, and that adding SAT scores did not improve the predictive power of grades alone.

These results suggest that teacher evaluation does a better job of evaluating student potential than standardized testing does: The repeated judgments of professionals who are with students every day appears to be more valid that a test created by distant strangers.

Stephen Krashen


Sources:
Bowen, W., Chingos, M., and McPherson, M. 2009. Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America's Universities. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Geiser, S. and Santelices, M.V., 2007. Validity of high-school grades in predicting student success beyond the freshman year: High-school record vs. standardized tests as indicators of four-year college outcomes. Research and Occasional Papers Series: CSHE 6.07, University of California, Berkeley. http://cshe.berkeley.edu

original article: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/05/sat-college-board-redesign-college-entrance-exam/6078091/




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