It is a well known fact in education circles that standardized tests tend to be biased against marginal groups. Test creators know this and try to make tests that are culturally neutral. An impossible task in my opinion given that the cultural experiences of someone from rural Maine, rural Texas, suburban Chicago, urban LA and any othe…
It is a well known fact in education circles that standardized tests tend to be biased against marginal groups. Test creators know this and try to make tests that are culturally neutral. An impossible task in my opinion given that the cultural experiences of someone from rural Maine, rural Texas, suburban Chicago, urban LA and any other city or county you want to plug in are all different. So like anything mass produced they aggregate in the middle and that tends to be suburban America, which is mostly white. Then there is the point you make, some people are just better at tests than others.
The problem with things like the SAT and other tests is less a 'culture' issue and more a money issue. Tests like the SAT have an entire industry around tutoring and prepping for the test. Doing well means getting into a better school, which means people who have more money can afford more prep which means they can get ahead easier.
It also means the poorer, and often urban people tend to not have that time and thus tests become a way to exclude the poor, and there are more PoC among the poor than white people. And if you live in places like the south, if you're in public school, which probably got gutted in favor of defacto segregated private schools, then it's being used to keep you down.
The problem is not the idea of testing. The problem is that, as they stand, the tests are essentially a way to gatekeep higher education for richer, and often whiter, people. It's true that some people are better at tests than others. But the issue with these tests is that they're created with the idea that there is also a prep industry that you pay for to get good at it first.
In other words, it's a naturally unfair playing field being propped up and touted as though it was entirely neutral.
I think you have the cart before the horse, the test came first, then people who learned ways to game the test and then people who separated people from their money.
Maybe because too many pundits quote fellow pundits rather than someone from the local directional U's education/ teacher training department. That was where I first learned about the problem, more than 40 years ago. But really it has been the mainstay of the debate over changes to SAT that has reached places like USA Today. The debate is not over if it is a problem but how best to counter it.
It is a well known fact in education circles that standardized tests tend to be biased against marginal groups. Test creators know this and try to make tests that are culturally neutral. An impossible task in my opinion given that the cultural experiences of someone from rural Maine, rural Texas, suburban Chicago, urban LA and any other city or county you want to plug in are all different. So like anything mass produced they aggregate in the middle and that tends to be suburban America, which is mostly white. Then there is the point you make, some people are just better at tests than others.
The problem with things like the SAT and other tests is less a 'culture' issue and more a money issue. Tests like the SAT have an entire industry around tutoring and prepping for the test. Doing well means getting into a better school, which means people who have more money can afford more prep which means they can get ahead easier.
It also means the poorer, and often urban people tend to not have that time and thus tests become a way to exclude the poor, and there are more PoC among the poor than white people. And if you live in places like the south, if you're in public school, which probably got gutted in favor of defacto segregated private schools, then it's being used to keep you down.
The problem is not the idea of testing. The problem is that, as they stand, the tests are essentially a way to gatekeep higher education for richer, and often whiter, people. It's true that some people are better at tests than others. But the issue with these tests is that they're created with the idea that there is also a prep industry that you pay for to get good at it first.
In other words, it's a naturally unfair playing field being propped up and touted as though it was entirely neutral.
I think you have the cart before the horse, the test came first, then people who learned ways to game the test and then people who separated people from their money.
Funny, some of those in 'education circles' do challenge tests for the very reason that 'well known fact' doesn't seem very well known in some places.
Maybe because too many pundits quote fellow pundits rather than someone from the local directional U's education/ teacher training department. That was where I first learned about the problem, more than 40 years ago. But really it has been the mainstay of the debate over changes to SAT that has reached places like USA Today. The debate is not over if it is a problem but how best to counter it.