SAT Changes (in a Big Way)
Update: listening to the NPR story this morning, I heard a few interesting things about this story like:
- David Coleman, the head of the SAT, says it will be better aligned to what is being taught in high school. Fair enough, until you learn that he helped write the CC standards. Oh.
- also, apparently historically, the SAT was NOT supposed to follow high school curriculum
End of update.
For one thing, the SAT essay will be optional by 2016 - there's a big change. The SAT essay will have to have accurate data and facts to support the essay which leads me to believe that somehow the essay topics must be given out. How else can any student have facts at their fingertips broad enough to cover whatever is thrown at them?
Here's a handy Ed Week chart outlining the current SAT, the new one and how it aligns with - what else? - Common Core.
Here's a link to the LA Times story on this issue.
It will be interesting to see what colleges/universities want to see. Will you have a better chance to get in if your student DOES write an essay?
As well, no more penalties for guessing.
Another big change - use of calculators goes from using it for the full math section to only certain portions. (This flows from how the two testing consortia will allow calculators to be used on Common Core assessments.)
Of course the SAT needed updating. Do I agree with narrowing the vocabulary to "words widely used in college and career?" I worry a bit about that for sure.
I also worry about this:
The grades 9-10 reading standards call for students to “analyze seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance (e.g., Washington’s Farewell Address, the Gettysburg Address, Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech, King’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’), including how they address related themes and concepts.”
Why? Because early Common Core feedback - from the Gettysburg Address - shows that students aren't being asked to explain significance of the the Address but "themes and concepts." To take the address out of historical context, to me, lessens the whole point of reading it.
Some of these changes were made around equity issues of coaching to take the SAT.
To help address that issue, the College Board is starting a partnership with the online Khan Academy to offer a free series of practice exams and videos about good test-taking practices. The Silicon Valley-based Khan Academy has become one of the most popular online-education sites, particularly for its math offerings.
However, CBS news reports this:
Despite the shift, Bob Schaeffer of FairTest.org, who has been a vocal critic of the SAT, was not impressed with the SAT's new direction. He also remains skeptical that the free test-prep service will level the playing field for students of different financial means.
"The partnership with the Khan Academy is unlikely to make a dent in the huge market for high-priced, personalized SAT workshops and tutoring that only well-to-do families can afford," he said. "Like most of the other College Board initiatives announced today, this move is less significant than its promoters claim."
- David Coleman, the head of the SAT, says it will be better aligned to what is being taught in high school. Fair enough, until you learn that he helped write the CC standards. Oh.
- also, apparently historically, the SAT was NOT supposed to follow high school curriculum
End of update.
For one thing, the SAT essay will be optional by 2016 - there's a big change. The SAT essay will have to have accurate data and facts to support the essay which leads me to believe that somehow the essay topics must be given out. How else can any student have facts at their fingertips broad enough to cover whatever is thrown at them?
Here's a handy Ed Week chart outlining the current SAT, the new one and how it aligns with - what else? - Common Core.
Here's a link to the LA Times story on this issue.
It will be interesting to see what colleges/universities want to see. Will you have a better chance to get in if your student DOES write an essay?
As well, no more penalties for guessing.
Another big change - use of calculators goes from using it for the full math section to only certain portions. (This flows from how the two testing consortia will allow calculators to be used on Common Core assessments.)
Of course the SAT needed updating. Do I agree with narrowing the vocabulary to "words widely used in college and career?" I worry a bit about that for sure.
I also worry about this:
The grades 9-10 reading standards call for students to “analyze seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance (e.g., Washington’s Farewell Address, the Gettysburg Address, Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech, King’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’), including how they address related themes and concepts.”
Why? Because early Common Core feedback - from the Gettysburg Address - shows that students aren't being asked to explain significance of the the Address but "themes and concepts." To take the address out of historical context, to me, lessens the whole point of reading it.
Some of these changes were made around equity issues of coaching to take the SAT.
To help address that issue, the College Board is starting a partnership with the online Khan Academy to offer a free series of practice exams and videos about good test-taking practices. The Silicon Valley-based Khan Academy has become one of the most popular online-education sites, particularly for its math offerings.
However, CBS news reports this:
Despite the shift, Bob Schaeffer of FairTest.org, who has been a vocal critic of the SAT, was not impressed with the SAT's new direction. He also remains skeptical that the free test-prep service will level the playing field for students of different financial means.
"The partnership with the Khan Academy is unlikely to make a dent in the huge market for high-priced, personalized SAT workshops and tutoring that only well-to-do families can afford," he said. "Like most of the other College Board initiatives announced today, this move is less significant than its promoters claim."
Comments
Mom of 4
And a link to Elizabeth Kolbert's longer article about taking the (current) SATs as an adult: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/03/03/140303fa_fact_kolbert?currentPage=all
Parent
My mother was a seventies version of a "tiger mom," by God, her kids were going to get into college. The fact that our family with nine kids was surviving on my father's salary as a mechanic mean that there was no money for college. So she hit on a plan in which the kids would start studying as highschool freshmen to ace the PSAT.
It is interesting that now the test is trying to measure more about what students are taught. That wasn't the case when we were growing up in the seventies. Back then, the test was supposed to measure aptitude--so it was heavy on analysis--which it would try to get at with analogies or dense reading with arcane vocabulary. On my fourteenth birthday I received a pretty worn out copy of a "Word Power Made Easy" and a new copy of a study guide for "Miller Analogies." And the studying began.
The payoff was huge for our family. Four out of nine kids were National Merit Scholars, and back then, the $1200 scholarship it provided covered a quarter to half of college tuition. If we had not "gamed the system," and studied material not covered in school, I'm fairly certain we would not have had the money to attend college.
I'm glad they got rid of the essay question on the tests that my kids took. The New York Times article which discusses Les Perelman's research is very revealing about the validity of that part of the exam. Overall, I was far more impressed with that article than I was with the news that the SAT was being changed. Like Melissa, though, I am very concerned about the ties to Common Core State Standards, especially the fact that David Coleman, the president of the College Board helped write the Common Core State Standards. Yikes. It would be a shame if the price a school pays for flaunting the Common Core State Standards is exacted on its students SAT scores.
--- swk
--- swk
Parent
zb
I think the SAT has always suffered from not knowing what it wants to do (starting with the army aptitude test, morphing into an aptitude test for college, and then whatever it's supposed to do now -- predict college performance?).
I also think the frustration of high stems from the basic premise of "tiger mom" high achieving -- that through concerted practice you can produce excellence on any measurement instrument. But, the strategy only works if the measurement doesn't keep changing.
zb