Re: School Board

["RAUBER, JOEL" <JOEL_RAUBER@SDSTATE.EDU>]

John C. wrote in part:
> I believe some of this has been around, but unfortunately
> most evaluations
> do not really test for the types of things that really show
> student gains.
> The SAT is actually highly correlated to Socio Economic
> Status (SES).  An
> economist showed that colleges could get a better predictor
> of success by
> explicitly including SES.  . . .

Just to stir the waters a bit,

Is anybody surprised that SES is a good predictor of success, academic and
otherwise?  Does that fact invalidate the use of the SAT?  I would think
not.

The whole point of trying to raise your SES level is to improve things for
you and your family.  One aspect of that improvement is a better education
for your children in K-12, which ought to translate into better success in
College.

He then wrote:

> The easiest way of improving SAT
> scores and college admissions is by getting the reputation of
> being a "good"
> school, and then by attracting high SES students.

But which is the cause and the effect?  You are simply saying you can
improve your SAT scores by cherry picking; well duh?

Even a low SES school could improve their scores a lot, by making everybody
take the PSAT and then only letting the top 10% take the SAT.

Joel R.

This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.