I graduated with the highest SAT scores in my school and the second highest in my city back in the early 90s. I’m not bragging, it was a relatively small town in the south with not great school systems and a total graduating class of 1500 across all of the schools.
What are the chances that happen because I was so smart or because I had a mother who was not only a high school math teacher but also spent years volunteering to teach SAT prep classes?
Second story: my step son didn’t have the ACT scores to get into the college he wanted to go to. Four months later and with the help of a private tutor who was a teacher (not in his school) that we paid $100/hour for 12 hours, he suddenly raised his scores more than enough. Did he gain aptitude in 12 weeks or did he learn test taking techniques?
Yeah, I hear this, but in 1995 I just bought an SAT prep book for $12 and spent a couple months of Saturdays practicing and did very well. My family lived well below the poverty line. SAT prep is not confined to the privileged.
> What are the chances that happen because I was so smart or because I had a mother who was not only a high school math teacher but also spent years volunteering to teach SAT prep classes?
It sounds like you are saying that good parenting shouldn't have any effect of kids success in life.
Look, we know that poor parenting results in kids with poor outlooks, but penalising good parenting by taking away the effect of good parenting is probably not a good way to go about helping those kids with poor parenting.
I’m saying that the test isn’t indicative of “aptitude”. Well neither are GPAs though. It’s not hard getting a 3.7 GPA when the teachers know that if they make the coursework challenging or don’t give plenty of make up chances that either most of the students will fail (in the small town I grew up in) or that the Karens will complain to the principal that this one teacher will keep her little Timmy from getting into whatever prestigious school she wants him to get in (in the case of the “good schools” my step sons went to)
> I’m saying that the test isn’t indicative of “aptitude”.
Maybe it isn't, maybe you're correct, but the practical effect of ignoring tests is to penalise good parenting, instead of helping those kids with aptitude but no opportunity.
We need a really good reason for why kids that worked hard at the tests and demonstrated that they were willing to study (whether payed for and/or pushed for it by the parents) should be rejected in favour of those who never demonstrated this.
> Maybe it isn't, maybe you're correct, but the practical effect of ignoring tests is to penalise good parenting
“Good parenting” == “being able to pay for private tutors for little Timmy”?
Just like a “good software engineer” == “someone willing to ‘grind LeetCode’ for six months?
(And just in case someone replies that I’m just upset because I couldn’t “get into a FAANG”, yes I work for one now. No I didn’t do the LeetCode grind or the DS&A interview. Yes, I’m in an IDE coding most days doing the same type of work I’ve been doing for almost three decades)
Are you saying that ignoring tests won't have any effect on the majority of good performers who got that way because of parental attention and involvement?
Ignoring the tests just teaches those kids who worked hard that they shouldn't have.
The message it sends to all kids is terrible: don't bother with learning because you'll be chosen, or not, based on your demographic.
There is a big difference between “learning” and “preparing for a specific test.”
Just like there is a big difference between “being a good software engineer” and “practicing reversing a binary tree on the whiteboard while juggling bowling balls while riding a unicycle on a tightrope”
Don’t you think a mother able to teach those classes would be in general a better test taker than the average person, and so her children likely would be too?
And nobody is denying that test scores can be raised. That’s likely a fixed amount so just amounts to constant noise. I think you’re as likely to find a way to consistently raise a 600 SAT to 1600 as you are trying to train any couch potato into an Olympic sprinter.
So let’s say my mom had been a “good test taker”. But she didn’t spend anytime with me. Was always too busy to help me when I had a question, etc. Do you think I would have done as well?
What are the chances that I would have chosen to be software developer coming from that same small town if my parents hadn’t bought me a fully tricked out Apple //e in 1986?
Even when I was in college in 1992, most of the CS students didn’t have a computer home. By then I had a $4000 LCII set up with a $1000 laser printer and a $300 SoftPC application to run x86 compilers. My parents weren’t “rich”. My mom was a teacher and my dad was a factory worker.
I graduated with the highest SAT scores in my school and the second highest in my city back in the early 90s. I’m not bragging, it was a relatively small town in the south with not great school systems and a total graduating class of 1500 across all of the schools.
What are the chances that happen because I was so smart or because I had a mother who was not only a high school math teacher but also spent years volunteering to teach SAT prep classes?
Second story: my step son didn’t have the ACT scores to get into the college he wanted to go to. Four months later and with the help of a private tutor who was a teacher (not in his school) that we paid $100/hour for 12 hours, he suddenly raised his scores more than enough. Did he gain aptitude in 12 weeks or did he learn test taking techniques?