First, when, yesterday, I posted about the increase in writing abilities of American students from 1998 to 2007, for some reason, in my haste, I read “1998” but thought, um, “1970.”
Don’t know why I did that. Getting old, I guess. D'oh!
Had I been aware that we were looking at this recent and puny 8-year span (from '98 to '07), I would not have declared, as I did, that the “Teeth Gnashers” were likely in error (in their view that student writing ability has seriously declined in recent decades).
Second, I briefly researched further and I’ve come across what would appear to be much more relevant data: it tracks student verbal performance from 1967 to 2006. Yes! (It might be the closest thing to definitive data that we are going to find.)
More on that in a minute.
That's the good news. The bad news is that those data tend to support the perspective of the Teeth Gnashers (and undermines the perspective of the "oldsters always be carpin' about youngsters, so forgetaboutit" perspective).
I came across a site called the “Humanities Resource Center Online,” which is “a project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences” (AAAS). That brought me to their Humanities indicators (for charting trends). That, in turn, led me to their data for “primary and secondary education in the Humanities.”
I clicked on “Indicator I-2 Writing Proficiency.”
There, the AAAS states that
NAEP findings are mixed….
…
Twelfth grade performance slipped between 1998 and 2002, with the percentage of students scoring at the basic achievement level or better declining from 79% to the 75% figure mentioned above. In 2002, fewer than one in four soon-to-be high school graduates were assessed as writing at the proficient level or higher. Students scoring at the proficient level demonstrate a grasp of writing skills that are essential for success in most walks of life; these skills include the use of transitional elements and the ability to select language appropriate for the intended audience….
Again, those data concern the brief period between '98 and '02—hardly the basis for conclusions about long-term trends.
But something caught my eye: “Indicator I-5: Performance on SAT Verbal/Critical Reading & Writing Exams.” There, the AAAS states
Although controversy over the SAT [i.e., the "Scholastic Aptitude Test"] persists on a number of fronts, the verbal portion of the SAT (renamed “critical reading” in 2005) is a valuable measure of college-bound seniors’ linguistic skills because the test has been administered for several decades and thus permits comparison over a fairly extended period of time. The SAT data reveal a steep decline between 1967 and the early 1980s in mean verbal scores, followed by a leveling off, with mean scores ranging between approximately 500 and 510 ever since ….
That's right: 2006 "verbal" scores can be compared to 1967 scores. The SAT is an imperfect measure of verbal abilities, but I suspect that it has significant validity. (No doubt some disagree.)
The trend in verbal SAT scores ain't pretty. The AAAS folks present the chart below. Check it out. That's some serious decline, baby.*
Click on image to enlarge
So, I’m back to being a Teeth Gnasher. Bigtime.
*SAT math scores were the same in 2006 as they were in 1967, although these scores dipped precipitously in the 80s and then rebounded.
24 comments:
So maybe they're really as bad as we think they are after all?
So what happened in 1967-1980?
Also, how significant is 40-50 points out of the whole thing? Could this be considered statistically significant? Or is the error of measurement larger than the difference?
I'm gonna get all grumpy cause my peers really are stupid.
40 points may not be a lot, but I suppose it depends on how you look at it. I remember my total score on SAT--it was remarkably average. and while my verbal was higher than math, my score for verbal, 570, was only slightly higher than average. I wouldn't think the difference between 570 and 530 to be significantly great, nor that of 570 and 610, but perhaps there is a marked difference between 530 and 490. ?
You two are extraordinarily verbally gifted (albeit not in quite the same ways), and it wouldn't surprise me if that became clearer when you take the GRE (as you likely will in two or three years). As to the 40 point spread: I don't know how significant that is. It's time to talk to (hear from!) the right kind of expert. It does seem to most of those (at least those I speak with) of my generation who teach that median student ability (verbally) has gone in serious decline. I would think it would be more than 40 points, but what do I know. I'll try to get back to this and find some reliable opinion.
Oy! Erin is studying for the GREs. I might take a sample test, and get back to you on that.
I scored 650 on the verbal portion. I still have the original report in my files. Nationally, that put me in the 96th percentile for college-bound seniors. 99th percentile for the national high school sample. That was in 1987.
ES
I'm not at all surprised, Smarty Pants.
SAT scores across America lowest in over thirty years California's numbers follow trend; experts attribute score decline to increased length, cost of test, decrease in retakes
Posted Mon Sept. 25, 13:43:46 PDT 2006
By Gene Wang of The Campanile
SAT scores dropped nationally last year in America with the lowest scores in 31 years among the graduating class of 2006.
The average Critical Reading score dropped from 508 to 503 points, the average math section score dropped from 520 to 518 points and the average score for the new writing section was 497 points.
According to the College Board, the organization that administers the test, the decline in SAT scores can be attributed to the decrease in students retaking the test. When a student retakes the SAT, scores can increase by as many as 30 points.
The decline in the number of students who retake the test could also be attributed to the rising cost of the SAT, which has increased from $28.50 to $41.50 since last year, and to the SAT's time length, greater than ever before.
"With the test being longer, fatigue plays a bigger factor in the student's choice of retaking it," Palo Alto High School College Adviser Sandra Cernobori said. "The more you take the test, the more your score will increase."
The new SAT features a variety of components, including a more difficult math section and a new writing section. The new exam no longer asks analogy questions.
These new sections add an extra 45 minutes to what was once a three-hour-long test. But, according to the College Board, the increase in time is not the reason why students scored lower.
However, some students believe that the extra 45 minutes did have an impact on their tests.
"The SAT was so long," senior Kimberly Hansen said. "It only had two five-minute breaks, which definitely took a toll on my test taking abilities."
Though the overall average of the SAT has dropped dramatically, certain ethnic and other groups went against the trend and increased their scores.
In particular, African-American students increased their average score from 433 to 434 points in Critical Reading, and 431 to 429 points in math, while Hispanic students increased their average score from 433 to 434 points in Critical Reading, and from 463 to 465 points in math.
Read more: http://voice.paly.net/view_story.php?id=4501#ixzz0Pk6gIUWN
ES
That's ok, you notice I'm not bragging about the math portion...
ES
What the SAT test actually measures is an open question. It is about as accurate as a coin flip in determining whether someone will graduate from college. But one thing it does measure is socio-economic status. Generally speaking, kids from well-off families do better on the SAT (and the GRE) than kids who are less priviliged.
What Roy's chart summarizing declining scores on the verbal section of the SAT test doesn't show is that back in 1967, far fewer high school students took the SAT. And back in 1967, far fewer high school grads went to college than do today.
As I've said before, I don't think it's even possible to compare literacy skills of students from 1967 to the skills of today's students--simply because students today are different.
Today's remedial-English, unable-to-write-a-single-coherent-sentence student (and, sure, there are plenty of them) probably wouldn't have even thought of going to college in 1967.
Here's a thought experiment: What if we compared the mean height and weight of college students from 1967 to students today? If we found that today's students are shorter and smaller, would that mean that kids are shrinking? Or would it mean that more women are attending college today than in the past?
--100 miles down the road
Neither! Correlation is not causation!
I do see your point a hundred, something more comprehensive than a graph is necessary.
It is true that people tend to read a lot more into SAT scores than they should. SAT administrators claim that the test measures skills needed to succeed ACADEMICALLY in college - they do not claim to measure whether or not students who possess those skills will actually put them to good use in the college environment. The verbal portion of the SAT DOES measure certain specific linguistic skills.
1.Vocabulary - antonyms and analogies.
2.Reading comprehension - reading passages and sentence completion.
Administered with the SAT (at least in the past) is the Test of Standard Written English (TSWE).In this test, students are asked to find grammatical or usage errors in underlined portions of text. Designed to test basic ability, the TSWE does not show the difference between good and excellent performance. The TSWE score is not part of the SAT score, but is reported at the same time. It would be interesting to find comparisons for TSWE scores over the years.
Also interesting to note, a paragraph regarding percentile rank from the booklet containing my own SAT scores:
"Keep in mind that these groups of college-bound seniors do not include ALL students who are going to college. In some states, relatively few students take the tests, and the ones who do tend to be above average students. Similarly, some Achievement Tests, such as Math II and Physics, tend to be taken only by better math and science students."
So it seems to say that less capable students frequently DO NOT take the SAT and achievement tests. They self select OUT of the pool of potential test-takers.My scores were printed in 1987, almost exactly halfway between the years on the graph. If this was also true over the years going back to and including 1967, and continued to be true through 2006, then the idea of dilution of talent occurring due to greater numbers of average or below average attending school may not be true. Even if a greater percentage of mediocre students are now choosing to go on to college, they may not be taking the SAT.
Students today are very different from students in 1967. But were the students in 1970 really that different from the students in 1969? There is a big drop in scores at that point on the graph, and then a slightly more gradual continuing decent until 1974, where we see another big drop to 1975. How incomparably different from each other could these students have been each successive year?
It would be fun to superimpose various other graphs over the SAT one- political, cultural, economic - and then look for correlations!
ES
From Wikipedia:
Name changes and recentered scores
The name originally stood for "Scholastic Aptitude Test".[24] But in 1990, because of uncertainty about the SAT's ability to function as an intelligence test, the name was changed to Scholastic Assessment Test...
The test scoring was initially scaled to make 500 the mean score on each section with a standard deviation of 100.[25] As the test grew more popular and more students from less rigorous schools began taking the test, the average dropped to about 428 Verbal and 478 Math. The SAT was "recentered" in 1995, and the average "new" score became again close to 500. Scores awarded after 1994 and before October 2001 are officially reported with an "R" (e.g. 1260R) to reflect this change. Old scores may be recentered to compare to 1995 to present scores by using official College Board tables,[26] which in the middle ranges add about 70 points to Verbal and 20 or 30 points to Math.
In other words, current students have a 100 (70 plus 30) point advantage over their parents. (!!!)
The Wikipedia info on the changes to the SAT test (going back much father than 1967) are really quite interesting. I have not gone to the SAT (College Board) website yet, but I'm interested in seeing their comparison tables for myself.
It seems that the test may have changed in ways that give a scoring advantage to more recent students when comparing scores between years, which would seem to indicate that students today might score even lower if they took a test from years past. Have the scores on the graph above already been adjusted for comparison?
ES
100 miles, you may be right, but I'm not sure that matters. If more (less able) students go to college than in the past, then, well, the average ability will decline, which is what the Teeth Gnashers are saying. I have always believed that the quality of one's education has a lot to do with the quality of one's colleagues (with regard to seriousness, commitment, etc.). That's why I advise students to go to the best colleges they can--to be surrounded by students with higher standards and expectations. When colleges became more, oh, democratic, the quality of the learning environment went into decline, affecting even the best students. It has become more acceptable to speak and write badly. As an instructor, I am painfully aware that one cannot simply defy the great middle: one will necessarily move toward accomodating them, giving a C to truly execrable work despite one's clear sense that a D or F would be more proper. I'm saying that we've seen the emergence of a big dumb hoi polloi that has dragged standards down, allowing and even encouraging the more capable students to write like louts and causing instructors to call a spade a deuce.
Really good post, 2:58. I like your point about the power of one's peers in maintaining (or not) high standards (and working hard). And you've captured the instructor's dilemmas and painful necessities quite well.
I do believe, too, that if instructors across the curriculum uniformly expected better things, and stuck to their guns about standards (with some allowance made for "the great middle," unavoidably), we'd get better results. In other words, I think that many underestimate the power of consistent high standards and expectations.
MAH
Good post! Good comments!
Anon 2:58--
Well, sure. Everything's been dumbed down. But at the same time, the educational entry level for good jobs has gone up. Back in my parent's day, kids were told that they'd need a high school diploma to get ahead. In my day, it was a BA/BS, and now it's a masters degree.
What's ironic to me is that the Teeth Gnashers don't realize that if it weren't for the masses of the semiliterate and underprepared who fill our classrooms, they (and me, too) wouldn't have jobs.
--100 miles
100 miles -
Of course educational requirements for entry level positions in "good jobs"will go up as education standards go down - they would have to to get the same quality of employee. I'm not sure what your point is...
As for the idea that Teeth Gnashers would have no jobs if high schoolers were properly prepared for college - UM, NO.
ES
Yeah, 100 miles; you seem to be dead-wrong on that one. We'd have jobs that are a LOT more pleasant, if we had better-prepared students, as ES just pointed out.
Even if you were right, moreover, it would be completely irrelevant to this discussion.
MAH
ES wrote that there'd still be plenty of community college teaching jobs "IF [my emphasis] high schoolers were properly prepared for college." MAH added that our jobs would be "more pleasant IF [ditto] we had better-prepared students."
Well, sure. But those are some pretty big "ifs." There wouldn't be hungry people in the world IF everyone were fed, either.
But some, many, most--take your pick--of our college students are NOT prepared. Back in 1967 or whenever, these students didn't go to college. Today they do. It's as simple as that. All I'm trying to say is that the world (including the world of school) is changing, but it's not coming to an end.
Do all these under-prepared students provide us with jobs? Well, if you excluded all the bad writers--and the Teeth Gnashers are saying that most community college students fall into this category--from our classrooms, they'd be nearly empty, wouldn't they? I don't think even Basic Aid districts let classes run with only two or three students.
--100 miles
100 miles,
I think you are touching on some interesting and subtle points about the difficulties of comparison, and I am thinking about them.
Still, if Community College (and other college) students were better prepared with basic writing skills, then the Schedules of Classes would look different, wouldn't they? Instead of the sections of basic Composition (whatever that is called in your District), there could be more advanced Writing (and Literature) courses in their place. Students could take courses that don't simply give them basic skills (or try to), but that involve them in richer kinds of reflection and writing.
No?
MAH
Thanks, MAH, for listening. It's the most anyone can expect.
I'm not sure what the answer to your question is. If we had a magic wand and suddenly transformed all the underprepared students in our remedial classes, we'd certainly have to offer more transfer-level classes, but who knows if the number of these new classes would equal the number of remedial classes that would be eliminated?
--100 miles
Are we still shut off? Why did Dissent the Blog get turned off? Did the fact that you don't know what you are talking about finally catch up with you? Now, it seems, you are attempting to divert our attention. Are you on your meds Roy>
11:49, thanks for the lovely ad hominem --RB
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