My radical view of the just-released SAT data and the perpetual correlation of test scores with SES (via Granted, but…)

This is a must read article on educational assessment by backwards design guru Grant Wiggins! Mr. Wiggins concludes the post “The issue is not ‘great’ teachers or schools, just solid ones in which best practice is the norm not the exception, and where the first instinct is not to blame the kid but to blame our practices. By contrast, as long as we allow teachers to do whatever they feel most comfortable doing, in isolation, schools will in general be ineffective and SES will thus be the determining factor of achievement results in all schools. Shouldn’t we at least try this idea on for size?” Well said, sir!

It is a longstanding ugly fact in education: the child’s socio-economic status is tightly correlated with test scores. The just-released SAT data from the College Board are right there for all to see and contemplate with the telling pattern visible for the umpteenth year: for every additional 20,000 dollars in parental income, scores rise in an almost perfect linear relationship by approximately 15 points. Liberal policy-makers use such data to r … Read More

via Granted, but…