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Watson, Equality, and Standardized Tests
Sep. 22nd, 2011 11:05 amJames Watson put it best: all men are created equal, but "when he finally has a swimming race, he beats the brother."
We know from empirical fact that people are not equal. Despite what rationalizations our frail egos provide to the contrary, there do exist people out there who are just better. Smarter, stronger, prettier, funnier, and, at times, all of these. Despite the lessons of grade school and RPG archetypes, there almost certainly exist folks who out-compete us in every worthwhile way. It's not fair, but arbitrary mutations between individuals sometimes play favorites.
Yet, we deny the truth, or at least sidestep it. We have contrived a convenient legal and moral fiction that all humans are equal in worth, because worth is not dictated by ability. Thanks to modern food production and distribution, we are no longer forced to distribute resources preferentially to those whose abilities are most useful in supporting us. You don't (in theory) need to meet a minimum level of ability to be entitled to a subsistence living.
And it's a damn good thing. The security of rights to life and liberty without regard to strengths and shortcomings has helped us all. Are we equal? No, surely not. But countless metrics to test the ability and/or worth of humans have failed, quite probably because they were all designed by humans. When powerful people have convinced themselves that they've found a true metric, genocide and slavery have ensued. Through the best of intentions, our failed attempts at empirically supported segregation have denied us artists, inventors, and scientists of a caliber we will never get a chance to know. Be it slavery to blacks, the holocaust to the Jews, or millenia of misogyny to women, we have stifled the contributions of large fractions of humanity in the name of a false metric of human worth.
(I should disclaim at this point that, even were we to find a true metric of human worth, it would not excuse genocide or oppression. Our treatment of others ought to be commensurate with their ability to appreciate that treatment, and even the least talented among us appreciate having human dignity. It is an unfortunate tendency that many think of worth in all-or-nothing terms; popular treatment of non-human animals demonstrates this.)
You rightly may be thinking by now that we do sort people; social stratification is designed into our society. Capitalism, as advertised, strives toward meritocracy, wherein the worthy and able pull themselves up to wealth and privilege, while the lazy and unskilled descend into relative poverty. In other words, rather than testing for worth and assigning status to individuals, we would allow that worth to express itself, appropriating status without direct--which is to say, biased--measurement. But our system doesn't work as advertised, of course; barriers indifferent to merit keep the poor poor and the rich rich. Poor policies can enable or cause society to declare and enforce worth-judgements such as classism and racism. Consequently, we strive to offer bridges over the barriers between classes; welfare, public education, selective tax breaks, and the like essay to prevent or counteract worth-judgements wherever possible.
Well-informed sociologists have written at greater length and depth than I care to about the variety and efficacy of these bridges toward meritocracy; as an educator, I would like to address only one of these: education. Education, in particular college, is marketed as the exclusive route to job security. For some degrees and some fields, it is exactly that. Unfortunately, colleges, despite their ubiquity, struggle to meet the demand for education. So, on the face of things, it makes sense that grade schools should prepare students for college and that we should test students for college-readiness.
Enter standardized testing. The PSAT, the SAT, the ACT, SAT Subject Tests, AP Tests, IB Tests, and countless more are vital to college application and acceptance. In theory, each provides valuable statistics on a student's knowledge and aptitudes, so that, at a glance, colleges can better predict a potential student's performance in higher education. For most schools, a student's SAT and/or ACT scores are second only to GPA in prediction of college admission.
One would hope, then, that such tests would not to reflect known false metrics such as race or class. Yet, California SAT scores show that students from homes making less than $20,000 per year average a score of 1310, while those from homes making more than $200,000 per year average a score of 1715. In 2005, white students from homes making less than $10,000 averaged 993, 129 points higher than the average for all blacks. In the same year, blacks from homes making more than $100,000 averaged 85 points lower than the average for all whites. In 2011, Minnesota whites averaged 5.6 points higher on the ACT than Minnesota blacks did and 2.4 points higher than Minnesota hispanics.
In our modern enlightened area, I hope we can all take it as given that those born poor or black are not born dumb as well. We can therefore infer that either the tests are biased or that their minority and poor takers are somehow not as well prepared for them. The former seems unlikely in most cases*; there is not much room in geometry or reading comprehension questions for race or class biases. So we are left with the disturbing explanation that schools better prepare majority, well-off students for college. Standardized tests detect this discrepancy by scoring race and class in addition to ability, reflecting nature and nurture alike.
So, when I sit down to help a student prepare for the SAT or ACT, I must consider this: student scores are a product of their upbringing and environment, which in turn is a product of arbitrary and unfair factors. I have tutored students with scores in high and low percentiles, and, as a consequence of the above, I cannot infer anything of their abilities from their scores alone. Only from interacting with them in person do I ever glean their true strengths and weaknesses, and not always very quickly, at that. The aptitudes and shortcomings the SAT and ACT attempt (and fail) to find in four or five hours take me many sessions to do with confidence, and I am usually surprised when I do. I've met low-scoring kids able to multiply two-digit numbers instantaneously in their heads and high-scoring ones who struggle to summarize a paragraph after five minutes of thought. In short, their scores say nothing of their abilities.
Thus, in all things--but teaching especially!--we must fight the urge to divide people into neat echelons. Human abilities cannot be described in any single dimension of measure; to claim anything approaching a linear ordering is at best foolishness and at worst bigotry.
*In fairness, I cannot discard this possibility outright. SAT vocabulary has been challenged in the past for using boating terms most recognizable to those able to afford boats.
Cited statistics:
http://www.ohe.state.mn.us/tPg.cfm?pageID=1521
http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html
We know from empirical fact that people are not equal. Despite what rationalizations our frail egos provide to the contrary, there do exist people out there who are just better. Smarter, stronger, prettier, funnier, and, at times, all of these. Despite the lessons of grade school and RPG archetypes, there almost certainly exist folks who out-compete us in every worthwhile way. It's not fair, but arbitrary mutations between individuals sometimes play favorites.
Yet, we deny the truth, or at least sidestep it. We have contrived a convenient legal and moral fiction that all humans are equal in worth, because worth is not dictated by ability. Thanks to modern food production and distribution, we are no longer forced to distribute resources preferentially to those whose abilities are most useful in supporting us. You don't (in theory) need to meet a minimum level of ability to be entitled to a subsistence living.
And it's a damn good thing. The security of rights to life and liberty without regard to strengths and shortcomings has helped us all. Are we equal? No, surely not. But countless metrics to test the ability and/or worth of humans have failed, quite probably because they were all designed by humans. When powerful people have convinced themselves that they've found a true metric, genocide and slavery have ensued. Through the best of intentions, our failed attempts at empirically supported segregation have denied us artists, inventors, and scientists of a caliber we will never get a chance to know. Be it slavery to blacks, the holocaust to the Jews, or millenia of misogyny to women, we have stifled the contributions of large fractions of humanity in the name of a false metric of human worth.
(I should disclaim at this point that, even were we to find a true metric of human worth, it would not excuse genocide or oppression. Our treatment of others ought to be commensurate with their ability to appreciate that treatment, and even the least talented among us appreciate having human dignity. It is an unfortunate tendency that many think of worth in all-or-nothing terms; popular treatment of non-human animals demonstrates this.)
You rightly may be thinking by now that we do sort people; social stratification is designed into our society. Capitalism, as advertised, strives toward meritocracy, wherein the worthy and able pull themselves up to wealth and privilege, while the lazy and unskilled descend into relative poverty. In other words, rather than testing for worth and assigning status to individuals, we would allow that worth to express itself, appropriating status without direct--which is to say, biased--measurement. But our system doesn't work as advertised, of course; barriers indifferent to merit keep the poor poor and the rich rich. Poor policies can enable or cause society to declare and enforce worth-judgements such as classism and racism. Consequently, we strive to offer bridges over the barriers between classes; welfare, public education, selective tax breaks, and the like essay to prevent or counteract worth-judgements wherever possible.
Well-informed sociologists have written at greater length and depth than I care to about the variety and efficacy of these bridges toward meritocracy; as an educator, I would like to address only one of these: education. Education, in particular college, is marketed as the exclusive route to job security. For some degrees and some fields, it is exactly that. Unfortunately, colleges, despite their ubiquity, struggle to meet the demand for education. So, on the face of things, it makes sense that grade schools should prepare students for college and that we should test students for college-readiness.
Enter standardized testing. The PSAT, the SAT, the ACT, SAT Subject Tests, AP Tests, IB Tests, and countless more are vital to college application and acceptance. In theory, each provides valuable statistics on a student's knowledge and aptitudes, so that, at a glance, colleges can better predict a potential student's performance in higher education. For most schools, a student's SAT and/or ACT scores are second only to GPA in prediction of college admission.
One would hope, then, that such tests would not to reflect known false metrics such as race or class. Yet, California SAT scores show that students from homes making less than $20,000 per year average a score of 1310, while those from homes making more than $200,000 per year average a score of 1715. In 2005, white students from homes making less than $10,000 averaged 993, 129 points higher than the average for all blacks. In the same year, blacks from homes making more than $100,000 averaged 85 points lower than the average for all whites. In 2011, Minnesota whites averaged 5.6 points higher on the ACT than Minnesota blacks did and 2.4 points higher than Minnesota hispanics.
In our modern enlightened area, I hope we can all take it as given that those born poor or black are not born dumb as well. We can therefore infer that either the tests are biased or that their minority and poor takers are somehow not as well prepared for them. The former seems unlikely in most cases*; there is not much room in geometry or reading comprehension questions for race or class biases. So we are left with the disturbing explanation that schools better prepare majority, well-off students for college. Standardized tests detect this discrepancy by scoring race and class in addition to ability, reflecting nature and nurture alike.
So, when I sit down to help a student prepare for the SAT or ACT, I must consider this: student scores are a product of their upbringing and environment, which in turn is a product of arbitrary and unfair factors. I have tutored students with scores in high and low percentiles, and, as a consequence of the above, I cannot infer anything of their abilities from their scores alone. Only from interacting with them in person do I ever glean their true strengths and weaknesses, and not always very quickly, at that. The aptitudes and shortcomings the SAT and ACT attempt (and fail) to find in four or five hours take me many sessions to do with confidence, and I am usually surprised when I do. I've met low-scoring kids able to multiply two-digit numbers instantaneously in their heads and high-scoring ones who struggle to summarize a paragraph after five minutes of thought. In short, their scores say nothing of their abilities.
Thus, in all things--but teaching especially!--we must fight the urge to divide people into neat echelons. Human abilities cannot be described in any single dimension of measure; to claim anything approaching a linear ordering is at best foolishness and at worst bigotry.
*In fairness, I cannot discard this possibility outright. SAT vocabulary has been challenged in the past for using boating terms most recognizable to those able to afford boats.
Cited statistics:
http://www.ohe.state.mn.us/tPg.cfm?pageID=1521
http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html
