The SATS are racist and slanted towards the rich?

[Earl Dibbles Jr]

For those of you who don't know, the SAT is a test designed for high school students in the United States in which it is scored out of 2400. Almost every college requires you do well on this or you don't get in or get any scholarships.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...ated-families/

"A student with a parent with a graduate degree, for example, on average scores 300 points higher on their SATs compared to a student with a parent with only a high school degree. No doubt this is the same dynamic reflected in the income graph, given that there are high returns to college education. But it also dispels the notion that students in America have good opportunities to advance regardless of the family they're born to."

"Asians top the test with an average score of 1,645, while African Americans record the lowest score with an average of 1,278. It appears that the advantage of white students over black and Hispanic students is roughly similar for the reading, math and writing test."

What do you guys think of this? I'm fairly certain it's due to high class kids having more resources available to them (tutors, etc.) in comparison to lower class families. That doesn't really explain the massive difference in scores in terms of ethnicity though...

[ggggtotalwarrior]

Actually it does. There's a higher percentage of blacks living in low-income areas.

[Earl Dibbles Jr]

Actually it does. There's a higher percentage of blacks living in low-income areas.

Good point, didn't really think that one through. Anyhow, I think something needs to be done about this, perhaps making tutoring for the SATs illegal?

[ggggtotalwarrior]

Good point, didn't really think that one through. Anyhow, I think something needs to be done about this, perhaps making tutoring for the SATs illegal?

You're being sarcastic here, right?

Obviously, richer people do better because they're in areas where they can get a decent education and not end up on the streets doing illegal behavior at a young age. I also think there's an expectation and peer pressure upon minorities to act more "thug" even if in a decent neighborhood in today's society.

I mean, I'm white and actually am not particularly well-off financially but I do immensely well in school. I got in the 97th percentile on the PSAT and am currently getting spam mail from colleges for several months now. I'm in what is just a middle class area, so I think the scores have more to do with upbringing and will to learn than anything else (Students from poor income areas won't see the value in performing well on such tests)

[Earl Dibbles Jr]

I also think there's an expectation and peer pressure upon minorities to act more "thug" even if in a decent neighborhood in today's society.

Why do we promote multiculturalism if it damages minorities abilities?

[Copperknickers II]

Why do we promote multiculturalism if it damages minorities abilities?

So you think culture should be promoted on the basis of how much it promotes academic success? Then we'd better abandon white culture, and start adopting East Asian culture. Or, maybe a successful society needs other things than good test scores, for example the African-American music scene, whose songs are ubiquitous worldwide, to the point where even non-English speakers listen to little else.

I honestly think affirmative action is BS. If I do better, I deserve to get my position, and not be passed on so someone can fill a quota. Linking economical standing to race is a stupid way to go about things and further encourages racial tensions in this country, which is probably part of the reason for the troubles minorities face as well as counter intuitive to the Civil Rights movement itself.

You seem to be missing the point of affirmative action totally. Its not about who 'deserves' to get the position, its about what is the best course of action socio-economically speaking for society. Affirmative action is not perfect, but it has met with huge success in liberating minority groups, and that is worth the priveleged majority individuals who get surpassed by those with slightly less ability. Now you know how it feels to be a minority.

[Arbitrary Crusader]

Actually it does. There's a higher percentage of blacks living in low-income areas.

Same with other minorities like Mexicans, puerto-ricans, and so on.

[Caelifer_1991]

Same with other minorities like Mexicans, puerto-ricans, and so on.

Precisely, and this is also reflected very clearly in the data.

[GarretJax]

I'm not sure if that is the answer. Preparing for the SATs isn't going to make much difference if you have studied and worked hard throughout 12 years of education. It might help to make a poor student look average or an average student look smart . . . but I think regardless of tutoring or not, high IQ children will naturally score well, irregardless of race, income, environment and every other crutch.

Plus that's only part of what colleges look at when students apply. I'm sure affirmative action offsets this to a degree.

[Pontifex Maximus]

There are a lot of things wrong with the SAT, like the logic behind its existence in the first place, but racist? If we are going to call small financial hurdles racist, then I guess so. The fact also remains that there are plenty of scholarships and grants available to students with a core criteria being race and SAT scores. I'll give you three guesses what 'race' is normally excluded from such programs.

[Denny Crane!]

Racist? And what is the solution? In the UK it is argued that they should be allowed admission (read: students with lower academic scores) into top universities despite having lower grades. So to give you an idea of how that would work, an 80% score from a poor area is worth as much as a 92% score from a rich area.

Well this is madness and I think there are many problems that can be addressed in education that would go some way towards fixing this before we start adjusting poor scores upwards. For now the likes of scholarships are enough, I would be happy with directing more resources to those areas per capita.

[ggggtotalwarrior]

I honestly think affirmative action is BS. If I do better, I deserve to get my position, and not be passed on so someone can fill a quota. Linking economical standing to race is a stupid way to go about things and further encourages racial tensions in this country, which is probably part of the reason for the troubles minorities face as well as counter intuitive to the Civil Rights movement itself.

[Earl Dibbles Jr]

I honestly think affirmative action is BS. If I do better, I deserve to get my position, and not be passed on so someone can fill a quota. Linking economical standing to race is a stupid way to go about things and further encourages racial tensions in this country, which is probably part of the reason for the troubles minorities face as well as counter intuitive to the Civil Rights movement itself.

I agree completely.
+rep

[Gatsby]

Its the same story everywhere, kids from affluent backgrounds are more likely to be mentally nurtured from a young age (you'll be amazed how many parents don't read to their kids ASAP) pressured into working towards good grades, more likely to have access to books in the house, go to a better school, get private tuition, have a home environment more conducive to studying and concentration, and all other sorts of little things that just give them an edge over similarly bright kids from poor circumstances.

I do agree that a case could be made for some kind of "affirmative action" for kids from less advantageous educational backgrounds - for example a kid who got an A in a state school is probably a better independent worker, autodidact, and probably takes more responsiblity for their own education than a kid who scored an A* at a private school with tiny class-sizes and lots of one-on-one tuition. For example Glasgow University requires all Law applicants to take the Law National Admissions Test - a verbal reasoning and literary comprehension test that requires zero knowledge and cannot be trained or improved for to any substantial measure; a pure test of innate ability minus any extraneous factors. Whilst privately educated pupils do far better in exams across the country, there is no difference is achievement in the LNAT. This makes the Glasgow University law school one the most democratic in the Scotland, the most competitive to get into, and superior to any of its counterparts in Scotland.

I don't think Affirmative Action is right, but when it comes to University application testing, they should try to eliminate all factors except the pure ability and capacity to learn, which is not the case with almost all exams, where private tutoring and the like are hugely advantageous.

[Wismar]

Well, it's a fact that there are different average IQ levels between the races. Jews and Asians score the highest while hispanics and coloured generaly have lower IQ. Whites are somwhere between.

[Caelifer_1991]

Well, it's a fact that there are different average IQ levels between the races. Jews and Asians score the highest while hispanics and coloured generaly have lower IQ. Whites are somwhere between.

IQ's aren't set in stone from birth, they're highly dependent on environmental factors of which wealth plays a significant role. For reference, I have no bias in favour of that statement, I'm in Mensa and have an IQ of between 141 and 155 depending on the day (or 133 by the Cattell Culture III Fair, equivelent to 150 by the common scale); my point of view is based on the evidence applicable to the issue, both as regards IQ testing itself and the associated data and also to the gradual diminishing of the IQ gap over time, as well as to various phenomena such as the Flynn effect.

In the 600's-1200's it was taken as a given in much of the Middle East that Arabs were clearly the most civilised and intelligent of all the people in the world - with one notable scholar telling of how the Europeans were superior only in martial prowess but clearly inferior in all other ways to the people's of the Middle East. In the 1300's it would have seemed strange to assert that Europeans would be more intelligent than African's when Mali was renowned for its wealth and Europe was still a backwater - still yet to undergo the renaissance and ignorant of almost all significant academic fields; in the 1800's it would have seemed absurd to say that the Chinese were more intelligent than Europeans when European's ruled almost the entire world and the Chinese seemed in perpetual decline, and so on. Intelligence and wealth go hand in hand, and it would appear that the causality, when applied to population groups as opposed to individuals, goes more from the latter to the former, than vice versa. This should come as no surprise when neuro-plasticity is such that we adapt to the complexity of the problems we must solve, when such complexity is derived from the complexity of society and the advancement and development of technology, and when the ability to develop such technology and systems results from the propensity and subsequently the ability to devote greater numbers of individuals to academic fields and long term improvements which itself depends upon productivity, a factor very much proportional to wealth.

As wealth depends upon trade, and the interchange of materials, technologies, ideas, and so on, with other civilisations and people's associated with such, it should likewise come as no surprise that the relative intelligence of one population group over the others, have risen and fallen in all areas of the world with the rise and fall of trade. It should come as no surprise that civilisation developed around great rivers and inland seas, such as the Indus, the Yangtze, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and so on, or that inland areas, or those around the equator where overgrowth makes development of long term infrastructure difficult, would be the least developed throughout almost all history. It should also thus be clear that the discrepancy in both wealth and intelligence apparent today along the same lines should be expected, and that it will likewise diminish as the relative significance of geography to trade likewise diminishes over time, as has been seen over the past few decades.

As regards IQ differences within countries, such population groups inherited the wealth of their preceding civilisations, and so this trend is approximately mirrored in such countries as the United Stated, subject to some variation depending on a range of internal factors.

[sumskilz]

IQ's aren't set in stone from birth, they're highly dependent on environmental factors of which wealth plays a significant role.

Very poor nutrition can play a role, but the genetic heritability of adult IQ is about 80%.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01067188

There is an American Psychological Association statement which claims 75%. If you've seen lower estimates like 50%, it's because they involved studies on children.

Intelligence heritability by age:

Age 05 - .22
Age 07 - .40
Age 10 - .54
Age 12 - .85
Age 16 - .62
Age 18 - .82
Age 26 - .88
Age 50 - .85

http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/13/4/148.full.pdf+html

[Caelifer_1991]

Very poor nutrition can play a role, but the genetic heritability of adult IQ is about 80%.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01067188

There is an American Psychological Association statement which claims 75%. If you've seen lower estimates like 50%, it's because they involved studies on children.

Intelligence heritability by age:

Age 05 - .22
Age 07 - .40
Age 10 - .54
Age 12 - .85
Age 16 - .62
Age 18 - .82
Age 26 - .88
Age 50 - .85

http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/13/4/148.full.pdf+html

I regret to say that I lack access to both of those sources provided, I may only say that the evidence that I have seen appears to show both significant heritability and also significant variations by the test in question, culture, wealth, nutrition, disease, and other factors; the exact extent of which is not something I may with any confidence specify. It would appear that within specific population groups, that heritability appears very strong, about in line with what you stated, but from what I have seen, attempts to account for culture and local economic imperatives have been unconvincing.

[Heathen Hammer]

This has nothing to do with income and/or racism. More black/colored kids are exposed to "street" culture, which does not prioritize academia that much. There are plenty of white dumbasses too.

[sumskilz]

This has nothing to do with income and/or racism. More black/colored kids are exposed to "street" culture, which does not prioritize academia that much. There are plenty of white dumbasses too.

I think the tests are supposed to be biased against dumbasses, and yeah, part of dumbassery is cultural.