Let's Add SAT Scores Into the Mix When Holding High Schools Accountable

As students throughout California graduate this month, many will still lack acceptance into college this fall. In fact, six in ten high school students here in Los Angeles Unified won't attend college. It's time that our policymakers ask themselves: Are we holding our high schools to the right accountability measures that get students accepted to college?

While the California Standards Tests (CSTs) is one of the greatest achievements in education policy, embodying transparency and accountability about a school's success to the public, most would be hard-pressed to explain what the test means to students' futures.

Indeed, our model of accountability hits a snag in high school. The CSTs drive curriculum, as educators are pressured to deliver high scores in high school, but in many cases, it works against preparing students for the tests that colleges actually care about -- the SATs. When the SAT results of all high schools were released in April, they were met with a deafening silence. There was no ensuing fanfare that greeted the release of the CST scores.

Let's acknowledge that students' SAT scores, their performance on Advanced Placement tests and their grade point averages are the real factors that determine whether students get into college or attract scholarships. And it is the foundation of college preparation laid in high school that is a key contributor to whether students succeed in college.

California's colleges and universities spend tens of millions each year on remedial courses for students who get to college. Federal policy is moving to address this by demanding that our students are better prepared in high school so that they get into college without the need for remedial classes.

California needs the accountability provided by the CSTs, but we also need a policy adjustment. High school success needs to be tied to student performance on the SATs and AP tests, and our high schools should be incentivized to take these additional measurements seriously.

This change is particularly needed for schools serving students of color -- African-Americans and Latinos -- who have for years struggled on the losing end of an unrelenting achievement gap. What is more important than giving students who are most at risk of dropping out the chance at higher education and well-paying jobs?

Colleges are clamoring for greater diversity, meaning scholarship opportunities for low-income minority youth abound when they are qualified. Students who test the best receive the most scholarship money and get into top colleges.

The charter school movement is on the forefront of this issue, opening high schools in higher concentrations in low-income, underserved urban neighborhoods with steep dropout rates. These schools are adopting college-prep curriculums with great success.

We at ICEF Public Schools in South Los Angeles are offering colleges academically well-prepared African-American students from the inner city. We are also offering the community future leaders and, for those candidates, unlimited academic and financial opportunities. With the latest SAT results, we are shining the spotlight on this policy shortcoming of solely focusing on the CSTs.

A network of 13 public charter schools that serve predominantly African-American students, we boasted the highest SAT scores of all public high schools in South Los Angeles. With 96.2 percent African-Americans in the class of 2008, we also demonstrated the largest SAT growth over two years among all LAUSD schools, with a 121-point increase.

We so focus on our SATs that our performance on the test demolished the state's three-point growth and the nation's zero-point growth. And 100 percent of our first three graduating classes were accepted to college.

How are we doing it? The same thing that elite private schools throughout the nation are doing for their predominantly upper-class students: creating high expectations and teaching a rigorous curriculum. We refuse to buy into the idea that minority students need a different curriculum -- choosing to go by the philosophy that if you only feed kids oatmeal, they won't develop muscles.

It's time for our public high schools to make it a priority to get all children prepared for college, academically and financially. Children of color are disproportionately under-represented in our colleges and universities, and this must change. The reality of what it takes to get into college must be reconciled with testing requirements enforced through policy. Focusing the high school principals of California on a test (the CST) that does not lead to greater college admission or financial aid is like endeavoring to learn French in Paris, Texas instead of Paris, France.

Bottom line, the SATs are a student's ticket to a scholarship, which for many of our low-income students may be their only opportunity to attend college. I know many want to do away with the test as culturally biased, but until that day comes or we get a better test, we must face facts: the SAT decides to a great degree who goes to what college and who gets money to pay for it.

Comments

[RobinSeattle]

The SATs are a totally unnecessary joke. I never even took them and ended up graduating from college with honors. The only benefit to your proposal is for the testing company that produces the exams.

Again, nobody is proposing any sanctions for school boards whose districts consistently produce poor educational outcomes (like the LAUSD, for example). Until you do that, nothing is going to change since they have all the power on the local level as far as educating children and making decisions on things such as textbooks and school maintenance and disciplinary policies.

ADDRESS THE SCHOOL BOARDS, WILL YA?

[PatA]

~~~How are we doing it? The same thing that elite private schools throughout the nation are doing for their predominantly upper-class students: creating high expectations and teaching a rigorous curriculum. We refuse to buy into the idea that minority students need a different curriculum -- choosing to go by the philosophy that if you only feed kids oatmeal, they won't develop muscles.~~~

I graduated from a very small highschool in southeastern Oklahoma. There were 23 teenagers in our class.
We were taught how to take tests and it really paid off. Our teachers were very strict in our regular tests.
We went back to school every Saturday for 9 weeks and studied how to take a test. 2 hours..every Saturday. For a teen we thought it was torture and unnecessary.'
Out of 23 graduates, 13 took the SATS test. 4 of us scored in the upper 10% in the nation. 13 kids went to college....most of them were minorities. American Indians.
We proved that we didn't have to have a private school to get a good education.

[TopProf]

I don't believe a word you write. SATs don't measure school achievement. They are meant to measure aptitude, but don't even do that. The highest correlate of SAT is parent's social/economic status. The only way to raise scores the way you describe is teach to the test. Kids can improve their scores by gaining familiarity with test-taking skills like when to guess. yes, rich kids raise their scores the same way. It all works out to a zero-sum, because rich kids just maintain their structural edge when everyone takes the same test-taking skills. This is the fault of the test. Advanced placement tests are different and bear some relation to the degree of achievement the kid has reached. And before anyone gets themselves in a twit, my comments have nothing to do with whether kids can learn. All kids can. The fault is the test. The discrepancy is built into the test. The discrepancy is built into the social system.

[Skepticat]

Any school with a selected student population who WANT to be there, and are motivated to learn with supportive parents will probably do much better than schools required to accept a general population consisting of large numbers of non-motivated, "reluctant learners" with unsupportive parents as is too often typical of inner city school environments. If only the motivated and students with skill pre-requisites attend, the teachers don't have to be superlative for success to occur - merely competent - and most teachers are.
Weed out those students who would pull SAT or other standardized test scores down and any school will look better. I've been out of public school teaching for over 20 years and what I see these days is pandemic test psychosis where months out of the school year are wasted preparing for standardized tests that provide little educational value but are great for purveyors of tests or alternate schools where screening has eliminated hard core problems.

[iridium53]

The premise that schools and teachers have significant control over student achievement is false.
Schools and teachers are simply one of the factors in student achievement.

Students actually spend relatively little time actually in school.

Achievement in school or on any standardized test is more a function of the time and effort the student gives to self-education - reading, discussion, etc. Teaching students is not like manufacturing - where the producer has control over the parts.

Students can be supported by their family and friends to achieve. They will not achieve without spending the effort required to achieve. This is the responsibility of the student and nobody else because only the student can actually spend the necessary time.

Isn't it time we start accepting the fact that the students, and their families, have responsibility for exploiting the opportunity the state (schools, JCs, universities, etc.) provides - and not the other way around?

[Easttexas82]

The California test sounds a lot like the Texas TAKS test. I taught school in Texas for 8 years and spent much of that time preparing kids for the TAKS test. What we basically ended up teaching them were test strategies. Like how to examine the A B C D answer choices and rule out obviously wrong answers. There were always two. Then they could make a best guess on the other two. This was just for difficult problems. The test itself was never really that hard. The key factor to getting kids to pass it was having them motivated enough to sit and concentrate for 2 or 3 hours. Some kids needed 4 to 5.
I never took a test like this my entire time in college. It amazes me when I hear how this a measure of "college readiness". Neither are the SAT/ACT. True they will get you scholarships but they in no way determine the kind of student you will be.

[MNmommy]

"True they will get you scholarships"

That isn't really even true in the current environment. A student can be chock full of APs and have an IB diploma and that doesn't even guaranteed any scholarship money these days. It's extremely competitive now, with the economy in shambles.

My biggest beef about "college-prep" is that not all students are suited to go to college. This country needs to figure out a way to make things again, and to celebrate those that are good at it or our economy will fail.

[inmyhumbleopinion]

Good luck with that. With all the screaming and yelling about the CAHSEE test (a test my 9th grader passed with ease, but is apparently too taxing for many), the uproar would be deafening if the SAT's were added to the mix as a requirement for graduation. And what score, exactly, should schools shoot for? 500 per section? 550 per section? 600+? To my mind, schools are already "teaching to the tests" way too much and teaching kids to think and write a lot less.

The issue with kids from underperforming districts has to do with the level of support they're getting from home to achieve in school. It's not about testing and money. It's about parents setting expectations for achievement and holding kids accountable. Look at our President and his wife. They both came from humble beginnings, but both had parents who cared and expected a lot from their kids. Role models count and there just aren't enough of them out there.

We should be putting way more resources into organizations like Teach for America to give these kids half a chance.

[Harold Stone]

I also disagree. Enough middle-class kids get coaching on the SAT to skew the curves upward for those schools, and students new to the U.S. and those with unstable home lives will push SAT performance down in poor districts.

[Poboy]

I disagree.

These placement tests are nothing but an TEST TAKING INDUSTRY and indicate nothing but how well someone answered questions on any particular day.

The students RECORD in high school should be the sole indicator of college work.

Let's do away with practically all testing and make the students cognitive abilities be assessed holistically.

The very idea of testing someone's abilities and intelligence should have been done away with the IQ tests.

[Endersdragon]

Two 3.4s are never equal, even within a school. Heck, even 2 A's are not equal, even within a class at the same school. For example there were 2 US government teachers at my school, everybody knew that Mr. S was easy and Ms. W was hard. I took Ms. W's class and struggled for a B-, meanwhile one of my classmates easily got an A+ in Mr. S's class. Does a college recruiter know the difference? Do you?

Now how do you compare my 3.4 at my school compared to my step-sisters 3.4 at hers. You can't because you have no clue our quality of teachers, our grade inflation or anything like that. When you try to compare class ranks you lose measure of difficulty of classes.

I also disagree that you SATs/ACTs test anything. If you don't know the answers you are going to do horrible with them. You can't just guess with every answer. You will do horrible if you try.

I disagree with SATs/ACTs being the only measure, but then again neither should GPA.

[Poboy]

Learning is relative. I thought that's what grading on a curve was about.

I don't understand the entire rationale behind comparing one student to the next.

What's more, I don't understand why a test has to be taken to get into a school.

The schools are there for people to learn. The problem comes in when schools want to pick and choose who they will let in.

Why?

Open up these schools to the people and stop trying to be exclusive.

If schools are doing their jobs, then they should be transformative to all, not just for some.

[Endersdragon]

Whoops make that don't test anything or whatever... I can't speak today lol.