SHSAT Sunset

Tag: selection-bias

  • Test prep is a rite of passage for many Asian-Americans

    Non-SHSAT article that discusses the intersection of culture and single-measure testing.

    Related to the Harvard case, test scores for all students should be considered with a grain of salt. Yes, high scores are impressive, but they should be understood in the context of opportunity. It’s also important to note that strong scores are the norm in Harvard’s applicant pool.

    Given that test scores are limited in their ability to predict future achievement, and are heavily shaped by race and social class, colleges should consider the value of SAT-optional or even doing away with the test.

    But as long as the ACT and SAT remain part of college admissions, it should be understood that test prep alone won’t be enough to eliminate racial disparities in standardized test scores.

    http://theconversation.com/test-prep-is-a-rite-of-passage-for-many-asian-americans-107244

  • Overemphasizing a Test, Oversimplifying Our Children: An APA Perspective on Specialized High School Reform towards Educational Equity

    The SHSAT is misperceived as an objective, and “colorblind” tool to measure merit. However, an expansive body of research reveals that school screening policies that do not consider race or socioeconomic status do not reduce, but rather contribute to further “stratification by race and ethnicity across schools and programs.”

    […]

    In the field of testing, known as psychometrics, a single measure like the SHSAT violates the universally accepted norm and consensus in favor of multiple measures.[19] Having a single-test as the admission policy in no means takes into account the wide range of diverse experiences of all students and their families in New York City.

    Further, a single measure of a student’s academic potential taken at one particular point in time can be imprecise. Using multiple criteria reduces the risk that a school admissions decision is based on an erroneous measurement. Almost all US academic institutions employ multiple-measure admissions policies

    http://www.cacf.org/

    Archive:

    https://shsatsunset.org/CACF-SHSAT-Paper-201811-01.pdf

    CACF-SHSAT-Paper-201811-01

  • Evidence on New York City and Boston exam schools

    The current admissions approach almost certainly shuts out many gifted, disadvantaged students. When we rely on parents, teachers, or students to make the decision to apply to a program for gifted students (by, for example, voluntarily signing up for a test), evidence indicates it is disadvantaged students who disproportionately get shut out.

    But getting rid of the test is not the answer.  Well-educated, high-income parents work the system to get their kids into these programs. The less transparent the approach (e.g., portfolios or teacher recommendations instead of a standardized test) the greater the advantage these savvy, connected parents have in winning the game.

    An important step is to make the test universal, rather than one that students choose to take. In the dozen states where college admissions tests are universal (free, required, and given during school hours), many more students take the test and go on to college.[8] The democratizing effect is strongest among low-income and nonwhite students. The same dynamic holds among young children: when testing for giftedness is universal, poor, Black and Hispanic children are far more likely to end up in gifted classes.[9]A school district in Florida showed huge increases in the diversity of its gifted programs when it shifted to using a universal test, rather than recommendations from parents and teachers, to identify gifted students.

    Rather than force students to take yet another test, New York could use its existing 7th– and 8th-grade tests to determine admission to the exam schools. These tests are, in principle, aligned to what is taught in the schools and so are an appropriate metric by which to judge student achievement.  When so many are complaining about over-testing, why have yet another test for students to cram and sit for?

    The city could go further toward diversifying the student body by admitting the top scorers at each middle school to the exam schools. Texas uses this approach to determine admission to the University of Texas flagships: the top slice (originally 10%, now lower) of students in each high school is automatically admitted to these selective colleges. This ensures that Texas’s elite colleges at least partially reflect the economic, ethnic and racial diversity of the state’s (highly segregated) school system.

     

    https://www.brookings.edu/research/evidence-on-new-york-city-and-boston-exam-schools/

  • Exam High Schools and Academic Achievement: Evidence from New York City

    Publicly funded exam schools educate many of the world’s most talented students. These schools typically contain higher achieving peers, more rigorous instruction, and additional resources compared to regular public schools. This paper uses a sharp discontinuity in the admissions process at three prominent exam schools in New York City to provide the first causal estimate of the impact of attending an exam school in the United States on longer term academic outcomes. Attending an exam school increases the rigor of high school courses taken and the probability that a student graduates with an advanced high school degree. Surprisingly, however, attending an exam school has little impact on Scholastic Aptitude Test scores, college enrollment, or college graduation — casting doubt on their ultimate long term impact.

    This was done in 2011, but still important peer-reviewed research.

    http://www.nber.org/papers/w17286