Response to "Would Shakespeare Get Into Swarthmore?"

What an interesting change to the SAT! Well, I actually never took the SAT because all the schools I applied to accepted the ACT since that is more common in the Midwest. However, I have heard stories of how difficult the SAT can be. From what I just read, it sounds like the College Board just made the SAT even MORE difficult and disappointing. Their ideas are great, but not fulfilling to the students taking the test.

I personally feel they have removed some key concepts from the test that sounded very important to me (like the analogies), although I do approve of the addition of an essay to the test. Writing is essential to college preparation and a measure of one's preparation. Students from my high school who graduated and went to college told the teachers after a year of college that the one thing teachers needed to focus on more was 'writing'. Because of that, In each class we diverted the course plan every once in a while to focus on a writing project or some type of assignment that emphasized the importance of writing in each subject, including Math or Physics. It was pretty helpful.

However, I'm calling it difficult because of the following essays they list on the page from professors who receive '3's, '2's and '1's. Wow, really? They could be just showing us a random selection, and that the majority of the essays they received from educators could be 5s and 6s, but wow! The essay that received a '1' made me laugh. It made no sense whatsoever, although it seemed very thought-provoking. However, if I was only given "1 to 2 minutes each" to look over an essay, I'd give it a '1' also. It was too complicated to understand for someone who is generally looking for a mainstream prompt.

It is disappointing because they are discouraging students from being creative on their SATs. Having no "flair" or rhetorical language in an essay calls for general, typical essays instead. If the prompt is only one to two sentences, how do you expect a nervous high school student to write a well-organized, competent essay if they cannot be creative in the process? It's simple -- I would die. So, while I approve of the addition of an essay question to the SAT because of the emphasis it places on writing, I'm not sure they have the grading concept completely right yet. They should be more focused on making sure the student can address the prompt and derive an idea from it, even if they use rhetorical language and creative strategies to do so. I'm glad I never had to take the SAT!

Higher Education as a National Resource

I found this article to be eye-opening and substantial for the average American college student to evaluate. It helped me understand better our financial standing as an educational enterprise in comparison with our less-than-perfect economy. I found Kerr's claims of recruiting educational leaders who think and work more creatively to be key to expanding both our university and universities as a whole. With our technological advances and nuance ideas, creativity is crucial to the standing of a college in comparison with others around the country. I agreed with the Carnegie Commission's disagreement with block funding for higher education. Federal funding needs to come to students on a personal level with loans and grants. This makes it possible for students to pick their attendance of a university based specifically on what they know they can handle financially. Something needs to be done to continue funding our higher education system. Currently the United States ranks 13th "in the percentage of the population that enters postsecondary education and the completes a bachelor's degree or enters a postgraduate program." We as college students need to fight for our right to attend grad school and make an effort to prove that the United States can in fact facilitate fulfilling undergraduate student's wishes to go on to postgraduate programs.

Government's Role in Higher Education

Towards the end of the article, John Aubrey Douglass says, "Arguably, the federal government has a greater role to play in supporting American higher education that ever before." This reminded me of an e-mail that I received about 10 days ago from the financial aid office. The email explained that the Stafford loans for next year will be disbursed from a government program, Direct Loans, through the Department of Education. The government loans offer guaranteed funding, lower interest rates, and faster disbursement. So even since 2005 the government has made and continues to make significant strides in attempting to assist students with the burdens that accompany higher education. Though they haven't done anything for the snowballing tuition rates, they are attempting to appease some strains.

Higher Education as a National Resource

There were a few main points in this article that I really agreed with. The first was that federal financial-aid should be given to the students directly, not to the institutions themselves. A big factor in choosing where to go to college is money. If universities are the sole recipient of federal grants, the university plays a substantial role in terms of finances and the choice students make on whether or not to attend that university. For example, if the University of Iowa gives a student money and University of Illinois doesn't, even if the student may not like Iowa as much as Illinois, they might go to Iowa because it ends up being less expensive. If the same amount of money that Iowa gave the student was given directly to the student, instead of to the university, that student could have put the money towards going to Illinois instead. Then the student has more control over where they go. If a student wants to go to a certain school, they should be able to put money towards that school instead of having it offered from another school that s/he might not like as much.

The other point I really agree with and support is in the conclusion, where it's written that "colleges and universities, the states, and the federal government all [need] to work together to continue America's great [...] higher education system" (37-38). They all need to contribute, the responsibility and obligation is on all of them. The federal government needs to put their money where their mouth is because they talk about how important higher education is in our society, but have not given the financial resources to actually do it. The state governments should provide more financial aid, and colleges and universities themselves should make attending their school more affordable. Especially with inflation and the recession, all parties need to work towards making a college education attainable for more people. The diversity of public and private institutions is one of America's strengths, now we just need to use them to their full potential to get back in the game.

What does "achievement" imply?

I feel that the actual concept of an achievement gap is not defined very well. This gap is based solely on the differentiation between test scores of white and black students. I do not believe that these statistics alone are strong enough support to generalize achievement levels relative to race. I question what exactly the term “achieving” entails as far as education, intelligence, and race are concerned. In response to Wisconsin being the only state in which the black-white achievement gap was larger than the national average in the tests for both math and reading, I believe that every sample has outliers. I am sure there was also a state in particular that had the smallest achievement gap in comparison to the national average. An average includes all data- highs, lows, and in-betweens. I think there should have been more explanation toward what exactly “doing what is necessary to close these gaps” entails. Regarding the public schools in Milwaukee missing federal achievement targets for five years straight, I feel that Milwaukee is one particular example that does have a high African American population, and it is common knowledge that the Milwaukee Public Schools system is not the best of the best as far as education is concerned. It should not come as a surprise that some of these “achievement targets” fall short, given the environment of Milwaukee. I believe that some of these statistics are not as strong as they could be due to other variables. Correlation does not mean causation. Just because the students are African American and residing in a particular state does not mean their average will be automatically lower than the white achievement scores. The article does not directly say this, but I feel it is basically insinuated, seeing as though no further evidence or support is provided. I don’t think that these studies are being very clear or precise. The sample sizes of student populations are not as comparable or consistent as they could be. I definitely agree with Mr. Smith’s skepticism and statement, “Certain things are consistent: inequitable distribution of teachers, inequitable funding of schools, institutional racism. That is consistent across the board, so if you expect to find a different gap in North or South, you’re not going to find that.”
Personally, I feel as though results from standardized tests are extremely difficult to form strong conclusions on, seeing as though it is challenging to judge exactly what a standard test actually measures. I have taken plenty of standardized tests, and I couldn’t count the number of students who filled in the little bubbles at random so they could be done and lay their head down on their desk until the next part of the test began. Standardized tests are not reputable samples from which to draw conclusions. Many students don’t care about them, because to the student, there is no incentive in which to actually try and do well. In my experience, standardized tests have always been viewed as missing out on class work time as well as a waste of time in general. I agree that certain tests are more rigorous than others, further altering results. The study does not acknowledge open enrollment numbers or other factors that could affect test results. I believe that there is the potential for open enrollment to have a relationship with the achievement gap. Overall, I find it insufficient to form conclusions based upon standardized test results and so called “achievement gaps,” especially with the immense number of variables that affects these claims.

An Interesting Article About Teaching

If any of you are interested in teaching, this is an interesting article about what makes a great teacher. From our in class-writing, it seems pretty clear what makes a bad teacher. However, this article seems to suggest that defining a good teacher is much more difficult.

Useful Links

If any of you are interested in learning more about the achievement gap, here is a link to the study that the New York Times refers to, and here is a link to a study about the 'excellence' gap. Both provide interactive, state-by-state comparisons.