Word: algebra
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...School has started again. All across the country, millions of kids are back at it--back to history, social studies, wedgies, noogies, swirlies, wet willies, algebra and purple nurples." JIMMY KIMMEL...
...statistically speaking, a 7-point decline (out of a possible 1600 on those two sections) isn't much. It's less than the value of a single question, which is about 10 points. Also, the SAT was radically changed last year. The College Board made it longer and added Algebra II, more grammar and an essay. Fewer kids wanted to take the new 3-hr. 45-min. test more than once, so fewer had an opportunity to improve their performance. Scores were bound to slide...
Still, there's good news. The central contention of my 2003 story was that the SAT's shift from an abstract-reasoning test to a test of classroom material like Algebra II would hurt kids from failing schools. I was worried that the most vulnerable students would struggle on the new version. Instead, the very poorest children--those from families earning less than $20,000 a year--improved their SAT performance this year. It was a modest improvement (just 3 points) but significant, given the overall slump in scores. And noncitizen residents and refugees saw their scores rise an impressive...
...statistically speaking, a seven-point decline (out of a possible 1,600 on those two sections) isn?t much. It?s less than the value of a single question, which is about 10 points. Also, the SAT radically changed last year. The College Board made it longer and added Algebra II, grammar and an essay. Fewer kids wanted to take the new 3-hr., 45-min. test more than once, so fewer had an opportunity to improve their performance. Scores were bound to slide...
...yourself this question: In the offices of the future, which skill set will today's kids draw upon in their day-to-day tasks? Mastering interfaces, searching for information, maintaining virtual social networks and multitasking? Or doing algebra? I think the answer is obvious. It's a good bet that 99% of kids will never use algebra again after they graduate from high school. And yet thanks to the testing establishment, we know a staggering amount about the algebraic skills of today's teenagers but next to nothing about the skills they're actually going...