Reason Sat Test Decline

New York City's Most Elite Public Schools Are Officially Overrated

The intense competition for seats at New York City's top public schools does not appear to be justified, according to a comprehensive new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research .

The study looked at the effects of an education at one of New York's three oldest "exam" schools -- Brooklyn Technical , Bronx Science and Stuyvesant High School -- and found that students who attended those schools made only modest gains on state and national standardized achievement tests.

The study concludes:

The results reported here show only scattered test score gains due to an exam school education , even for students with relatively high baseline scores.

Because the exam school experience is associated with exposure to high-achieving peers and a decline in the relative standing of successful applicants in comparison to peers, these results weigh against the importance of peer effects in the education production function.

The outcome that appears to be most strengthened by exam school attendance is the 10th grade ELA score, a result that appears to be driven by gains for minorities.

We also find evidence of SAT score gains for a subset of 9th grade applicants, but not enough to boost SAT scores significantly overall.

The high achievers in oursamples clearly have good outcomes, but most of these students would have done well without the benefit of an exam school education .

It also puts some of the blame for the sterling reputations of the exam schools on parents:

The heavy rates of oversubscription for exam schools together with the lack of broad achievement effects suggests that parents either mistakenly equate good peers with high value added , or that they value exam schools for reasons other than their impact on learning.

New York City's three elite public schools have some of the toughest admission rates in the country; of the thousands of eighth graders who sit for the admissions exam each year, fewer than one-sixth are offered seats, according to the study.

Reason Sat Test Decline - News


New York City's Most Elite Public Schools Are Officially Overrated
New York City's Most Elite Public Schools Are Officially Overrated

The results reported here show only scattered test score gains due to an exam school education, even for students with relatively high baseline scores. Because the exam school experience is associated with exposure to high-achieving peers and a decline



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10-Q: PRINCETON REVIEW INC

The Company was founded in 1981 to provide SAT preparation courses. Today, based on our experience in the test preparation industry, we now believe that we are among the leading providers of test preparation courses for most major post-secondary and



ABA Faces Diversity Dilemma With Proposed Change to Law School Standards

The school responded by accepting students with higher credentials, but the percentage of black students began to decline as the average Law School Admission Test (LSAT) scores rose. That experience highlights the dilemma now confronting the ABA.




Yet, during the same time « mundoilogico.com

Yet, during the same time period, SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) test scores fell from 954 to 896, a decline of 58 points or 6 percent. In other words, student academic achievement (as measured by SAT scores) dropped at the same time that class sizes got smaller.

Eric Hanushek, a University of Rochester economist, examined 277 published studies on the effects of teacher-pupil ratios and class-size averages on student achievement. He found that only 15 percent of these studies showed a positive improvement in achievement with smaller class size, 72 percent found no statistically significant effect, and 13 percent found a negative effect on achievement.

It seems to go against common sense that student academic achievement could drop with smaller class sizes. One reason this happens in public schools is that when class sizes drop, schools have to create more classes to cover all the students in the school. Schools then have to hire more teachers for the increased number of classes. However, public schools across the country are already having trouble finding qualified teachers to fill their classrooms.


Reason Sat Test Decline - Bookshelf

The Test score decline, meaning and issues

The Test score decline, meaning and issues

"The SAT is both supplemental and incremental, and can effectively improve ... no firm conclusions can be drawn about the reason(s) for the score decline. ...

The paradoxes of high stakes testing, how they affect students, their parents, teachers, principals, schools, and society

The paradoxes of high stakes testing, how they affect students, their parents, teachers, principals, schools, and society

First, a decline in SAT test scores was highly publicized. ... A special panel concluded that the decline in SAT scores had two causes. ...

National standards in American education, a citizen's guide

National standards in American education, a citizen's guide

Therefore, no one can be certain how the test-taking population changed at the ... They disagree both with those who see the SAT decline as a victory for ...

Psychological testing, an introduction

Psychological testing, an introduction

The Settings educational system, the observed decline in SAT scores from year to ... These hypotheses cover such reasons as inadequate teacher training, ...

Religion, education, and academic success

Religion, education, and academic success

The ETS divided up the causes of the achievement test score decline into two ... two reasons to think that compositional changes impacted SAT scores: (1) ...

Everyday News Directory


A Closer Look at SAT Score Declines - The Numbers Guy - WSJ
What’s behind the decline in SAT scores among high-school students bound for college this fall? The scores may reflect “deeper problems with the test ...

USATODAY.com - Troubling dip in SAT scores raises own set of ...
SAT scores show largest dip since '75 | Decline raises troubling questions | New ... One reason, he says, could be that fewer test-takers this year ...

The SAT: Aptitude or Demographics?
The major reason that the benefits are so low is that the SAT provides redundant ... The decline of test scores with age has long been a feature of ...

News: Lower Scores, Fewer Students - Inside Higher Ed
College Board reports largest drops in SAT scores since 1970s as well as a decline in test takers, apparently from low-income groups.

Killing the Messenger: Attacks on the SAT
Between then and 1963, SAT test scores held constant or even increased, despite the fact ... Most analysts of the decline in test scores have concluded that this ...