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SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

nytimes.com

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Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

#841

Post by repolfx »

munmaek wrote: post #830
repolfx wrote: post #825

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sort of fair system would not reward very hard work and study with very high rewards? If Koreans culturally want a life more tipped towards academic achievement, who are we non-Koreans to tell them they're wrong or that their achievements should be invalidated in the name of equal outcomes.

Nobody intrinsically wants it. Nobody wants to go to school and then study until 7,9,11pm. Nobody wants to go to 3-6 private academies after school, every day, in order to study very hard to pass the 수능 college entrance exam. Nobody wants to study to an excruciating degree in order to have a chance to get into one of the top 3 universities, in order to have a good chance of being hired by the top 재벌[0] corporations l…

I think we are maybe discussing slightly different things: you're talking about Koreans in Korea, whereas I had in mind Asians and more specifically Koreans in the western world where they and their children frequently excel relative to native people who work less hard. This is a discussion about the SAT and not the 수능 exam after all.

User intertextuality proposed that maybe the SAT should be adjusted so it "doesn't reward excruciating studying and working systems". My point is that firstly, many people find studying to a deadline to be excruciating so let's dispense with the dramatic adjectives, and secondly, what kind of replacement for the SAT scheme would not reward hard work and study? Would it even be an exam at all? In any conceivable testing regime people who study and work harder to succeed will, on average, do better. That seems fundamental. Without changing it so much it's not an exam anymore, Koreans will seem to have a cultural advantage over other less hard-working cultures and why should they not? In America they are not forced to work crazy hours, by law or the economy or culture or anything else.

It's entirely possible for the SAT to remain exactly as it is, in a way that rewards study, without implying a Korea-style deathmarch cultural ethic.

Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

#842

Post by fuzz4lyfe »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #462
fiblye wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m pretty tired of people linking any sort of complaint, worry, and defense of their rights to white supremacy or whatever hate group. Plenty of people stand up for their rights because they legitimately care about freedom. It’s not all some conspiracy by hate groups to defend themselves.

People also need to get over the fact that on a business platform like Facebook Google, Reddit -- you have no rights (except those spelled out in their editable tos/privacy policy/etc...), None of these entities has ANY legal requirement to give you a platform for hate speech, and has EVERY right to ban said speech. Unless we'd rather the government take over Facebook and have full on communism, and make all these bu…

Are they platforms or publishers? Your ISP doesn't police content in a meaningful way and are immune to legal claims that their service is responsible for same, similarly a newspaper is legally responsible for what it prints due to the fact they have a editor who controls what is published.

Twitter et al. seem to want to have it both ways.

Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

#843

Post by sokoloff »

XMPPwocky wrote: post #660
sokoloff wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes time to enroll in college, I want that savant to go to the best music secondary school that they want to attend. I don't care whether they were "born with it" or "earned it", but I do care that they demonstrate outstanding ability. Not "outstanding ability, after considering factors X, Y, and Z", but simply "outstanding ability".

What is "the best school" here? It must be "the school that will best develop their particular talents", right? Presumably you want them to go to that school so they can produce the best music possible with their abilities, for the benefit of society. The other option I see is that you might want them to go to that school because they have "earned it", but this is silly, especially considering a case where they haven…

The best music school here is the one that they wish to attend. They (and those who advise them) are in a far better position to evaluate the variety of factors that influence that decision than I am, as someone whose only musical instrument ability is a CD player or iPod.

Some music savants want to attend a music school that the composer or musician they most admire attended, others the one that is closest to home.

Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

#844

Post by sokoloff »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #656
sokoloff wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes time to enroll in college, I want that savant to go to the best music secondary school that they want to attend. I don't care whether they were "born with it" or "earned it", but I do care that they demonstrate outstanding ability. Not "outstanding ability, after considering factors X, Y, and Z", but simply "outstanding ability".

And if the savant kid happened to only see a musical instrument for the first time at 10 years old, so that when they took their music entrance exams at 11 years old their performance was very good but not quite at the same level as the other kids who had been learning for 10 years, you would just want to assess all of them on performance at that moment, and choose the kids that had been playing longer because your o…

What if they first touched an instrument at age 25? Well, that person wouldn't get into a top music school at age 18.

It's true that I value demonstrated objective competence rather than subjective predicted future competence.

Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

#845

Post by arkh »

tty2300 wrote: post #811
arkh wrote: post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand though it might be essentially impossible to close the gap between low income and high income students. If this is a goal a society set it is possible. Remove the parents from being involved in their children education. When born, remove the children from their parents and send them to some national education system until they're adults.

They tried that in Australia. Didn't work well.

I may not have been clear. It does not apply only to poor people. All children, from rich and poor parents would have to be raised in the same institutions.

Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

#846

Post by belorn »

qazpot wrote: post #754
robotresearcher wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the feeling, but how about if we rephrase it from another viewpoint: I don’t know why I should be punished because my parents didn’t succeed financially. I work hard in highschool but don’t have extra private tutoring or parents who can help me with calculus homework. I’m hard working and bright but how can I compete with kids from Saratoga High School where everyone’s parents went to MIT/Penn and work a…

> Why does my parents’ achievement have a fundamental impact on my opportunities? Because they are your parents and they will have an impact on your life whether you like it or not, right down from the genes you inherit to the kind of people you hang out with. So yes there achievement will have an impact on your opportunities. What you want can only happen when parents are no longer associated with their children in…

This concept equal opportunities by separating children from their parents is something that Plato explored quite a lot with the concept of the guardians, with some rather absurd suggestions which was likely given as both a commentary on the problem and criticism of the aristocratic society. If I remember right this is a central theme in Utopia.

Philip K dick also had a short story called Progeny with a similar theme, but here exploring it from the perspective of psychology.

Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

#847

Post by okaram »

maceurt wrote: post #767
robotresearcher wrote: post #761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We decide how life works, between us. You want the kids of rich people to win the next generation unquestioned? I think we can do better.

> You want the kids of rich people to win the next generation unquestioned? I am not the person you were replying to, but no. However, the person who wins should be the more qualified person based on merit not based on some standard of suffering. Just because you had a harder environment does not mean you are more qualified than someone with an easier environment.

What do you mean by merit? Ability? Capacity? Effort? Worthiness? Ability at what? Are the SATs a good measure of that?

Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

#848

Post by rlue »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #755
rlue wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. To truly level the playing field requires far earlier intervention (of the sort we see through LeBron James' I Promise initiative), and is entirely beyond the ability of the College Board or even the university system as a whole. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions. > (or adjust the SAT so it is more representative of their actual skills). The problem, as you point out just one sentence later, is…

Why fixate on Harvard? It can only ever serve a few thousand kids. There are hundreds of universities and colleges that can provide a good education and more than a fair shot. The problem isn't a poor kid who graduates from University of Wisconsin or University of Colorado instead of Harvard or Stanford, it is the kid who didn't even graduate high school, can't really read, and isn't prepared to show up at work in th…

I meant “Harvard” as a metonym for desirable/high-status universities. Like it or not, when an employer has to sift through 100 applications for a single vacancy, a Harvard graduate is far more likely to still be in the running by the time they’ve narrowed it down to five.

This matters less the longer you’ve been out of college, but by then, the effect will have made its mark on your resume already anyway.

Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

#849

Post by dwinston »

The SAT is designed and delivered by a private, for-profit company. They are providing additional information that they think will add product value for their customers (schools). Do we want our public schools to continue encouraging/requiring such products?

Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

#850

Post by okaram »

remote_phone wrote: post #478
jachee wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is giving underprivileged people a leg up "punishing" anyone? Privileged people need to start recognizing their inherent pre-rigging of the system. For those in power, equality feels like oppression.

Pre-rigging? I’ve worked my ass off for nearly 30 years, as has my wife. We are both smart and very hard working and it paid off. My roots are middle class at best. My parents are immigrants and were extremely poor as children but they also worked hard and went from poverty to middle class. I’m teaching my children to work hard and be good people and contribute to this world. How pray tell am I benefiting from “pre-r…

They will NOT be at a disadvantage for college; they will still be at an advantage, because of all the opportunities you have given them. They may be at a slightly smaller advantage than now; is that terrible?
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