Gen Z college freshmen cannot do 5th grade math

Blame the school system.

WSJ:

Start with A. The UC Board of Regents in 2020 scrapped standardized tests as an admissions requirement under the guise of promoting “equity.” The likely real reason: Blacks and Hispanics score lower on average on the SAT. Requiring applicants to submit standardized tests scores could also make it easier for critics to prove the university is providing racial preferences, which were prohibited by a 1996 voter referendum. The math-proficiency analysis suggests it may be doing so on the sly.
Amid a push to boost diversity and overall enrollment—and thus rake in more government student aid—UC San Diego admitted increasing numbers of unqualified applicants from low-income high schools: “In order to holistically admit a diverse and representative class, we need to admit students who may be at a higher risk of not succeeding,” the report says.
This has done a grave disservice to ill-prepared students, who take longer to complete degrees (and thus accrue more debt) and drop out of more rigorous majors. Few if any students who take remedial math successfully complete an engineering degree, the report notes.

Sounds fishy. SAT scores are skyrocketing. 1350-1500 for many schools that were 100s lower in the 80s and 90s. Maybe some failing schools are bringing the average down for 5th grade math? You aint getting a 4.0 or 1400 on sat without 5th grade math. My kids NHS banquet had like every other kid in the school attending. It was single digits in my day. Public school. 3.8-4.0 GPA is commonplace now.

That’s sad. Bad schools could be improved but Muh illegal immigrants and wars in other countries. Yeah! College scam-ish

It’s the shoes

I don’t know. My kids scored over 1400 on the SAT. I guess they didn’t score as high as I did on the math, but I only missed one question on the math. SAT scores are higher now than when I was coming out of high school. Whether that is a sign of intelligence or just a sign that kids are better prepared for the test is debatable. My general impression of the current generation is there are a number of very bright kids and there are a number of kids who aren’t especially bright who are given good grades because of softer grading standards and more IEPs.

Any other possibilities ever occur to you? Is there anything else at all that might explain “higher” scores?

More international students.

Not sure when you took it. Recentering. Changing scoring and test structure, changing it again. It’s not quite the same test and not the same scoring system. If in fact student abilities (whether those generally, independent of the test, or those specific to performing well on the SAT) were better across the population, then a student at any given percentile would be “smarter” than one at a corresponding percentile from your youth. That appears not to be the case, so percentiles rather than raw scores can more or less indicate student quality from era to era.

Changes to the test, a difference in the nature of college admissions (and the rise in an industry devoted to helping students — especially well-off ones — gain admission), and the greater availability of test knowledge and prep materials (tech, etc) have led to some of the increase in scores, and do a fair bit to explain more clustering closer to the top (because a harder test with more stringent scoring is more likely to differentiate among top performers, whereas this type of test is unlikely to distinguish much between, say, a fairly well-prepared kid with a 160 IQ, a very well-prepared kid with a 145 IQ and and incredibly well-prepared kid with at 135 IQ).

I’d guess that among students with good intrinsic motivation and a solid desire to learn, there are many more very well educated kids graduating high school. There are more advanced classes available to them and many more learning resources.

But absent those kinds of motivation, there’s also, broadly, a lax culture of grading that enables mediocre performers to skate by and think they’re A students. I suppose you’re aware of that.

1995: recentered

2005: changes to the test. The obvious but somewhat superficial one: adding an 800 point written section and having a 2400-point SAT. You could consider the removal of the written part to leave an apples-to-apples written and verbal on the 1600-point scale, but certain question types in both written and verbal were removed (the justification was that the questions did not reflect curricula, but you can imagine the outcome whether one wanted to say they were “too hard” or they “did not reflect curricula”: you would have expected students to have performed worse on such questions, so removing them would be likely to offer a potential boost to scores overall).

2016: changes to test (and scoring?). Elimination of the penalty for incorrect answers.

Colleges and universities in the bottom half are accepting more and more "marginal" students. 18 year old population peaked about a decade ago, and has been steadily declining since. So it's harder to find enough qualified students. Many colleges are downsizing and some have been even closed. But that's still not catching up with the decline in applicants.

You don't see this problem at the top end because the competition to get into those schools is still fierce.

Great news! As a parent of two kids this just means they'll run circles around these dunces in a competitive world. I was growing concerned they'd need to be truly exceptional to enjoy the life of previous generations. But thanks to the lowering of societal expectations for competency, that only makes things easier for them.

And here's another tidbit if you're a parent of kids that might have to "suffer" working hard at a state university thinking those silver spoon kids have it so easy. Look at these numbers from "elite" colleges and the percentages that claim a disability:

- At Brown and Harvard, more than 20% of undergraduates are registered as disabled
- At Amherst: more than 30 percent
- At Stanford: nearly 40 percent

So just raise your kids to be above average academically and not a total pain in the ass in the work place needing all kids of accommodations, and they'll be leaps and bounds more employable!

Possibly. But don't sleep on the fact that kids nowadays can prep like crazy at their finger tips with the internets and prep courses. I don't recall (in the 80s) ever seeing anything that prepared me for the test. No courses or practice tests etc.. My kids are in SAT prep a couple hours per week. They feel the pressure of having to not just get a good score but a great score to be in the pack for top 20 schools. My score would not have gotten me into my college today.

Cute. Of course, the probability remains high that they will outshine others and do well. The higher the concentration of the poorly educated, though, the more fools you’ll have at each level of supervision, development, and assessment.

Cue the pointy-haired boss: to train your kids? Mentor them? Write their performance reviews? Decide whether they deserve a raise or promotion?

Most of those “disabilities” are probably going to be some sketchy adhd diagnosis to get extra time / accommodations on exams, both standardized and normal school ones. When the rates of “disabilities” are highest in affluent areas and concentrated among people scoring higher anyway, it’s a complete sham

insidehighered.com

New scrutiny of patterns in which wealthier students are more likely to get extra time on the SAT

Scott Jaschik

New analysis raises questions about fairness. But is issue rich students getting accommodations they don't deserve or low-income students whose needs are not being met?

Open link

The exam was made easier and scores were recentered…falling SAT scores is a massive problem. Public education has been a failure

Dumb Red states.

Phones.

Video games.

Public education has had many failings. Why, though, do many people bemoan public education by comparing student performance today with student performance from halcyon days of yore (with similar public education structures overall, albeit with differences)?