My son is no genius. All the more reason they have an obligation to do as well by him as they possibly can. They’re teaching the kids that have a desire to learn or at least get decent grades and go on to get degrees and the others are being given lip service.
Not to imply anything on your son…don’t take it that way…
I used to teach college.
There are many politics involving local high schools. These can effect colleges in strange ways.
For example, a high school in the area prided themselves on their students doing well. A large % of their students graduated with a 4.0. Rumor had it that when a student got straight A’s as a freshman, they were put on a ‘list’ (that no teacher could see) and if that student as a Soph-Senior received less than an A in your class (if you are the teacher) then it is assumed that the problem is not with the student…but YOU! Therefore, you are decended on and put on a reform plan to make you a better teacher. If you give less than an A to many more…you are fired for incompetence.
So…the teachers talk. They know who the students are…so they get A’s…no matter what.
When these students apply to the college, they need to take the SAT or ACT plus show competence in English and Math or they need to take remedial classes for no credit. Guess what…many of these 4.0 students get poor SAT and ACT scores and need to take remedial english and math.
I heard the same complaint…how can MY KID get a 4.0 and have to take remedial classes or not get a scholarship? Well…because scholarships are not based on HS GPA but on a more objective standard.
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Another problem is (I also taught a couple years of HS) that if you are a HS teacher…it is much, MUCH MUCH easier on you to be an easy grader. If you are a moderate grader, you will have many people not like you and the community not like you. If you are an easy grader BUT PRETEND YOU ARE HARD…you will be loved.
Many people like to be loved…so…grade inflation. You also get to keep your job. Be too moderate a grader (not even a tough grader) and you will be looking for a job soon.
A state-wide standardize test forces schools to be more honest. You can have your lists and put pressure on teachers to be easy…but when your 4.0’s can’t pass a basic competency test at the sophmore level…then it comes to light that there is a problem with the school.
These same pressures can apply to smaller, local colleges.
If a kid has test anxiety, it’s not like it’s going to present itself only during the AIMS test. If you’ve been freaking out every time you take a test, then get that issue addressed before it’s important to perform.
In my first year of university, I developed terrible test anxiety for one single subject. I couldn’t understand the problem. I was an A student in all my other subjects. And in this class I could write the essays and get a B+, but during the mid-term, my hands were shaking so bad I couldn’t hit the buttons properly on my calculator. I got big fat Fs on the tests. WTF?
“Okay, Cellphone,” I said to myself, “That’s fucked up. Let’s go find out what the hell is going on.” And I went to counseling services to get to the bottom of it.
The problem was that I didn’t actually understand the material. I was an exeptionally good esssay writer, so I could fake it well enough to get a good grade. But when it came to the timed tests when I really, honestly, truly had to demonstrate that I knew the material, I couldn’t perform. I knew I didn’t really understand it. I probably could have muddled through better than the Fs I was getting, but I had so little confidence in my abilities, that I totally choked.
Okay, fine. Problem identified.
Solution: I took the course a second time, with a little bit of additional tutoring and did exercises from a different textbook (the second textbook explained things better, IMHO). I also did far more exercises than was actually assigned in class. Come the mid-term and final I was okay because I was confident that I knew my stuff. (A- and B+ respectively on those tests).
Bottom line: I noticed the problem. I got help. And I didn’t wait until my future was at stake to do it.
Is test anxiety legit? Maybe yes, maybe no. In my case the anxiety was caused because I was aware that I actually did not know the material. When I was sure that I knew my stuff, there was no anxiety.
If you’ve got FIVE chances to take a test and you totally screw it up from some kind of anxiety, then go figure out what the hell is going wrong before you try again.
Wouldn’t an examination of grades vs SAT/ACT scores from a given school serve as an good metric of how well a school is meeting it’s obligations to it’s students?
You’ve never heard of dyslexia?
“In my case the anxiety was caused because I was aware that I actually did not know the material.”
I think we’re all familiar with this scenario.
Yes, but I think the disservice is in passing students along dishonestly and not giving them genuine correction and assistance when they need it. The standardized tests expose the kind of dishonesty and laxity that BlinkingDuck is talking about.
This is the fault of the high schools, not the kids. The kids are essentially being shined on and told they are doing better than they actually are. Your kid could definitely pass these tests if he had a real foundation.
As someone already said, grade inflation may be partly to blame. When teachers are making their classroom tests too easy*, promoting students who are borderline, or making their grading scales wider than the standardized tests, you get students with grades that may look good and keep them and Mom and Dad happy, but then everyone’s shocked when they don’t score well according to more rigorous standards.
*My college level biology teacher this past semester sucked ass. When nearly everyone (except my lab partner and I) flunked his first and second tests because he was such a bad teacher, he simply made the tests easier and easier until at least 3/4 of the class could pass them. The final few tests had 25 multiple choice questions, of which we had to answer 15, and they were on the level of “14. Glycolysis takes place in mitochondria. Is this statement true or false?” and “20. Which of the following would not be capable of performing photosynthesis? a. a bacterium b. a pine tree c. a mushroom d. seaweed e. algae” (actual questions from our “Final Exam”). This was, I repeat, a COLLEGE level introductory to biology for biology majors class. Plenty of people got grades in that class that don’t reflect their current level of knowledge in biology. Same thing happens in high school.
Sure. But if a student is doing well on college entrance exams, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to pass a high school competency exam, by definition. they’re virtually identical in subject matter, IIRC.
Well just under half of them are below average intelligence 
That’s not “anxiety,” though, and if they’ve learned to deal with dyslexia in the rest of thir high school career, they can handle it on a standardized test.
Everything appears to be so black and white in your world. Is there a debate that has a gray area for you? 
I am like you, testing was easy and even fun, but I knew people that were brilliant and knew the material better than I did that would freeze up on tests and not do anywhere near as well as I would. Test taking is a skill in and of itself. Do you not think so?
Jim
Yes, I believe that the President once lamented that tragic statistic.
In other words then the student is the victim of the administration.
I would hope that Schools teach more than Math and Vocabulary. Also, the SAT isn’t required. Non-college bound students have little reason to take it.
I did terribly on the Verbal portion of the SAT. So much so, that when I went to college I had to take a writing exam to see if I needed to take a remedial class. I am very glad they made me do this because the exam showed I’m fine writing with the vocabulary I have. Bad vocabulary != incompetent writing skills. Thank goodness they didn’t just stick me into a remedial class without testing me themselves first!
No, I do not think so. You either know the answers or you don’t. There’s no “skill” involved. My experience both as a student, as a college tutor and as a teacher is that any kid who knows the material can do just fine on a test. I never encountered this alleged phenomenon of otherwise brilliant students who just couldn’t take tests. I call bullshit on that. I think it’s an excuse.
I’m sure you know that stress doesn’t work like that. Standardized test-taking is a skill - one that I was fortunate enough to be good at, and even more fortunately, one I haven’t had to use in years and probably won’t use ever again. It’s a high-pressure situation for the kids and it’s not that hard to understand how they can choke on subjects they are already weak at or unsure of. Test taking is related to intelligence, yes, but I don’t know that it is a reliable measurement of how much a student has learned on any particular subject and I think they should be de-emphasized rather than being given greater and greater importance, as they have been in recent years.
Also, I was sort of amused by the first student’s quote about “I feel like I’m being penalized for something I’m not good at.” Uh, is that wrong somehow? That’s exactly what the situation is supposed to be.
The students and the teachers both. NCLB has aggravated that problem even more.
I guess I can’t see how answering a question requires a skill. You either know the answer or you don’t. I also can’t understand why pressure (I never actually felt this pressure. I can’t ever remember being the least bit nervous about a test) would make somebody not be able to anser a question if they know the answer. If they really do freeze up so much that they can’t remember anything they’ve learned, then I would consiuder that, in itself, to be a cognitive deficiency.
I really fail to understand how a student can get an A in a class and not be able to take tests well. Granted, there aren’t as many “tests” now as there used to be (we had tests every week in math classes, and my son takes about one a month), but if you can’t deal with tests, you’re still not going to pull an A.