ABSTRACT

"one can make a good guess about a child's standardized test scores simply by
looking at how many degrees her parents have and at what kind of car they drive."

read the abstract; discuss:

I would agree in my community, usually if parents are "richer" then the student is more exposed to opportunities of SAT achievement eg:)SAT academy, review classes, SAT supplies
my friends want to go to SAT prep classes and or want to take the SAT, but simply say that it costs to much,
also it maybe that, if the parents do not raise as much money as they would like, the students enviorment at home may not be geared towards focusing on tests, but rather on ways of making their children work already.

The school system is just as flawed as back-alley boob job. There are a myriad of reasons, behind the scenes, that those to be considered in that target socio-economic demographic can feel, but may not have the facts, or the voice, to bring to the forefront. A 17-year-old Hispanic male from a household that makes less than $30k/year may be a straight A student throughout his high school career. Despite intimidating test scores, and every intangible needed to succeed at an upper-echelon university, he will be subjected to relying on an alternative means for college admittance that is, more than likely, geared toward his ethnicity. Of course, this is just an example, however, it's an all-too-common occurrence.

Based on the abstract, Rebecca Zwick has presented a possible argument to exploit this very problem and bring, another issue in our flawed education system, to the forefront. It will take a serious overhaul in how the school system is run in America. Would it be better to structure a high school curriculum to that of a smaller university with a more interactive approach to teaching. Perhaps that will be able to bring schools in financially underprivileged areas up to par with, say, wealthier schools and school systems.

Don't worry, we have affirmative action and Mr. Obama will fix everything, including reverse discrimination!

There have been multiple studies done to see the correlation between SAT scores and parent education/income. In some ways it makes sense: the families that rake in the money are usually the people with degrees, and the people with the money can buy the preparation needed to give students such high grades on the SAT. I know from my own personal experience that I would not have gotten such a high score without the preparation over the two years of high school I had, and those classes cost a lot of money.

^Granted, my parents were formally educated, and they both have degrees; I didn't grow up living well. 'Lower middle class' would have best describe our household until I moved out three years ago. I didn't take the SAT prep and my parents were unable to dump cash into those programs. I still was a bookworm, for the most part. I managed to get a 1410 (the old SAT).

I completely agree with you. Even though I may have been part of the higher end in the educational scale, I am still extremely disturbed by the quality of our education in America on all scales - particularly by what and how students are learning. The way I feel about the SATs is that if it is a test meant to "iron out the kinks" in how different grading scales are between schools, ideally, we wouldn't need the test. The fact that one school has such a drastically different grading scale as another school that caters to a different socioeconomic status is a problem in and of itself. There's no reason someone in the Bronx should get a different education that from someone who lives in Orange County. There is far too much at stake here when it comes to education - our country is already extremely anti-intellectual - and it is probably one of the most important issues on the table today.

that is true...
more money = a greater advantage education wise.


but i know a lot of people who aren't wealthy that got nice SAT scores.
i know i did.

yes a kinda agree. the people that have money can afford the resources to do well on that test such as the preparation programs like princeton review and kaplan.

The essay bothers so me so much that they don’t mentioned differences in ethnicities in their introduction. It talked about one point from the introduction in a body paragraph then diversified it to ethnicities differences at the last minute toward the end of the essay.

In conclusion, the introduction generally does not reflect the outcome of the essay.

I'm off-topic, i know.

Everyone who complains about the rich people being able to afford Kaplan and Princeton need to realize what the SAT exam really is about.

Those places don't teach you new things. The exam tests you on things you already know. Basic high school math and grammar and English.

The problem is that the basics they teach aren't equally taught. For the children who come from lower income families, usually go to lower funded schools without the same educational resources as better schools.

Kaplan and Princeton aren't the problems. Their books would serve the same purpose. However, it's the educational system itself that isn't teaching the kids what they need to know. I finished basic algebra in my freshman year of high school while other low funded schools didn't touch algebra till kids' junior year.

public education should be abolished

what the hell? do you mean reformed?

Edited.

i think it definitely has to do with their families educational background. i think that's more the determining factor than money is...it's just that better educational background in parents typically = more money. i don't think money is THE determining factor.

well, it sorta is because that determines where you live i suppose. i would not have lived where i lived if my parents weren't well educated with good jobs. if i hadn't lived where i lived, i wouldn't have gone the schools i went to most likely because i would have been further away from them.

either way, i think parents education is the determining factors. everything else just falls in line after that, money, what kind of area your house is in, ect ect


there's obviously plenty of people it doesn't apply to. i know a lot of people who's parents are less educated than mine, have less money than my family, went to "worse" schools, and they did as well these kind of tests. but yeah, in general, people with more money have the advantage i guess.