SAT Reading and Math Scores Show Decline 4376

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

IMHO the "dumbing down" and educational declines were worst in the 1970s as a result of various social factors*. In the 1980s standards began to rise back.

Keep in mind different insbreastuions evolved in different ways over time in both directions. I know of modest high schools and colleges that became rather vigorous and vice versa.

Today's SAT is tougher to take than in the past due to extra length. I found it to be a person at 3 hours; indeed, in the last hour I got quite sloppy about it. But what if the questions in the last hour were the most statistically significant for the score?**

Today's children who are serious students seem to have a more rigorous middle and high school curriculum than in my day. Academics seem to be taken more seriously in college as well. (I can't comment about less serious students in non-college prep programs).

Part of the "decline" percentage is that more and more people are going to college than in the past, part of a continuing trend since the WW II. Kids who years ago wouldn't have bothered with the SATs now take them. In more recent years, community colleges have expanded with open or modest admission requirements giving far more kids the opportunity for college, again a long time continuing trend.

* Social factors for the 1970s decline included:

1) Legacy from 1960s activism--lower academic requirements, more flexibility, "pbutt fail" grading, "basket weaving" electives.

2) Legacy from teacher union militancy of the 1960s--teachers didn't have to do as much.

3) Decline in discipline in many schools.

4) Newer generation of spoiled kids (second wave of baby boommers born in mid to later 1950s had it easier than the first wave born after the war.)

Around 1980 there was a social backlash to these conditions (coincident with the election of Reagan) and reverses began. Again, this was a gradual process, at different rates in different places.

** I have no problem making endurance part of the testing process; it is after all very much a part of life. Those who can hang on the longest under stress will often do better. However, the test questions at the end, when us mere mortals have faded, should be the toughest.