{"id":6681,"date":"2023-10-27T14:38:49","date_gmt":"2023-10-27T14:38:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=6681"},"modified":"2023-10-27T14:59:19","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T14:59:19","slug":"media-misses-the-mark-on-latest-sat-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=6681","title":{"rendered":"Media Misses the Mark on Latest SAT Numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/will-law.org\/wisconsin-sat-scores\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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This week, new SAT rankings were released by Nootroedge that placed Wisconsin at the <\/span>top in the nation<\/span><\/a>. This \u201cnews\u201d was used by public school advocates as evidence that Wisconsin\u2019s public schools are still doing a great job, despite the efforts of evil conservatives to undermine them. But is this truly the case?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A key question to consider when comparing states on metrics like the SAT is how many students actually take the test?\u00a0 In Wisconsin, the answer when it comes to the SAT is \u201cvery few.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The 1252 score being touted by some is based on participation from just 2% of Wisconsin students. Indeed, Wisconsin ranks <\/span>48<\/span>th<\/span> in terms of SAT participation<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 In this state, the ACT is far more common.\u00a0 This presents a major problem in garnering anything useful from the data\u2014either positive or negative\u2014because the subset of students who take the SAT are probably not representative of the broader population of students.\u00a0<\/span> Who would still be taking the SAT in this case?\u00a0 Likely students who are considering elite schools in other states\u2014in other words, primarily students from wealthy families or those likely to earn academic scholarships.\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The ACT is a far fairer metric to use in our state. Among the 21 states where more than 60% of students participated in the ACT, <\/span>we rank tied for 5<\/span>th<\/span><\/a> in overall composite score. The top ten states are shown in the Table below. Not bad\u2014but not number one in the nation either as the SAT rankings would suggest.\u00a0 In terms of percentile ranking, this places the state average squarely in the middle at the <\/span>50<\/span>th<\/span> percentile<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

ACT Scores by State (>60% <\/span>Participation<\/span>)<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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As is clear from both SAT and ACT comparisons, the tests are a poor metric for making nationwide comparisons because of variation in the share of students that take each in different states.\u00a0 So what is out there to make these comparisons?\u00a0 The best answer is probably the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), although it is not taken at the high school level which limits it\u2019s usefulness for assessing college readiness.\u00a0 The NAEP is a national test that uses representative samples of students in each state that allow for apples-to-apples comparisons.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In <\/span>an essay last year<\/span><\/a>, I adjusted the NAEP scores for student demographics.\u00a0 On that metric, Wisconsin ranked 20<\/span>th<\/span> in 8<\/span>th<\/span> grade reading and 32<\/span>nd<\/span> in 4<\/span>th<\/span> grade reading. The 4<\/span>th<\/span> grade results are reproduced in the chart below. The state also continues to have some of the largest racial and economic achievement gaps in the nation.\u00a0 While no measure is perfect, this is arguably the clearest picture of where Wisconsin stands.\u00a0 And this is hardly a placement for the state to take pride in.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

NAEP Scores by State after <\/span>Demog<\/span>raphic Adjustment
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Mark Twain once wrote that \u201cthere are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.\u201d <\/span>In our policy work, we pride ourselves on only putting out information that we believe could stand up to the scrutiny of an academic peer-review proc<\/span>ess<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/span>But when people misuse data like some have been wont to do with the SAT results, it <\/span>proves that there is an element of truth in Twain\u2019s claim<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span> It is factually true that Wisconsin ranked first in the nation on the <\/span>SAT.\u00a0 <\/span>But to claim that this says <\/span><\/span>anything<\/span><\/span> about the state of public education in <\/span>the state<\/span> shows someone either misunderstands how this result came about or <\/span>is intentionally<\/span> being<\/span> misleadin<\/span>g<\/span> to <\/span>support the education establishment<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

The post Media Misses the Mark on Latest SAT Numbers<\/a> appeared first on Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/will-law.org\/wisconsin-sat-scores\/ This week, new SAT rankings were released by Nootroedge…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":6683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6681"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6686,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6681\/revisions\/6686"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}