by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 29, 2016 | Blog, Issues in Education
The following guest post was written by a friend and colleague who teaches at a large, selective New York City public high school. Over the last several years, her descriptions of the changes wrought by various new technologies, the imposition of Common Core, and an increasingly byzantine evaluation system that effectively punishes teachers for teaching, have provided me with an illuminating glimpse into some of the more alarming changes the public school system has recently undergone (and continues to undergo), and piqued my interest in understanding how standardized testing fits into the secondary landscape as a whole. I have found her insights invaluable, and I invited her to write this two-part series because I thought that it was important that those insights be shared with a wider audience.
Twice a year, during parent/teacher conferences, I get to meet you. I get a fascinating snapshot of your families, and what my students convey to you about my particular classroom. During these brief moments, I often wonder how much you really understand about how differently your children’s educational experience is from your own. Today, I would like to clarify how profoundly different it is.
Perhaps you read the educational pages of national newspapers. There you will find desperate appeals to revamp education. Some of the themes you see are as follows: (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 28, 2016 | Blog
All of the major grammar concepts tested on the Sentence Correction portion of the GMAT, complete with examples: https://thecriticalreader.com/complete-gmat-sentence-correction-rules/
They are also available for download as a pdf.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 24, 2016 | Blog, The New SAT
In my last post, I took the College Board to task for its boast that its partnership with Khan Academy has led to a 19% decrease in the use of paid prep, presumably defined as classes or tutoring, although the College Board fails to specify. Aside from the questionable basis for that statistic (exactly how was it obtained? what were the characteristics of the groups surveyed? how were the demographic changes incurred by the adoption of the SAT as a state test taken into account?), I do think it’s worth exploring the question of just how the new SAT might affect the tutoring industry.
For what it’s worth, I’ve heard from a number of tutors that their business is actually up this year, although those tutors tend to work with students for whom free, online prep is borderline irrelevant anyway.
I’m also aware that most experienced tutors are pushing their students toward the ACT for the foreseeable future. If there was indeed a drop in paid SAT preparation, it was almost certainly in some part due to students paying for ACT preparation instead.
What interests me here, however, is the assumption that students will be the ones driving the changes.
But what if it goes the other way as well? What if it turns out that tutors don’t want to prepare students for the new SAT? (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 20, 2016 | Blog, The New SAT
The following passage is excerpted from a recent College Board press release: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/one-year-since-launch-official-sat-practice-on-khan-academy-is-leveling-the-playing-field-for-students-300278934.html.
A year ago today, Official SAT® Practice for the new SAT went live on KhanAcademy.org, making free, world-class, personalized online practice available for all students. There are now more than 1.4 million unique users on Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy — this represents four times the total population of students who use all commercial test prep classes in a year combined. Data show that the practice platform is reaching students across race, ethnicities, and income levels — mirroring the percentage of SAT takers. Almost half of all SAT takers on March 5 used Official SAT Practice to prepare, causing a 19 percent drop in the number of students who paid for SAT prep resources.
Which of the following would most directly undermine the College Board’s assertion that the number of students using Official SAT Practice was responsible for the 19 percent decline in the number of students paying for SAT prep resources? (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 15, 2016 | Blog
Students on College Confidential are again reporting that they received recycled exams, but this time for the ACT. The entirety of the June 2016 test was originally administered in February 2015.
A colleague of mine has also confirmed that Form 72F was administered on both dates.
Apparently, there was a recent five-year period during which the ACT consistently recycled tests, but then the practice was halted. Obviously, it’s now been revived. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 7, 2016 | Blog, Issues in Education, The New SAT
Manuel Alfaro, a former executive director at the College Board, has written a series of posts on LinkedIn detailing the myriad problems plaguing the development of the new exam.
According to Alfaro, not only were many of the items developed for the first administration of the test extraordinarily problematic (see below), but many of the items that appeared on the test were not actually reviewed by the Content Advisory Committee until after the test forms had been constructed.
Committee members repeatedly attempted to call David Coleman’s attention to the problem, but were ignored. (more…)
