How Can We Make American Students Smarter?

[Talks Too Much]

While I also hate NCLB, it's not because it caused low SAT/ACT scores. Both tests are curved (based on a standard distribution, hence the median scores having the most recipients), and the reason the average scores are average is because the College Board and ACT, Inc have chosen to curve the tests to make those the average scores.

[davidthefat]

The international average for math is 587 and writing is 510, only the critical reading is below Americans' average. International students are taking the same tests; why are they "better" at it than Americans?

[Talks Too Much]

The SAT and ACT are tests for entry into American universities, the majority of applicants to which are American. The pool of international test-takers is much smaller and far more self-selecting than domestics. Honestly, I'm surprised the average international scores aren't much higher than they are.
In some US high schools, all students (even those not planning on attending college) are forced to take the test, and how motivated do you think they are to do well? They probably skew the numbers a bit.

[Molten]

Smarter how? There are many forms of intelligence in this world. Not all of them are related to books. Some people know language. Some people know math. Some people know people. Some people know other things. When discussing something like this, just be aware that a part of the reason some students don't do well on these tests are because they are busy with other things in life. Perhaps the only way to improve test scores are to remove some of these distractions. They range from troubled neighborhoods to family issues. Any restructuring of the education system will have minimal impact unless you pair it with various programs to directly motivate the individual student. School life and home life both impact the student equally.

Jason

[Karibou]

Originally Posted by Talks Too Much

In some US high schools, all students (even those not planning on attending college) are forced to take the test, and how motivated do you think they are to do well? They probably skew the numbers a bit.

Michigan public school students are required to take the ACT as part of our state standardized testing (MME). Based on my personal experience with my classmates, probably about 1/4 of my classmates took the test seriously (most of them utilizing study aids or taking classes), and the remaining 3/4 couldn't care less. I would bet that the 1/4 who cared scored far higher than those who didn't. I think that part of the problem is that many students don't see reason to score well: it could be that standards are not set in the home, they don't plan on attending college, there aren't social pressures to conform to, they simply don't care about their future yet, etc. If we found ways to improve motivation from a younger age, I'm sure that general education (NOT just test scores) would improve as a whole. Personally, I think that a more applied, personal education (showing students WHY they should know the material that they're being taught, and giving some real-life examples) is one of the solutions.

Originally Posted by sanddrag

First way to fixing education is smaller class sizes. I don't think anyone disagrees with that.

I couldn't agree more. I felt that the learning environment was far better in my 20-student Humanities class than in my 29-student Pre-calculus class. Unfortunately, as school budgets shrink, the size of mandatory couses only grows.

Originally Posted by davidthefat

May be I am just stuck in a bubble of education right now, I consider any ACT score under 30 and SAT score under 2000 as "bad". Now it may shock you that the national averages are significantly lower than I have even heard of anyone getting.

One of my friends initially scored an 18 on his ACT. Another one of my friends scored a 36. I scored a 29. Like a lot of universities, I consider a 23 to 25 to be a good, average score. My high school's averages were very close to the national ones, and our district prides itself on being consistently ranked one of the top in the nation (which I have issues with, but that's not a rant for here). Back to the friends above...they going to a respectable state university as a music major and to Harvard, respectively. What scores are considered "normal" or "good" to a person depends on the social norms in their area, as shown by the differences in our views.

-----

All that being said, I am of the opinion that the ACT is a horrible way of determining a person's education/intelligence, and should only be used for that purpose when other indicators are also being looked at (such as GPA, social concerns, and district-wide numbers).