Both Joanne Jacobs and Kimberly Swygert have masterful posts on a new effort to dilute the SAT, an effort motivated in large part by a desire to close the racial gap in test scores.
Robert Sternberg, a Yale prof who is now president of the American Psychological Association, has developed ways of testing for what looks like common sense or ability to cope with such problems as arriving at a party where you don’t know anyone. His tests measure things “other than cognitive ability,” and on them he finds that “kids at community colleges … do as well or better than the kids at Yale.”
Does this mean they should be at Yale?
Sternberg’s test calls to mind Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegone, where all the children are above average. Or even more, the effort to change the selection requirements for the gifted and talented program in the Fairfax County (Va.) schools when Jessie was in elementary school, when a substantial effort was made to add talent in areas such as ballet or music to the “cognitive abilities” then being sought.
One need not believe that giftedness in academic subjects is better or more important than artistic talent in order to believe that testing for “cognitive abilities” is uniquely relevant in selecting students for what was, after all, a program for academically gifted students.
Perhaps Professor Sternberg should move to a community college.
You seem to have an “e” fetish; its spelled Wobegon, not Woebegone.
Great post otherwise!
Who, meeeeeee? But you’re right. I think I knew it was Wobegon, but I like Woebegone better.