Education question--SATs

[crestofwaves]

  In my school district, which is affluent, EVERY kid almost can afford an SAT tutor. Some of the kids are mediocre academically, but with hard work and a good tutor, they can do well on the SAT despite their lack of brilliance in the classroom.

 

 In the inner city, NO kid can afford an SAT tutor.  The SAT is a standardized test, which means the experience should be the same and any fluctuation should be the natural result of the kids' reasoning processes.

 

Should SAT tutors be banned as a tool for helping kids beat the test?

 

Nobody probably cares about this, but if you have an idea about it, I'd love to read it.

 

This country is divided, definitely.  I don't think it's as divided along racial lines as everyone else does.  I think it is divided along socio-economic lines. The poor are different, live different lives, have different goals--like daily survival.  Many black people are poor as are many immigrants, so it looks like a racial divide.  But the black poor and the white and Native American poor have the same dysfunctions.  We need to look at how to level the playing field, and I think education is the key.

Ok.  Off my soap box for today...

[T2Friends]

I like the way you look up on that soap box!  LOL  Seriously I think you make very good points and I agree about the socio economic divide and that education is the key.  But I think the even playing field needs to be started much earlier than the SAT's.  By high school the dye is cast for the most part.  Not that there can't be turn-arounds but if they don't get the basics early in the process it gets more and more difficult as they reach puberty and beyond.  That is why I have always been an advocate of head start and early day care for low income mothers.  Many of those young mothers don't have the ability to provide the kind of enrichment that is a matter of course in more economically stable households.   However, the cost associated isn't necessary politically palatable these  days.  So here is a radical thought, instead of an SAT tudor in every home, how about a baby nanny in every house!  LOL  I am obviously being facetious, but I think it would be money well spent if we could figure out a really good way to help provide good day care and early childhood development support for any family that needed it.  

[Lifesighs]

Our whole higher education system needs to be changed, there should be some way to give the really smart kids a chance to be educated and some of the really rich sub average kids need to find some other way to be who they are meant to be. Since college is a requirement almost like high school used to be we need to stop making the schools rich and give these kids a break without putting them into huge debt. 

I've never taken a Sat test, I continued to go to school and take classes well into my 50's.

[crestofwaves]

Seeing my students who have been all over the world, go to NYC to the theater as regularly as people rent movies from Netflix, eat at fancy restaurants, get internships in courts and hospitals and TV studios and thinking about the kids who have never even been to a real restaurant, ever in their entire lives--such inequity, but money can and should buy those special things. 

 

Education, however, there has to be a way to make it affordable and more equitable for all because it's the only way to pull people out of poverty so that they can do all the things I listed above.

[frenchy]

i guess this is where the ones who made it out of the depressed areas get their chance to give back to the ones who are willin to work for their chance to get out too .. provided they pledge to pay it forward when they get out .. how exactly ?? i'm not sure .. maybe tutor a class of college hopefulls and try and give them all the one on one time they can . and try to get to them by the summer of the 11th grade so they have a half a year to work with them to prepare them .. even earlier if they can .. and the more of them that get out thru education the more they can get out in the commin years .. and so on and so and so on down the line .. we just need someone to light the fire and hope it stays lit .. 

[ProblemAgain]

even if students are able to ace the tests to get into a college, can they afford it? more and more we are becoming an economically immobile society where the movement up the ladder is predicated upon the economic demographic we were born into....sort of like a small southern town in the old days...and a large part of that is the cost of the education...here's a couple visual aids

so when some people talk about how they put themselves thru college back in the day and there is no excuse for the youth to graduate with big student loan debt, they might just be talking without knowledge..and add to that the student loans becoming more expensive and harder to get....thanks congress! after all if they can't make more money by getting a college education, they can't pay more taxes to support the country ...

[crestofwaves]

The system is rigged so that only those who already have the advantages can get more advantages. The rest of the people can just beg for low wage jobs that are part time temp and the slave labor continues at the behest of the corporation.

This SAT thing gets me angry.  It is a STANDARDIZED test, supposedly, except it's more standard for the kids who can afford tutors.

 

[ProblemAgain]

you can kind of picture it as an old sailing ship.....those in the cabins aren't giving up their comforts and advantages to you lot but rather making sure it is easy to pass those comforts and advantages along to their dna...while those in the crew take at least 2 or 3 generations to become cabindwellers even if they manage to break into the economic circle....it isn't often that one of the crew names their child frenchy latoilette the IV like chip and buffy do to carry on their traditions (you want to work on wall street ... step on into daddy's shoes)