Comments on: Employers: Meet Your Sorry Workforce

By: Mneiae

Mneiae — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 03:04:00 +0000

@FunnyaboutMoney
Actually, Mensa begs to differ. I acknowledge that it doesn’t measure IQ directly but Mensa said that it correlated.

http://www.mensafoundation.org/Content/AML/NavigationMenu/Join/SubmitTestScores/QualifyingTestScores/QualifyingScores.htm#college_prep_tests

These are the test scores necessary for membership:
SAT prior to 9/30/74 1300
from 9/30/74 to 1/31/94 1250
after 1/31/94 N/A
From the footnote: N/A

These tests no longer correlate with an IQ test. Note that the acceptance date applies to the date you took the test, not the date you join Mensa. You can still join Mensa by using older scores.

By: Funny about Money

Funny about Money — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 02:23:17 +0000

{sarcasm generator off…} Truth to tell, many more people take the
SAT now than did when scores were consistently higher. Just about everybody needs some college training, and many people who are unprepared for college-level work recognize they could earn more with a four-year degree.

Soooo…. what we have here is a mob of unprepared students who previously could have made an adequate living in the trades or by working their way up the corporate ladder from the mail room, all of them applying for state universities that require the SAT or ACT. And that does tend to push scores down. Then because we sure wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, we get the PC idea to push the scoring system downward.

@ Mneiae: The SAT never measured IQ. Like all academic achievement tests, it measures cultural capital. Many people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds are low on cultural capital but not necessarily on smarts.

By: Terry Pratt

Terry Pratt — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:15:56 +0000

Cool, my combined SAT scores were above 1300. Where do I sign up?

By: Lurker Carl

Lurker Carl — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 13:24:11 +0000

Very interesting article, Rick. Millions of kids dream of becoming a star athlete but few make the cut. Sports experts are a dime a dozen yet don’t have the basic education necessary to make a living beyond flipping burgers or selling refrigerators. Why add a sizable number of young Texans to that pool?

By: Rick Beagle

Rick Beagle — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 10:03:29 +0000

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125150176952368293.html

FAIL

By: Rick Beagle

Rick Beagle — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 07:42:14 +0000

I blame agendas, and parents. My children are expected to get 4.0s, and you can not believe the grief I get from all sides from insisting that they work their butts off to achieve that goal. Parents have become too soft toward their own, but seem to have endless amounts of energy to complain about everything under the sun. If we have failing students, look no further than the parents.

Peace.
Rick Beagle

By: MasterPo

MasterPo — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:44:50 +0000

I think Lurker and Jojo have it right.

Many many many moons ago a kid in HS was tracked to a white collar path or a blue collar vocational path based on the overall view of his scores throughout school. Sure it was a guess, but what did educators have to go on if not school grades?

Somewhere a long the way the usual bleeding hearts and do-gooders cried it wasn’t fair, it was discrimination, it’s racist, every child deserves a chance, blah-blah-blah.

So the focus shifted from giving low grade students real, marketable blue collar skills to doing anything and everything to get them to take SATs and go to college even if they weren’t college material. There’s nothing evil or shameful about being a successful plumber, electrician, mechanic etc. The world certainly needs those too!

But no. Every child has the potential to be a brain surgeon. And has the *right* to try to the fullest to be it. At least that’s what the philosphy is now.

Problem is, by the time it is blaitantly obvious to even a blind man this kid can cut a sandwich at the most years and years and years (and tens of thousands of $$$) have gone by. Now the kid has no skills, no skilled education, is probably rather disheartend and even turned off the concept of getting an education or training, and probably would now scoff at the idea of being blue collar when for years he (or she) was told to aim for college.

So now the kid (now a young adult) works for $9/hr at Wendy’s and is mad at the world.

Gotta love good intensions.