This comment was posted in response to SATisfied:
The SAT has it’s own set of issues, including cultural bias towards middle class whites.
I have always assumed that to be true but I had a suspicion that looking at the data would show us even more.
| CAMPUS | % WHITE STUDENTS | % ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED | SAT AVERAGE SCORE |
| Silva Health Magnet | 6.2 | 53.4 | 1034 |
| Coronado H S | 18.5 | 41.9 | 1007 |
| Franklin H S | 17.4 | 38.7 | 979 |
| Burges H S | 6.4 | 70.1 | 976 |
| Chapin H S | 16.3 | 61 | 954 |
| Anthony H S | 2.6 | 100 | 934 |
| El Paso H S | 6.6 | 74.4 | 909 |
| Montwood H S | 5.7 | 55.9 | 883 |
| Irvin H S | 4.5 | 86.9 | 881 |
| Austin H S | 5.6 | 80.6 | 877 |
| Americas H S | 9.7 | 58.3 | 876 |
| Eastwood Hs | 2.5 | 58.4 | 874 |
| Jefferson H S | 1.2 | 90.3 | 865 |
| El Dorado H S | 6 | 69.6 | 858 |
| Socorro H S | 3.5 | 85.7 | 856 |
| San Elizario H S | 1.2 | 90 | 851 |
| Fabens H S | 0.8 | 90.2 | 849 |
| Horizon H S | 3.5 | 93.8 | 846 |
| Mountain View H S | 1.4 | 90.6 | 842 |
| Canutillo H S | 4.4 | 71.2 | 833 |
| Clint H S | 4.1 | 78.5 | 831 |
| Bowie H S | 0.3 | 96.4 | 826 |
| J M Hanks Hs | 1.5 | 67.7 | 823 |
| Andress H S | 14.6 | 61.6 | 818 |
| Bel Air Hs | 0.3 | 79.7 | 809 |
| Tornillo H S | 0.5 | 93.5 | 801 |
| Del Valle Hs | 0.4 | 88.2 | 789 |
| Parkland Hs | 3.1 | 76.3 | 774 |
| Riverside Hs | 0.3 | 87.1 | 750 |
| Ysleta Hs | 0.5 | 87.9 | 739 |
I am not disputing the statement. It is still probably right. Something else is also going on here. Look at Andress with one of the “whitest” student populations and one of the lowest SAT scores.
Then look at Anthony with the fewest “white” students, and with 100% of their enrollment classified as economically disadvantaged.
Something is wrong at some of these schools.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Brutus,
Of course, you are looking at a single snapshot in time with this data and a single year does not a trend make. More interesting (and more powerful) would be a 5 year look, or a 10 year look at SAT scores at these campuses.
No matter the data, it is becoming more and more clear that the single biggest determining factor of student success is their home socio-economic status. Plain and simple, no matter what any school reformer or “education pundit, or politician for that matter, says, if a child lives in poverty, that is an albatross around their necks that is almost impossible to overcome. So really, if ANY El Paso area school that is a Title I campus is successful, we should be celebrating, because they are beating the odds.
Here is a recent article that talks about how poverty and school success are interwoven: http://www.salon.com/2013/06/03/instead_of_a_war_on_teachers_how_about_one_on_poverty/
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I totally agree with the socio-economic factor, which also often speaks to the the quality or absence of parenting, etc. Your point reminds me of the National Realtor Association commercials promoting home ownership. These commercials say that “research” shows that kids whose parents own homes perform better in school. What they don’t say is that kids who live in rented apartments, etc., do not perform as well because of the socio-economic factors you reference. It’s shameful for the realtor association to try to take credit for higher grades and to impose guilt on those parents whose economic circumstances do not allow them to purchase a home.
The other dirty little secret is the correlation between the growth in private schools and the deterioration of public schools in many communities following more widespread desegregation in the late 1960s. As more and more parents placed their kids in private schools because of desegregation, many school systems lost community-wide support and concern for quality public education diminished. Those whose children and grandchildren were in private schools no longer cared about what happened in the public schools.
Unfortunately, a lot of people fail to realize that poor public education and low graduations rates, etc., contribute to unemployment, which leads to increased crime and greater dependency on government aid. They think that because their kids are not in public schools, public education doesn’t affect them. That kind of logic just proves that they themselves are neither smart nor kind.
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I think that Mr. Holt, an EPISD employee, was off base with his allegation that the SAT test has a “cultural bias towards middle-class Whites”. Not all Whites, mind you, but middle-class Whites specifically. Mr. Holt should try selling that idea to the middle-class White kids across the country who get less than great educations in their own public schools and then fail to score highly on the SAT. Do they get to complain that the SATs are biased toward private school kids from upper income households?
If Mr. Holt is going to allege racial bias, he has an inherent obligation to explain how the SAT biased toward middle-class Whites. I don’t doubt that SAT has its faults, but is the SAT truly biased towards middle-class Whites or are the low scores in El Paso an indication of a lack of assimilation, a lack of commitment to education, or just a poor job on the part of many local teachers? Increasingly, English is becoming the second language in El Paso. It’s understandable that Hispanics might score lower on English-based standardized testing if they fail or refuse to develop good English language skills.
As an educator, I think Mr. Holt does everyone, himself included, a disservice by inferring racism and suggesting that middle-class White kids alone are being treated preferentially in SAT testing. He is “teaching” his peers and El Paso students to see themselves as victims of racial injustice. The truth of the matter is that there is an unwillingness among many (not all) students, parents and educators to take responsibility for their own actions or inaction, successes or failures. Welcome to our Weak New World.
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Do this simple Google Search: “SAT and Race Bias”
See what happens.
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http://www.texastribune.org/texas-education/public-education/is-poverty-the-key-factor-in-student-outcomes/
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http://hjb.sagepub.com/content/15/3/342.short
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I did not say anything about their education. I said that the test was biased. Test bias can be as simple as asking a question that a white student would have a better chance of answering than a minority student. Try this out for size: http://her.hepg.org/content/8465k88616hn4757/
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“The test has been blamed for widening the achievement gap between whites and minorities. While the math section is objective, the critical reading section and writing section describe topics associated mostly with the white demographic. Often the passages are about subjects that white, upper class students are more exposed to. The verbal section favors white students by using language with which they are more familiar than non-white students.”
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http://hepg.org/her/abstract/769
In this article, Maria Veronica Santelices and Mark Wilson take the debate one step further with new research exploring differential item functioning in the SAT. By replicating Freedle’s methodology with a more recent SAT dataset and by addressing some of the technical criticisms from ETS, Santelices and Wilson confirm that SAT items do function differently for the African American and White subgroups in the verbal test and argue that the testing industry has an obligation to study this phenomenon.
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SAT Bias Towards Race: Harvard Education Review: http://hepg.org/her/abstract/769
Does the SAT have Racial Bias? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/25/sat-system-needs-reform_n_853518.html
It’s the Opportunity Gap Stupid: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/opportunity-gap-stupid-article-1.1340946
Poverty is a bigger cause of Student failure than Teacher Quality UT Texas Study http://uteachweb.cns.utexas.edu/sites/default/files/BrokenEducation2011.pdf
Woud you like more?
Frontal EEG/ERP correlates of attentional processes, cortisol and motivational states in adolescents from lower and higher socioeconomic status
http://www.frontiersin.org/Human_Neuroscience/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00306/abstract
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