From: rsmith@strobe.ATC.Olivetti.Com (Russ Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.basketball.college
Subject: Re: Prop 48...
Date: 24 Jul 92 22:56:33 GMT
Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino CA, USA

Gary Newell in response to Jerray's post
> You speak of needing only to know how to write in "proper English" but
>seem unable or unwilling to recognize the obvious bias in that statement
>itself. Whose "proper English" Jerray? Do you beleive that the language
>used by inner-city youth is insignificantly different than that used by
>middle-class youth in suburban areas? How many inner-city blacks do you
>think are on the committees which design the questions for the SAT? How
>many inner-city Hispanics? Native Americans?  I dare say that if an SAT
>test were to be designed around the culture of the low-income, inner-city
>youth, then results on such an exam would be significantly different.


Not that I don't agree with what you are saying regarding cultural biases,
but one important point is missing here. The purpose of both the SAT and
ACT tests is to try to "predict" future performance in college by a high
school student. In your above example of innercity youth taking a test 
designed "around their culture", you are right they would score higher,
but the score would be meaningless as a predictor for college because 
college courses are not designed "around inner city culture". Unless you
want all students to be taught in separate culture groups(which sounds
like segregation to me), you really can't get around the problem of 
students having to adapt and learn the "accepted" form of "proper English".
What would be nice of course is if all cultures were represented in what
we are taught in such a way that a black, white and a hispanic from
different areas would get essentially the same education(or at least
the opportunity). I don't know about you, but I certainly wasn't taught
in school that the American Indians were a proud culture who were 
slaughtered and then relocated by the white man for financial interests.
I learned that the Indians were savages who were "Christianized" by the
more advanced white man, and that many had to be killed to accomplish
this. Most of our history is written from the rich, white perspective
nad so its only natural that whites will "connect" with it and perform
better when it comes to learning and using what they learned on an SAT
test. 

My objection to calling them "culturally biased tests" is that bias
to me suggests its an intentional thing, when its really the result
of how things are. If all cultures were on the same economic level
with the same eductional opportunities, there wouldn't be such huge
differences in test scores.
>in the US, then we need to realize that their "culture" is different than what
>we view as the "norm" or "proper" and we need to measure based on what
>is truly is their norm and what experiences and behaviors are an intrensic
>part of their culture. Unless we do, then we test with a bias which seems to me
>to be normed on middle/upper class white predominantly male america.

Again though, the point of the SAT is to predict college scores, not to
measure intelligence. The two are not the same.
>
>					gln



Russ Smith
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"I want a world where I can eat a sea otter without getting sick!"

Leslie Nielsen in the Naked Gun 2 1/2
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