Apparently, the highest ability students are not as capable as they once were. There are fewer and fewer students excelling on SAT and other aptitude and achievement tests. Scores in standardized tests have declined in part because a greater portion of the student population, not just the college bound, are taking these tests. Nonetheless, the demographic changes in the test-taking population are not sufficient to explain declining scores at the high end. College professors are reporting that many of their students are not prepared for college-level study.
College students are less able to extract the major ideas from an essay or book.
College reading lists have been shortened to accommodate the poorer reading skills and habits of students. Reduced vocabularies are preventing students from the articulate expression of ideas. Singal believes the culprit is an unwillingness to single out students by ability and the ethos of the 1960s to view achievement as elitist and suspiciously pernicious. If one group is achieving, it must be at the expense of another. Although the research is somewhat fractured, the most recent evidence suggests that ability grouping benefits higher-ability students.