More thoughts about the 2015 SAT score decline

Carol Burris weighs in on  the suggestion that the recent decline in SAT scores is due a more diverse pool of test-takers: From the Washington Post: Since 2011, average SAT scores have dropped by 10 points even though the proportion of test takers from the reported economic brackets has stayed the same and the modest uptick in the number of Latino students was partially offset by an increase in Asian American and international students [who have higher than average scores].   And in the year of the biggest drop (7 points), the proportional share of minority students is the same as it was in 2014. So what does the SAT have to say about how to improve scores? Nearly every article on the topic included the same quote from the chief of assessment of the College Board, Cyndie Schmeiser: â€Å"Simply doing the same things we have been doing is not going to improve these numbers. This is a call to action to do something different to propel more students to readiness.† Well, riddle me this one: Does Ms. Schmeiser talk to her boss? College Board chief David Coleman certainly created â€Å"something different† back in 2010. And given that the Class of 2015 had five years of exposure to his Common Core State Standards (of which he was the co-author of the English Language Standards), as well as spending their entire school career in the era of NCLB accountability, it doesn’t look like â€Å"something different† is working very well. Ive been mulling over Burriss comments. On one hand, I agree with her regarding  Common Core (although detractors could argue that five years isnt enough to judge), not to mention her reaction to Cyndie Schmeisers regurgitation of the College Boards Sarah Palin-esque  platitude  du jour; however, I suspect there might be something else going on here. I originally assumed that the changes to the SAT  were designed in part to artificially inflate verbal scores, but now Im beginning to take  an even more cynical tack and  wondering whether  the  scale wont simply be set according to the College Boards desired outcome. If the goal is  to  have evidence  that Common Core is successfully boosting college readiness, then the scale will be set so that average scores rise; if  the goal is to generate more handwringing over American students   lack of college and career readiness, thus paving the way for yet another  another cycle of  reforms, then average scores will be shown to decline. The content, format, and structure of the new test are sufficiently far from the old one that  it will be very  challenging to dispute the (in)accuracy of any concordance scale. The College Board will pretty much have a free hand on this one; as  the only organization to have  unfettered access to the data (or so I would presume), it will be able to manipulate the numbers as it sees fit. Furthermore, any discussion of score changes  in the mainstream media will  almost certainly include the  usual cliches  about more rigorous exams (if scores decline) or exams that more accurately reflect  what students are learning  in school (if scores rise), making any reports there a non-starter. This is pure speculation, of course, but given that were basically talking about the same set of people who slapped together  Common Core and then  formed their own validation committee to approve it  (start at the top of p. 3),  I dont think this is going too far into conspiracy theory territory. Heres the thing thing about evidence: just using  it isnt enough. Evidence, as a Yale-educated Rhodes scholar should presumably understand,  is subject to interpretation. Far from being self-explanatory, even empirical evidence can be distorted  and even fabricated in all sorts of ways especially if the people doing the interpreting are the one setting the agenda. The numbers  will demonstrate  whatever  Darth Coleman (thanks for that one, Akil Bello!) and co. want it  to demonstrate. Because, of course,  they have  a command of evidence.