SAT scores for asians rise
2009 SAT scores have been tabulated and the wsj summarized the results (hat tip to halfsigma).
Average scores for the class of 2009 in critical reading dropped to 501 from 502, in writing to 493 from 494 and held steady in math, at 515. The combined scores are the lowest this decade and reflect stalled performance over the past three years. The reading scores are the worst since 1994.
Many observers Tuesday viewed the flat results of recent years as discouraging in light of a more than 25-year effort to improve U.S. education. “This is a nearly unrelenting tale of woe and disappointment,” said Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank. “If there’s any good news here, I can’t find it.”
au contraire mr. finn, but there is good news…
Asian-American students showed the most dramatic gains. In math they scored an average of 587 — 72 points better than the general population. Since 2008, their average math score has climbed six points.
impressively, asians even outscored whites on the writing section.
the data also broke out scores by other curricula of study and SAT sub-tests taken.
studiers of hebrew avg’d the highest critical reading and writing scores. studiers of chinese had the highest math scores with koreans not far behind. studiers of japanese and latin (huh?) tied for 3rd. this certainly does nothing to dispel stereotypes of jews having high verbal iq and asians having high spacial (math) iq.
here’s what the nytimes had to say on how the scores correlated w/ income and parental education:
The average scores for all three sections of the test directly reflected students’ family wealth. Students from families with an annual income above $200,000 scored, on average, 68 points higher in critical reading than students from families earning less than $20,000 per year, with similar disparities for math and writing.
An even sharper correlation showed up between students’ average scores and the highest educational attainment of their parents. Students whose parents did not graduate from high school averaged 420 in critical reading, 139 points lower than students whose parents had a graduate degree, who averaged 559.
not much help for the environmentalists in the environment vs genes debate.
i also took a quick look at the 2009 ACT data and there asians outperform every major group on every subsection. that means asians scored better than whites on reading, writing and english. i’m kinda surprised by this. it could indicate that the gap between asians and whites on international verbal iq tests is a test flaw rather than a true indication of verbal ability.
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what do you think accounts for the sharp rise in the performance of Asian Americans? another significant wave of immigrants from mainland China and/or S. Korea?
possibly. but the english results seem to imply the asian american test takers are very fluent or native speakers. it might be that there are enough 2nd gen and above asian kids that they overpower any english deficiency that’s associated w/ immigrants. 2008′s ACT results still show asians scoring lower (barely) in reading than whites. the swap occurred this year.
something else this implies is that the english tests aren’t overly tilted toward whites. an old complaint of these tests is that they include english words that only old money white kids would have seen. if asian kids are beating whites in these categories, then the test are either fair or the impartiality can definitely be overcome.
just to provide a counterperspective… i met overseas asians in college that had terrible english but nonetheless aced the SAT through a mastery of test-taking skills.
hmm. yeah, u’re right. i remember meeting one of those types too.
but the SAT data does show how many ppl checked the asian box and how many say their first language learned is english/english & other language/other language. the scores that come out from the ppl that checked the english & other language/other language boxes are lower than the score that come out from the checked asian box.
i totally agree that some foreign ppl can ace these tests w/o english being their native language, but compared to the avg foreign test taker, they have to be outliers. i just can’t imagine typical east asians being able to take the SAT and ace the english sections. unfortunately we don’t have access to the raw data to confirm that suspicion.
one thing i neglected is that “asian” isn’t a homogeneous category. south and southeast asians are included, so we don’t know that the verbal rise isn’t coming from a surge in one of those groups.