(more from that same email exchange–on a roll, right?)
My correspondent and I were discussing whether kids today were “as well educated” as kids a generation or two ago. I suggested that the drop in standardized test scores paradoxically suggested the “average” educational level of the country was rising because people who’d never even tried to take SAT’s (for instance) fifty years ago were now in the legitimate pool of test-taking. My friends asked, “Yeah, but are they taking the same tests?”
Who knows if they’re taking the same test or not? As I have little use for standardized tests myself, I don’t really care that much. I’ve looked at old Harvard admissions exams from 80 or 100 years ago, and while there’s much on that test that our kids couldn’t answer (especially in greek and latin), there’s much they know and can do today that kids applying to Harvard a hundred years ago weren’t expected to know. So, I really think it’s apples and oranges. Yes, kids today know fewer of the “old things. ” But our students do know many more things beyond the old things.
To take just one example from an area in which I both teach and have developed the curriculum…. We certainly never had kids doing Differential Equations at St. John’s when I was there. The highest calculus course was the AB course, and a friend of mine and I had to come in for extra work at lunchtime second semester for the teacher to prepare us to take the BC exam! So, certainly at the top end, our kids are “better educated” now.
And you’ve already admitted education is more widely spread, so I won’t dwell on that point.
The only real question (to me) is this elusive idea of “are kids ‘on average’ better educated now than in 1971, when I graduated from HS (to pick an arbitrary date)?”
My first thought was that the only legitimate answer to that question is that “we don’t know.” But on reflection, I think “the question is so poorly posed as to be almost meaningless” would be nearly as good. There’s no generally accepted method of measuring “how much kids know of what they should know”–if there were, even in this country, we’d have a national education system instead of fifty state ones. I personally don’t think standardized tests measure much beyond specific content and skills knowledge–AP’s–and ability to do well your first year at college–SAT’s. Obviously, many people disagree with me, and you may be one who does.
But I believe that taking the “average” standardized test score (you pick the test) over a country as large and with as many different educational systems and subpopulations as the United States tells you almost nothing, even if you like the test. The standard deviations are bound to be huge.
Further, I don’t care what statisticians say, no matter how large the sample size, tiny differences are only “significant” according to the fairly arbitrary criteria of statistical analysis, not in terms of things that make a difference to people: can I get a job more easily? Can I do better in my job if I get it? Can I live a better life? Can I be a better person? And all those questions are ones that “a good education” is supposed to help with.
So, to answer your question about “are people better educated now than a generation or two ago,” I don’t think there is any answer except in a very restricted domain of certain kinds of standardized testing. And I personally don’t feel those domains tell you much. I prepare kids to do well on standardized tests because they’re a huge part of our culture. And in some areas, they’re better than nothing (medical boards, for instance). But my students would get better AP scores and yet not be as creative or as resilient if I taught more to produce good test takers and less to produce thoughtful human beings. So far, I have balanced the two aspects well enough to avoid having been fired. LOL