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1/So if you read this NYTimes op-ed from a few days ago, you might have been taken aback by this line. "Half of kids have an A- average?? Kids these days! Schools these days! Where are the standards?" https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/opinion/coronavirus-test-optional-sat.html
2/ So I wondered, could this possibly be true? Do half of high school students end up with an A- average at least? (tl;dr: no, almost certainly not)
3/The first thing to note is that the Times piece links to a Quartz story, which links to an Inside Higher Ed article, which cites a book chapter. Good luck tracking this stat down.
4/Fortunately I have a pdf copy of this book ( https://www.amazon.com/Measuring-Success-Testing-College-Admissions/dp/1421424967), which was edited by researchers connected to the College Board. Here is the graph, where this statistic comes from.
5/So the stat seems to check out, right? But hold on. Could it possibly be true that no students get below a C average? Where is this data coming?
6/Turns out the data is from self-reports of students who take the SAT each year. This has at least three big problems.
7/
i) SAT takers do not represent all high school students, not even close.
ii) Students may self report higher grades than their actual grades ( https://www.jstor.org/stable/3516080?seq=1)
iii) It's not clear how grade weighting (e.g., extra points for honors classes) is accounted for
i) SAT takers do not represent all high school students, not even close.
ii) Students may self report higher grades than their actual grades ( https://www.jstor.org/stable/3516080?seq=1)
iii) It's not clear how grade weighting (e.g., extra points for honors classes) is accounted for
8/Fortunately in the same study, the authors briefly look at a much better data set that accounts for all of these issues (based on a transcript review of a nationally representative sample).
9/So the average GPA of the high school of 2013 was 2.65. This same study also shows that just looking at SAT takers is a skewed sample. And we also know that the self reported GPA of SAT-takers that led to the Times stat was 3.38. Very far off!
10/There is absolutely no chance that half of high school students have an A- average if the the average GPA is ~2.65. This stat cannot be right, and Times op-ed page should correct it.
11/Finally, why does this matter beyond the fact that's frustrating to see false info in the Times?
12/12 The short answer is that this fake stat feeds into a concerted effort to claim that high school GPA is increasingly unreliable and benefits privileged kids. But the evidence for this claim is quite thin. Start here https://www.chalkbeat.org/2019/9/10/21121872/the-college-board-says-it-s-tried-to-reduce-inequity-in-college-admissions-a-new-book-argues-it-hasn or read @paultough's book.
