SAT Scores

I was curious about SAT scores in blue states versus red states and have found that such comparisons make very little sense. Scores for New Jerseyites were, to my surprise, lower than scores for Mississippians! It turns out that 85% of high school seniors take the SAT in New Jersey, while only 4% of Mississippians do so:
http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/cbsenior/yr2003/pdf/table3.pdf#search=%22sat%20scores%20by%20state%22

I surmise that higher educational opportunities for Mississippians are constrained such that only brighter students take the SAT there while more New Jerseyites consider higher education. In New Jersey, the SAT scores might be a pretty good proxy for the intelligence of the senior class, but not so in Mississippi.

Many of my conspecifics cite trends in SAT scores when they talk about funding for schools or teacer accountability, and they seem to think that throwing money at the schools will lead to higher SAT scores. I doubt this very much since the SAT doesn't measure knowledge so much as it measures intelligence, so no amount of schooling is going to make a stupid senior score well on the test. Mississippi may have the key to increasing scores. By discouraging less intelligent seniors from taking the exam, the state average is increased. If New Jersey wants higher scores, it needs to prevent as many stupid students from taking the test as possible.

Scores ought to be falling nationwide over the years as a greater proportion of students intends to go to college. Back in 1947, only about 5% of the population had a college degree. Now it's close to 25%! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Educational_attainment.jpg Accordingly, falling scores should not be taken as indicative of anything to do with school funding or the quality of teaching. This should not be alarming at all. It is entirely to be expected.

My fellow New Yorkers get SAT scores up in their school districts by raising taxes and the cost of living so much that poorer residents are compelled to move away. Since poverty correlates with lower SAT scores, this has the effect of reducing the number of low scorers in the district. The schools are no better for all the money thrown at them. The students are better. In fact, I reckon that the students in the tonier districts would do as just as well on their SATs if they didn't go to school at all.

I don't know what to make of SAT scores, but I am pretty sure that they don't mean what many of my conspecifics seem to think they mean. A teacher whose students score poorly on the SAT is not necessarily a bad teacher. In fact, his job is probably a lot more challenging than a teacher of brighter students. The correlation between money and SAT scores is, in my opinion, spurious. Wealthy districts have fewer low scorers and tend to throw more money at schools, so the correlation does not mean causation.