A Virginia Reader On The Decline In SAT Reading Scores
10/04/2012
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From: Vincent Chiarello (e-mail him)

The Washington Post has once again provided additional information about the educational repercussions in a system in which large numbers of students are from non-English speaking homes. This time The Post reported on the dramatic decline in SAT scores nationwide, in which reading scores declined to a 40 year low in the high school class of 2012.

The dirge-like report also stated that, “The average score on the writing portion of the exam was 488, down nine points since that subject was first tested in 2006. Math scores were flat, compared with 2011.”[SAT reading scores hit a four-decade low, By Lyndsey Layton and Emma Brown,: September 24, 2012]

NPR’s Claudio Sanchez also detailed the disastrous results, and Senor Sanchez noted: “A fourth (of 1.6 million who took the test) did not grow up speaking English at home.” Then, as expected, he added: “But, overall, according to the College Board which commissions the SAT’s, 6 in ten test takers are not prepared for college level work. Our nations’ future depends on the strength of our educational system. When less than half of kids who want to go to college are prepared to do so, that system is failing.”[ 2012 SAT Reading Scores Lowest Since 1972, by Eyder Peralta, September 24, 2012]

The journalists reporting these events must be aware that the same College Board has also devised SAT tests that are far less difficult and demanding than they were in the past; yet, the results clearly indicate that they are unable to achieve the ends they seek.

Why? The Board’s conundrum is readily explained: As long as you continue to have significant numbers of non-English speaking students in classrooms, or large percentages of those in which English is not spoken at home, those numbers will continue to fall.

The passage of the Immigration Act of 1965, the 1986 amnesty of millions of illegal aliens, the non-enforcement of current immigration law, and the continued failure to secure our borders have brought far too many from the Third World into the country, many of whom are either illiterate or uneducated.

For those at The Post, or Claudio Sanchez at NPR to think otherwise shows you just how much our educational system has failed.

Chiarello is a retired Foreign Service Officer whose tours included U.S. embassies in Latin America and Europe. See Vincent Chiarello's previous letters to VDARE.com.

 

 

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