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I was under the foolish impression that young people who did well on standardized tests such as the SATs stand a good chance of going to college and working towards a degree. What I didn’t realize is the importance of other exams known as “placement tests.”
In an investigative piece in the new print edition of the Washington Monthly, however, Susan Headden reports on the problematic tests I scarcely knew existed. The editors’ summary of the cover story helps set the stage for a really interesting article:
Every year millions of students sign up to attend community colleges and, after paying a fee, sit down at computer terminals to take “placement tests” which, they are assured, will be used simply to “see where they are” academically. In fact, they are unwittingly taking a test that could end their college dreams right then and there.
Placement tests determine whether students are put into college-level courses for credit or “remedial” classes, for which they earn no credit and from which few students ever emerge. Unlike the SAT, there’s little chance to prep for or retake placement tests, and research suggests they are poor predictors of academic success. But the biggest difference is this: If you bomb the SAT, the worst thing that can happen is you can’t go to the college of your choice. If you bomb a placement test, you effectively can’t go to college at all.
In an illuminating investigative report, Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Susan Headden details how poorly-designed and often-misused placement tests, combined with a dysfunctional remedial education system, block millions of otherwise-capable lower-income students from getting the college educations they need — and what a better system would look like.
Read “How the Other Half Tests” here.
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ab on August 31, 2011 11:25 AM:
"If you bomb a placement test, you effectively can’t go to college at all."
The language here is deceptively alarmist. Some readers might think that the tests are keeping students out of college. Anyone can attend a community college as long as they graduate high school. Take issue with how the placement tests are structured but don't leave students with the impression that if they fail they test they don't get in because that is bullshit.
leo on August 31, 2011 11:35 AM:
After dreck like this from yesterday, I'm a bit reluctant to read articles on higher end on this website.
leo on August 31, 2011 11:36 AM:
"higher ed" of course.
Rick Taylor on August 31, 2011 11:40 AM:
I teach math at a community college in California. This doesn't accord with my experience. Students can take any class they have the formal prerequisites for (typically high school classes). A placement test allows them to take a class they don't have otherwise have the prerequisites for by showing they've mastered the appropriate material. And it is possible to retake a placement test if one does not succeed the first time (though depending on when one takes the placement test, there might not be time to take another before the quarter begins).
I occasionally see a student unable to take a course they could probably handle because they didn't pass the placement exam. It typically means they need an extra quarter taking a more remedial class.
More often, I see students taking math classes when they haven't mastered the skills they need from previous classes to do well. Math is very much a cumulative discipline, each course in the sequence you're taking assuming you've mastered the last.
The statement, "If you bomb a placement test, you effectively can’t go to college at all," is not true where I teach. If you bomb a placement test for a course you were actually qualified for, you can take the prerequisite classes, which you'll presumably find easy, or you can study and take the placement exam again, losing at most a quarter.
dr on August 31, 2011 11:43 AM:
It wasn't quite the same, but I had a similar experience when I transferred to a suburban KC school from Oklahoma in the mid eighties. Even though I had been at the top of my class in Oklahoma, I was subjected to a round of testing, the result of which was that I was denied entry into the new district's honors program or advanced placement classes. As a result, I couldn't compete with my classmates for class rank or GPA. Even though, years later, I got the best score in school on the SAT, I still ended up in a state college with a partial scholarship while my college-track peers were able to get full rides to elite universities.
sick-n-effn-tired. on August 31, 2011 11:44 AM:
Those placement tests (like I took when returning to school in my 30's )only succeed in pointing out the shortcomings of the public education system. The remedial courses are to bring students up to the point where they can take the 101 courses as many are deficient in reading writing and math.
Rick Taylor on August 31, 2011 11:46 AM:
Reading the article, I can see the placement tests their talking about (Accuplacer or the COMPASSa) aren't the one's I'm familiar with. We use our own tests, and their specific to the course you want to enter; so for example there's a placement test for those who want to take calculus without having taken precalculus.
SYSPROG on August 31, 2011 12:03 PM:
This is sorta hard to believe Steve. Both my children took the placement tests at the CC when they enrolled in Running Start, a program to take college classes for free while still enrolled in high school. For them if they didn't place it just meant they needed to continue math and/or english-history in high school and wouldn't be admitted. For people already out of high school it means that they may have to take a remedial class as a prerequisite to taking college level classes. It's for the students own GOOD to know how they place.
Jordan on August 31, 2011 12:23 PM:
When I taught in the CUNY system before open admissions ended in 1999 (as well as afterwards), we used three CUNY-specific tests to place incoming freshman...the WAT, MAT, and RAT (writing, math and reading assessment tests, respectively). The WAT, which I worked on, is hand-scored by two trained readers (mostly adjuncts), and so is quite a bit more involved than Accuplacer sounds.
CUNY has a large ESL population, but the real shocker was the huge number of students coming out of New York's own public schools who couldn't write a basic 5-paragraph essay in recognizable English. CUNY's remedial program is basically forced to try and do what the public school system spends 12 years utterly failing to do for tens of thousands of students.
Point being, a high school diploma is next to worthless, at least here in NYC, for determining whether a student is able to function at even a basic level in a classroom.
Pee Cee on August 31, 2011 12:29 PM:
If you want to eliminate placement tests, then remove the pressure on open-door colleges to have high pass rates. Otherwise, open-door colleges *have* to have some way to ensure that, say, their chemistry instructors don't have to waste instructional time intended for chemistry on things like defining what a percent sign means.
And at any rate, many colleges out there have ways for students to complete remedial coursework quickly. Our college has a mastery-based remedial math program that allows students to work through it as fast - or as slow - as necessary. And we're not the only college in the nation doing things like that.
Having to take remedial math doesn't in any way "end [a student's] college dreams".
DAY on August 31, 2011 12:50 PM:
It's been some time (1960's) since I was in college, but reading these comments reminds me the old computer saw GIGO.
Kids enter first grade a tabula rasa, and leave ready to play "dumb and dumber" Jeopardy- who is is the winner of American Idol, what rapper is the latest murder victim, how do you hack a phone card?
Tune in to "Jersey Shore" to see the results of 12 years of public education.
Way back in the 20th century those folks could follow Fonzi after graduation, and into the factories of America, become the heads of households Billy joel sings about in "Allentown".
But, as Springstein sings, "these jobs are going, boys, and they ain't coming back."
So today they get trapped by the "Institutes" that promise good paying jobs, but all they graduate with is a crushing student loan.
Suckered in with "Learn to be a Welder!", but they missed the math and science classes, where the basics of electricity was taught, and they can't fill out a job ticket, because they missed the classes where reading and writing was taught.
There used to be good "ditch digger"( now done in the air conditioned cab of a backhoe) jobs that paid a living wage, but that was back when
building America was in vogue.
Eric on August 31, 2011 12:58 PM:
Agree with Pee Cee above. I'm an academic advisor at a college which uses a similar remedial math program with great effects for students. Our students can register for regular courses alongside their remedial courses.
This seems like a good middle ground, more remedial than Austin Peay U., granted, but not as restrictive to students' progress as what other colleges may do.
From an advisement perspective, one of the most interesting things about Austin Peay U. is that ALL students are required to take an "intro the the university" type of course their first semester (I looked it up online). I think most professional advisors would agree that this kind of requirement can have big positive effects on student success (at the very least by informing students about withdrawing from a course during the semester before it effects their gpa).
Emma on August 31, 2011 1:55 PM:
I think it depends on the college/university. I attended a small private liberal arts college, and because SAT scores were pretty much the same among incoming freshman, more weight was placed on the placement tests. Which is nerve-racking since, at that time, freshmen didn't have to declare a major so which placement tests do you take? The college I attended also required the essay, the personal interview (which felt like sitting for thesis defense)& during orientation, we had to take writing & math skills tests prior to finalizing class schedule. It worked well for that particular community. Not sure how it would do for a large scale university whose student population is drawn from a wider pool of applicants.
Cynthia on August 31, 2011 2:39 PM:
I have to agree with the earlier commenter "leo" who said that he stays away from higher ed articles on this site. Washington Monthly has an agenda when it comes to higher ed, and everything seems to be designed to promote that agenda (i.e., the promotion of online course material that is distributed by "think tank" type groups that would like to profit enormously, while claiming to be advocates for low-cost education, by standardizing college curriculum across the entire nation).
There is no perfect test. But it's ridiculous to expect the SAT and ACT to be indicators of whether a student will perform well in college-level math courses when those exams aren't measuring the ability of students to successfully complete those courses.
At my university, students have more than one chance to take the placement exam. If a student has an "off" day, it's not the end of the world. But our experience has been that students who don't score well on the Accuplacer (the exam we use) statistically don't succeed in college-level math. I can't remember the exact percentage, but it's somewhere in the less-than-25% range of students who can complete college-level math in spite of scoring poorly on the Accuplacer. So why in the world would we encourage students to sign up for courses where 75% of similarly performing students fail? In addition to remedial courses, we also offer free math tutoring ("live" and also 24/7 online tutoring through smarthinking.com) and non-course-based remediation (computer-based remediation that self-motivated, responsible students can complete on their own time without having to pay for a college course). In the time I've worked with this branch of higher ed, I think that I've seen one student have the discipline to follow through on the non-course-based remediation.
To me, a much bigger concern than the math placement exam is the fact that most students are not able to do basic math. I mean, they don't know their times tables. If they can't multiply 6x7 on the spot, they will have a very difficult time succeeding in college, even outside of math courses. Fractions and ratios are another major problem. Ask any gen chemistry professor about that one.
Now I'll retreat to my regular way of dealing with higher ed articles on this site...pretending they don't exist...
Anonymous on August 31, 2011 8:07 PM:
Is the ''open door'' policy defunct? I didn't know that. I suspected back then it was initiated because academia was terrified of young white and black savages running amok and burning down buildings.
I taught the dreaded Eng.101 at an open door c.c. for a few semesters and thought it worked just fine: ''You pays your money and you takes your choice." The only requirement was Do The Work. So I don't get it ... why the backlash to a simple democratic innovation? Anyone?