by David Safier
I don't have it in for The Star. Honest. It's just when their coverage is slanted or, like today, woefully incomplete, it makes me sad and angry.
Today's examples.
The Star has a story,
Arizona's SAT scores beat national average
It fails to mention why that stat, which seems to contradict our low academic ranking, is actually pretty meaningless.
The Star also has a story,
Ariz. is worst for student loan defaults
The story mentions that most of the defaults are from students at for-profit colleges, but it fails to mention the fact that many of these for-profits are scams which con students into taking large loans for poor education, then the colleges get their money anyway because the feds guarantee the loans.
First, the SAT story.
Anyone who knows anything about average SAT scores knows they are based on a select number of students taking the test. The Republic, which covers the story far better than the Star, notes that in Arizona, only a quarter of our students take the SAT, while the national average is closer to half.
So if only our top 25% take the SAT, and double that many students take it elsewhere, we damn well better have a higher average score than other states.
The reality puts Tom Horne's typically disingenuous statement in its true light.
"This continues to show the positive and powerful impact of our tireless efforts to expand rigor in Arizona's schools," said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne.
No, Tom, it doesn't "show the positive and powerful impact of our tireless efforts." You're lying once again. And I use the term "lying," because you're an intelligent, well educated man who knows better. If the statement came from Ed Supe candidate John Huppenthal, I'd accuse him of mere ignorance.
Next, the student loan default story.
A major part of the story, which the Star leaves out but has been covered extensively recently, is that for-profit colleges, which account for most of the defaults, trick hapless adults into taking out huge loans, filling their heads with the promise of high paid jobs, then offering them sub-standard training, sometimes in fields where there are few jobs even if the students were well trained.
The students are saddled with huge loans they can't possibly pay, and no job prospects. The colleges, meanwhile, get their money regardless of the students' ability to pay because the federal government guarantees the loans. The students are stuck with the debt, the government is stuck with the repayment and the for-profit colleges make out like bandits.
You can find the problem discussed in an article in today's NY Times:
“While for-profit schools have profited and prospered thanks to federal dollars, some of their students have not,” Mr. Duncan said in a statement Monday. “Far too many for-profit schools are saddling students with debt they cannot afford in exchange for degrees and certificates they cannot use.”
Or you can go back to a story that ran in the Republic in March:
But more than default rates, it is the high levels of debt that are provoking alarm among consumer advocates. That has heightened scrutiny of for-profit schools.
[snip]
The U.S. Department of Education is considering stricter rules to protect students. Rising debt loads is one reason. Another is allegations that some for-profit schools are manipulating students into costly programs that don't benefit them. Among other things, the department is looking at requiring all colleges to disclose more information to prospective students and prohibit schools from paying recruiters based even partly on the number of people they enroll. Incentive pay can lead to overly aggressive marketing, consumer watchdog groups say.
Consumer advocates are among those pushing for tougher regulations. They argue that the high tuition and student debt burdens make many for-profit schools a poor value.
This information is easy to find, and it's vital if you want to understand the nature of the problem.
If reporter Becky Pallack hasn't been following this story enough to know the important back story, she either needs to do a google search, which would bring up a treasure trove of information (The Washington Monthly wrote a long, scathing article on the subject: The Subprime Student Loan Racket last December), or call someone who might know why the default rates are so high at the for-profit colleges.
Good work Dave!!
Besides SAT scores being highly (negatively) correlated with percent of students taking the SAT there is another interesting correlation. The closer you are to an ocean the higher the SAT score and the lower the ACT score. Now that some states have moved to requiring one test or the other the correlation may not be quite as strong but it is still easy to explain. The College Board, which publishes the SAT, is based in New Jersey and is a favorite of the Ivy league schools (all in coastal states), the west coast Ivy "wannabes" and some small liberal arts colleges concentrated on the coasts. The ACT is published in Ames Iowa and is a favorite of the big midwestern satae universities. Furthermore, the smartest kids, wherever they live aspire to the Ivys and take the SAT's more frequently than the ACT's.
This is all an example of the dangers and difficulties when one tries to compare states wether it's in the realm of education, crime (discussed eleswhere in the BFA), poverty or other social conditions whose definitions vary from locale to locale.
Bill Astle
Posted by: Bill Astle | September 15, 2010 at 08:18 AM