Jay Rosner: Bias in Testing and College Admissions
Nov 16, 2023
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In this episode, Jay Rosner, an admission testing and test-prep expert, discusses the bias in standardized tests, specifically focusing on the SAT's impact on girls. He shares his career journey and mission in test prep, highlighting his advocacy and activism against these tests. The podcast also explores the involvement of Rosner in affirmative action lawsuits, emphasizing the absence of underrepresented minority students in the courtroom. The chapter concludes by discussing the obsession with elite schools and solvable problems in education.
Girls' performance on the math section of the SAT has historically lagged behind boys', but the disparity has been decreasing in recent years possibly due to the increase in school day testing.
Affirmative action in college admissions, as demonstrated by the SFFA v. Harvard case, plays a crucial role in promoting diversity and offering opportunities to underrepresented minorities.
Deep dives
Persistent disparity on SAT math scores between girls and boys
For decades, there has been a consistent disparity between girls and boys on the math section of the SAT. On average, girls performed a third of a standard deviation lower than boys from the 1990s until 2016. This translates to a 30-35 point deficit for girls on the math SAT. The disparity started to diminish around 2016-2018, possibly due to the increase in school day testing where a significant percentage of students who aren't interested in going to college are required to take the SAT, which may have affected the average scores.
The importance of affirmative action in college admissions
Affirmative action in college admissions is a crucial tool for promoting diversity and providing opportunities for underrepresented minorities. The Harvard case against affirmative action (SFFA v. Harvard) highlighted the effectiveness and benefits of race-conscious admissions. Testimony from minority students supported the use of affirmative action, emphasizing its role in providing opportunities and addressing historical disadvantages. The Supreme Court's ruling in favor of the university maintained the viability and importance of race-conscious admissions.
Critique of legacy advantages in college admissions
Legacy advantages in college admissions, which give preferential treatment to children of alumni, have been criticized for perpetuating inequity and favoring white, wealthy students. The Harvard case also brought attention to the topic of legacy advantages, but it was not extensively discussed. Legacy advantages are seen as a form of set-aside seats for predominantly rich white students. While legacy advantages have faced increasing critique, their continued presence highlights the need for broader discussions on equity and access in admissions.
In today's episode, I sit down with Jay Rosner to explore the realm of standardized testing, discuss fairness in education, and dissect the recent legal battles over affirmative action in college admissions.
BIO
Jay Rosner is an admission testing and test-prep expert based in the San Francisco Bay area. He is the Executive Director of The Princeton Review Foundation, a small nonprofit that provides heavily subsidized, high-quality test-prep programs for organizations serving low- income, underrepresented minority students. His multifaceted work focuses upon fairness in admissions tests, and he speaks and writes about testing as an activist, advocate, expert witness, consultant, researcher, organizer and lapsed lawyer. Jay testified as an expert witness on the LSAT on behalf of minority student intervenors at the trial of the landmark Grutter affirmative action case. More recently, he organized the intervention by individual minority students in SFFA v. Harvard, and had been an ongoing participant in the process leading to the historic 2020 decision by the University of California system to become test free in undergraduate admissions. His research contribution is his non- technical analysis of how test question selection methods subjectively and consistently produce dramatic test score disparities. Jay’s current focus is reducing the discriminatory impacts primarily of the LSAT, and secondarily, of the MCAT and SAT, in order to enhance integration and fair representation. Follow Jay on LinkedIn