"In Sudden Reversal, Harvard To Require Standardized Testing for Next Admissions Cycle."

The Harvard Crimson reports.

The decision comes in the face of Harvard’s previous commitments to remain test-optional through the admitted Class of 2030, a policy that was first instituted during the pandemic....

"K-12 schools only manage 10 percent of children’s time, and they do it pretty equitably."

"The other 90 percent of nonschool time — early childhood, after school, summer, private extracurriculars, counseling, tutoring, coaching, therapy, health management — masks all the most important inequality of opportunity."

Said Nate G. Hilger, author of "The Parent Trap: How to Stop Overloading Parents and Fix Our Inequality Crisis," quoted in "New SAT Data Highlights the Deep Inequality at the Heart of American Education" (NYT).

"For decades, educators have seen speed as a marker of aptitude or mastery.... But a race against the clock doesn’t measure knowledge or intelligence."

"It assesses the much narrower skill of how well students reason under stress. As a result, timed tests underestimate the capabilities of countless students. New evidence shows that although smarter people are faster at solving easy problems, they’re actually slower to finish difficult ones. They’re well aware that haste makes waste, and they don’t want to sacrifice accuracy for speed.... Although it pays to be quick, it also pays to be determined, disciplined and dependable. Strangely, though, the tests that define students’ grades and help determine their educational and professional fates... evaluate students as if they’re applying to join a bomb squad or appear on 'Jeopardy.' Time pressure rewards students who think fast and shallow — and punishes those who think slow and deep...."

From "The SATs Will Be Different Next Year, and That Could Be a Game-Changer" (NYT).

A time-pressure test isn't really detecting how quickly you can answer questions. Time-pressure can interfere with your concentration and create static that makes you slower than you'd be if you took the test without a time limit. Some people worry about the time and some people don't. Some people hate to be rushed and others find a deadline motivating. Why systematically disadvantage those who are inclined to be careful and systematic and favor those who take risks and shortcuts?

"The containers for milk are always square boxes, containers for mineral water are always round bottles..."

"... and round wine bottles are usually placed in square boxes. Write an essay on the subtle philosophy of the round and the square."

That's an exam question from the standardized college-entrance exam in China, as quoted in "Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic" by Simon Winchester.

"Wisconsin has long been unique in allowing graduates of its two law schools to become licensed to practice law without taking the bar exam..."

"... if they take a required set of courses. This 'diploma privilege' eliminates a significant barrier to entry–the bar exam–which disproportionately affects people from less advantaged backgrounds and historically underrepresented groups. UW Law graduates had a 100% bar admission rate in each of the last two years. Due to an obscure change in the methodology, however, our ranking in the bar admissions metric fell from No. 6 to No. 45 in 2022. We raised this issue with U.S News in November 2022, pointing out that this change unfairly hurts schools in states that provide greater access to the practice of law, but they have given no indication that they plan to fix the problem...."

From "UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN LAW SCHOOL WILL NOT PARTICIPATE IN U.S. NEWS SURVEY," a statement from the dean, Dan Tokaji (at the Law School website).

Do you think Wisconsin is "unfairly hurt" by a methodology that mutes the effect of this unique privilege that our legislature has bestowed on our graduates? 

Notice that there are 2 aspects of this argument against the U.S. News ranking. One is that we're not getting enough advantage from the diploma privilege. The other is that the privilege is especially beneficial to "people from less advantaged backgrounds and historically underrepresented groups," who, it is suggested, tend to have more of a problem passing the bar exam. The idea is that we have the privilege and it should boost our rank because it's helping the right students, the ones whom life has not otherwise privileged. 

Do law professors at other schools agree that Wisconsin should get a great advantage in the rank because of the diploma privilege? Would they like their state to institute a diploma privilege?

"I would hate to give up on my dream of becoming a family lawyer, just due to not being able to successfully handle this test."

Wrote Fariha Amin, "a full-time worker and mother to a 6-year-old son," quoted in "Law School Accrediting Panel Votes to Make LSAT Optional/Legal-education community has been divided over testing requirement and its impact on diversity in admissions" (Wall Street Journal). 

And here's a quote from John White, chair of LSAC’s board of trustees: "This proposal will be highly disruptive. The change won’t be worth it, and we won’t get the diversity we are looking for."

I wonder how he knows... how he thinks he knows.

There's also council member Craig Boise, dean of Syracuse University College of Law: "I find the argument that the test is necessary to save diversity in legal education is bizarre." 

How is it "bizarre"? It's something I've heard for more than 30 years. (I was a lawprof for more than 30 years, and I often served on the admissions committee. I've read many real applications and seen the relationship between LSAT scores and other aspects of an applicant's qualifications.)

The LSAT produces a hard number, and it feels secure to rely on such things. But you can rely too much, and the U.S. News ranking has for decades rewarded schools that rely heavily on this number. The question is who will contribute to the class in law school and go on to do good work, not who did best on one structured, high-pressure test.

"Trump Faces Five Major Investigations. He Has Dozens of Ways Out."

This is a brilliantly displayed series of flow charts, showing so many ways for Trump to win, as figured out by Ankush Khardori.

(Khardori has been a prosecutor at the Department of Justice and has "defended corporate clients against charges of fraud and other crimes.")

I don't know how averse you are to clicking on NYT links — I think nonsubscribers get X number of free reads — but if you were to click on one article a year, this should be the one.  Unless you don't read about politics at all... but then why are you reading my blog? Well, I can see why. My blog is, I think, a good filter for readers who loathe politics. So take my word for it, this graphic display of all Trump's escape routes is damned impressive. 

Anyone who thinks there are so many investigations that something will stop him and he can't make it to a victory in 2024 might lose their mind. How can the law be like this? The Trump pardoning himself outcomes are especially aggravating.

I once did a law school exam question with a fact pattern about a President pardoning himself. It was back in the 90s. Clinton was President.

I've curated 6 TikToks for you this afternoon. Some people love it!

1. Hydraulic press performance art.

2. The difference between your 97% and my 100% is bigger than you think.

3. Why so many toilet breaks?

4. How did women pee in the 18th century?

5. A peasant observes the execution of Anne Boleyn.

6. A heads-up if you're in Saskatchewan.

"About 63% of applicants submitted test scores in the first test-optional year.... Applicants submitting scores were less likely to be female, Black, Hispanic, first-generation and eligible for a Pell grant."

"They were more likely to come from a higher-income neighborhood, have a higher high school GPA, have completed more rigorous high school coursework. Test-submitters were also more likely to apply for majors in science, technology, engineering or math. Test-optional admissions led to an increased volume in applications but didn’t lead to changes in applicant characteristics, such as race or income level, compared to previous admissions cycles."

From "Here’s what early results of UW-Madison’s ACT/SAT test-optional experiment show" (Madison.com).

"Did the entire admission department threaten to quit? Or did the incoming class turn out to be morons?"

An indelicate question, sourced anonymously at Instapundit, inquiring after the new policy announced by MIT admissions: "We are reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles." 

From the policy announcement, there's an excess of delicacy — to the point where you might find it funny or terribly disturbing:

Our research can’t explain why these tests are so predictive of academic preparedness for MIT, but we believe it is likely related to the centrality of mathematics — and mathematics examinations — in our education. All MIT students, regardless of intended major, must pass two semesters of calculus, plus two semesters of calculus-based physics.... The substance and pace of these courses are both very demanding, and they culminate in long, challenging final exams that students must pass to proceed with their education. In other words, there is no path through MIT that does not rest on a rigorous foundation in mathematics, and we need to be sure our students are ready for that as soon as they arrive.⁠

It sounds as though they have a large number of students whom they misled into believing that they could do the work. These students are not morons. Most of us are in no position to jump into fast-paced college physics and calculus! The students I visualize are suffering and properly outraged at the administration for tempting them with an opportunity that they were naive to take. Don't blame the students. Blame the administration. They did it for themselves. That's the right presumption. Now, they're in damage-control mode. 

I'm giving this post the tag "stupid" because of the administration. I don't think any of the students are stupid. They're just at the wrong school because a wrong was done to them.

"The professor, David Berkovitz, who teaches business law... filed a lawsuit against an unnamed group of his students... to force the website, Course Hero, to identify those who uploaded the exams...."

"If successful, Professor Berkovitz plans to turn over the names to Chapman’s honor board.... Because Chapman’s business school requires grading on a curve, Professor Berkovitz is worried that students who cheated may have unfairly caused their classmates who played by the rules to receive grades lower down on the curve.... Course Hero, which is not named as a defendant in the suit, said it would comply with a subpoena...."

From "Hoping to Identify Cheaters, a Professor Sues His Own Students/David Berkovitz, who teaches business law at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., sued an unnamed group of his students — identified only as 'Does' — after he discovered that his midterm and final exams had been uploaded to a popular website" (NYT).

"Making the SAT and ACT Optional Is the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations."

Writes John McWhorter (in the NYT)(adopting a term — "the soft bigotry of low expectations" — that originated with George W. Bush)

I would prefer that we address the value of the tests... after first showing that these minority students... can take standardized tests and do just as well, in the aggregate, as white and Asian American students.... To some, that take may seem backward. But I think of it as progressive, and as a demonstration, I ask the reader to consider: What happened to the idea of “tokenism”?

"'Patently racist': Tucker Carlson under fire for questioning Ketanji Brown Jackson’s LSAT scores /The Fox News host’s call for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s LSAT score is ‘patently racist,’ says one Harvard Law School graduate."

The Independent reports.

I don't know about "patently," but it is racist. I considered saying "insidiously racist," but, on reflection, I'll say it's somewhere on the insidiously-to-patently continuum.

Did we ever discuss any other Supreme Court nominee's LSAT score?

Here's the Carlson quote: "So is Ketanji Brown Jackson — a name that even Joe Biden has trouble pronouncing — one of the top legal minds in the entire country? We certainly hope so … so it might be time for Joe Biden to let us know what Ketanji Brown Jackson's LSAT score was."

It's very easy to say "Brown" and "Jackson," so he's just calling attention to Ketanji. What her parents named her has nothing to do with the nominee's qualifications, so why bring this up in the middle of demanding evidence of her basic intelligence? You don't have to be a genius to see that's racial.

As for "top legal minds"? Since when are Supreme Court nominees chosen from "the top legal minds"? I've never noticed that, and I've been watching the American legal scene for 40 years. In any case, law isn't like math. There's no objective test for law aptitude, and there are plenty of American law school graduates with LSAT scores in the 99th percentile who've never displayed a glint of brilliance. 

But what if we could find the 9 biggest brains in the law field and make a Supreme Court out of them? We might discover they make terrible Justices. And, by the way, I believe that the 9 biggest brains — whoever you are out there, Big Brains! — would refuse to take the job. Too boring. Too restricted. No freedom to rove all over the intellectual landscape.

Let's stop pretending we love the work of the very smartest people. Not in law we don't. We actually prefer something more ordinary. We want focus on texts, adherence to precedent, grounding in practical reality. It's dumb to be an intelligence snob here, and Tucker's posturing is particularly dumb. Virulently dumb.

"In 1958, Michael Young, a British sociologist, introduced the word 'meritocracy,' warning that the widespread use of I.Q. tests as a sorting device would result in..."

".... a new and deeply resented kind of hereditary class system. But that’s not how people came to understand the term. To many, it denoted an almost sacred principle: that tickets to success, formerly handed out by inheritance or luck, were now given to the deserving... In the summer of 1948, Henry Chauncey, an assistant dean [at Harvard] who became the first president of the Educational Testing Service, was stunned to read an article co-written by one of the most prominent Black academics in the country, the anthropologist Allison Davis, who argued that intelligence tests were a fraud—a way of wrapping the privileged children of the middle and upper classes in a mantle of scientifically demonstrated superiority. The tests, he and his co-author, Robert J. Havighurst, pointed out, measured only 'a very narrow range of mental activities,' and carried 'a strong cultural handicap for pupils of lower socioeconomic groups.' Chauncey, who was convinced that standardized tests represented a wondrous scientific advance, wrote in his diary about Davis and Havighurst, 'They take the extreme and, I believe, radical point of view that any test items showing different difficulties for different socioeconomic groups are inappropriate.' And: 'If ability has any relation to success in life parents in upper socioeconomic groups should have more ability than those in lower socioeconomic groups.'" 

From "Can Affirmative Action Survive?/The policy has made diversity possible. Now, after decades of debate, the Supreme Court is poised to decide its fate" by Nicholas Lemann (The New Yorker).

I put that last sentence in boldface because it's so provocative. Take a few seconds to understand exactly what he is saying. It's an idea you do not see expressed too often, because it's experienced as offensive and depressing. The words "any relation" and "more ability" make it a fairly modest assertion, but even in that weakened form, you don't hear it said these days.

"Strangers rank their intelligence."

I'm seeing that this morning because something made me want to read the subreddit "Asian Masculinity: Culture, masculinity & racial identity for Asian men," and I happened across a discussion of that video — "Ray is a good example of Asian Masculinity." Quite a bit of the discussion there is about whether a soft-spoken man can be attractive.

The video itself is quite something — inviting these 6 individuals to judge each other's intellligence and then — as they're sitting in order of supposed IQ — surprising them with an IQ test. Then they're reseated — or not — according to the test results. It was a very funny (and disturbing) situation because they were openly expressing some prejudice while decorously resisting mentioning other prejudice. 

There was some vocal assertion that "emotional intelligence" is part of IQ, but the IQ test wasn't about emotional intelligence, and the strongest booster of the idea of "emotional intelligence" lacked emotional intelligence (I think). 

And the test was taken under ridiculously nonneutral conditions, as they'd all just heard judgments about themselves and were seated right next to the people who'd judged them. Plus they were taking the test on a laptop that was balanced on their knees (or a handheld iPhone) — in front of a camera. That made it partly a test of aptitude for concentrating and keeping calm. I think the laptop-on-knees position would have shaved 10 points off my IQ.

"A Loyola University graduate took part of her bar exam while in labor, gave birth, and then finished her test...."

"Brianna Hill, 28, was taking part one of the two-part test on Oct. 5 when her water broke. The test was administered remotely this year amid the novel coronavirus pandemic... 'I started the second section and 15 to 20 minutes in, I started having contractions,' Hill said. 'I had already asked for an accommodation to get up and go to the bathroom because I was 38 weeks pregnant and they said I'd get flagged for cheating. I couldn't leave the view of the camera. I was determined,' Hill added as to why she didn't stop the exam after showing signs of labor....   After Hill finished day one of the exam, she and her husband, Cameron Andrew, eventually left for West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, Illinois. A few hours later, Hill and Andrew's first child, a boy named Cassius Phillip Andrew, arrived, weighing 6 pounds, 5 ounces. Meanwhile, Hill was still scheduled to finish part two of the Bar the following day, on Oct. 6. Hill said her midwife and hospital staff reserved a private room for her on the labor and delivery floor so she could complete the exam.... 'The whole time my husband and I were talking about how I wanted to finish the test and my midwife and nurses were on board. There just wasn’t another option in my mind.... I took the rest of the test in there and was even able to nurse the baby in between sessions! Obviously, I really hope I passed but I’m mostly just proud that I pushed through and finished.'"

5Chicago reports.

This is what women do. It's nice to get a news story as if this is way off the norm, but I believe this is how women from time immemorial have fit pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and childcare into a life full of other work. (And I'm saying this as someone who went through pregnancy and a C-section in my last year of law school.)

But congratulations to Ms. Hill. I can certainly see how, having studied for the bar exam, she felt determined to get that thing done when the day arrived and not shift to the alternative task of rescheduling and continuing to keep all the minute memories of picky little doctrines alive in her head while she was losing sleep caring for a newborn.

And welcome to the world, little CPA.

"London-based artist Laura Melissa Williams woke up one morning last week to find thousands of messages for her on social media — all from Malaysia...."

"[O]ne of the English comprehension questions [on the teenaged schoolchildren's standardized exam] was about a fictional paraglider called Melissa. The question described the fictional Melissa hitting a storm-cloud - like 'being tossed around in a washing machine' - and having to be rescued from the roof of a farm by villagers. Following the exam, a student looked up the question on the internet, found Ms Williams (whose middle name is Melissa), realised from her social media she was a paraglider - and the hashtag 'The real Melissa' was born... 'I checked with some Malay-speaking friends as I started worrying, I got a bit concerned about any threats - they just said it was mainly immature,' [Williams] said. And then overnight in UK time, Ms Williams found herself the subject of another hashtag: 'Stop cyber-bullying Melissa.'... [F]rom then on, Ms Williams said, apologies had flooded in.... She has since received invitations to go to dinner in Malaysia, offers of gifts, and apologies from school teachers, influencers and the media.... In total, she has now received 210,000 Instagram messages, 30,000 tweets, countless direct messages and she has also acquired 5,000 new followers. 'I now have an army of people as my protectors and standing up for what is right and moral,' she said."

BBC reports.

I get totally sidetracked by the figure of speech in "Republicans are eating our lunch. I want a 2020 Democrat tough enough to eat theirs."

That's a headline at USA Today for a column by Jill Lawrence that I'm not interested in. What new could it say? I don't care. But the headline caught my attention because of the silly expression "eating our lunch" (which isn't used in the column itself).

"Eat your lunch" should not be confused with "have your lunch handed to you." If you "have your lunch handed to you" you are getting your lunch. With "eat your lunch," you're losing your lunch. Ha ha, no. "Losing your lunch" means vomiting. But you know what I mean. If someone eats your lunch, you don't have lunch. You are lunchless. If you "have your lunch handed to you," it means you're shown the door, which means you have to leave. Or did you think that when you are "shown the door," you can stand your ground with pleasantries like, "That is indeed a lovely door"?

Looking up "eat your lunch," I stumbled into this fascinating question that is (supposedly) from the GMAT. Reading it made me remember how much these things are really a test of how well you can control your emotions.

An old Russian proverb says you should "Eat your breakfast alone, eat your lunch with your friend, give your dinner to your enemy." A new school of dietitians would have it, therefore, that missing dinner twice a week actually contributes not only to the patients' weight loss, but also to their general health.

The new school of dietitians' argument is based on which of the following assumptions?

A. While the Russian proverb argues that dinner is a problematic meal, it does not promote forsaking it altogether.
B. Eating dinner with enemies is a sign of reconciliation, which may improve one's health.
C. While eating solids is to be encouraged at breakfast and is permissible during lunch, Dinner should contain only fluids.
D. The Russian proverb states that one should give his dinner to his enemy, so that one never has dinner.
E. Russian metabolism works differently from western metabolism, and therefore while for the Russian the evening meal is merely problematic, the westerner should actually do without it.

Who can do that without the static of distracting thoughts like...

A. They are sadistically posing impossible questions.
B. When do we get to eat lunch?
C. Do I need to go on a diet... maybe this diet?
D. Russians, yes, the Russians are interesting and strange....
E. There are other people who love this sort of puzzle and I'm different, maybe because I'm worse but maybe because I'm better... I'm more of an artist, more like the Russians... Who am I?... Am I fat?...

"AGE 24/'Atlas Shrugged'/BY AYN RAND/'Marvel at the profundity of its objectivist themes — then, in a few years, marvel at your naivete."

From "Books for the ages/The best books to read at every age, from 1 to 100" (WaPo).

The book that caught my eye and that I downloaded from Kindle is the one chosen for age 92:

“Nothing to be Frightened Of”
BY JULIAN BARNES

Don’t avoid the big questions of life and death and faith: Tackle them straight on with help from some of the greatest thinkers.

The one chosen for my age, 68, is something I've already read, “The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion ("Grief can make you feel like you’re losing your mind. That’s normal").

And, no, I've never read "Atlas Shrugged." I tried a little, but I have to like the sentences. I'm a sentences reader.

That reminds me, I wanted to recommend this Malcolm Gladwell podcast that has a lot to say about the kind of people who are slow readers:

The Tortoise and the Hare

A weird speech by Antonin Scalia, a visit with the some serious legal tortoises, and a testy exchange with the experts at the Law School Admissions Council prompts Malcolm to formulate his Grand Unified Theory for fixing higher education.

Gladwell is himself a "tortoise" — a slow reader — and he doesn't like the way his kind are disadvantaged on the LSAT.

A "tortoise"-type reader is not going to do well with "Atlas Shrugged"!

By the way, Gladwell talks about the condition of being a slow reader and a fast writer. I have that too. It's why blogging works well for me. I can find and isolate the sentences I find rich and readable — slowly readable — and I can flow very quickly writing about them. In this light, you can see that this tortoise/hare thing is not binary. There may be tortoises and hares, but there are also "hortoises" and "tares." If it's just tortoises and hares, it might be easy to say, yeah, it's just that some people are smarter than others. But if you see reading and writing (or reading and analyzing) as separate axes, with fast to slow on both, people are more complexly differently abled. Diagram to come....

ADDED: Oh, no, no, no... my idea of a diagram with axes and quadrants is defective. I had to try to draw it to see the problem!



Reading does not progress to writing the way slow progresses to fast. Please suggest a way I can draw this idea!

AND: Allison explained the solution and, with her help, I easily got it right:

Do commenters who ask things like "Does anyone at the Post review these stories before they are printed?" actually read the text they think is so wrong?

Here's the top-rated comment on a Washington Post column by Christine Emba titled "The new SAT score will identify barriers — but it won’t remove them":

Does anyone at the Post review these stories before they are printed?

The author's conventional wisdom comment that "the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT. These schools also tend to be white and wealthy, the ones left standing after a generation of disinvestment in secondary public education that’s been driven by racial self-segregation and poverty." seems to vary from the facts I found on the net.

I didn't spend more than 10 minutes doing some research but this is what I found: Wikipedia indicates that the 2010 Census (latest available) had the US as 72% white. Harvard's latest admitted undergraduate class was less than 50% "white"; Yale undergraduates are 44.7% "white"; and Stanford's "white" population is listed as 37% (although there is a block of "non-resident alien" students that is not broken out by race/ethnicity).

These kinds of statistics which conflict with the author's words, assumptions, and fundamental ides should be addressed in this article.

I've got a fundamental "ide" for you: You misread the text! And so did the many comments on the comment, like this one, laughing at Elba: "Hehehe, the author obviously never spent an evening in the Chem Library at Berkeley." (Here's Emba's profile. She went to Princeton and studied public and international affairs.)

Now, force yourself, you knee-jerk mockers. Here's what Elba wrote:

The graduates of the top 200 elite high schools make up a full third of the student body at the most prestigious colleges: the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT. These schools also tend to be white and wealthy, the ones left standing after a generation of disinvestment in secondary public education that has been driven by racial self-segregation and poverty. Giving less-obvious applicants a chance is well and good, but real equity will take more than an end-stage score adjustment.

"These schools" =  "the top 200 elite high schools." Elba is saying those high school tend to be wealthy and white, not that the Ivy League, Stanford, and MIT are majority white. All she says about those colleges is that they are one third from those high schools. She isn't even saying that the third from those high schools are majority white. The third from those high schools might be Asian-American or something else. Her point is that there are some great high schools that are available to some fortunate young people, and the SAT "diversity" score might give some boost to the young people who didn't get that advantage, but that it might distract us from what's more important: providing better education at the primary and secondary level.