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According to a few sources the number of students taking the SAT declined during and after the pandemic, with an all time peak in 2019, although numbers have been going back up in recent years

College enrollment has also dropped over the past decade

There are a lot of data points to control for, but so far it doesn't look pretty to me

This graph makes the SAT drop look worse than it is

Yes, an example of why dual y-axis plots are problematic (when the variables are not direct mathematical transformations of each other).

And notably, many changes have been introduced to the SAT and SAT scoring over that time. It's unclear to me from the information here how those have been accounted for in the data.

I think it's mostly an illustration of the issue with the "No Child Left Behind" initiative.

Teachers are forced to pass students that should rightfully fail, so the students who normally would be held back or forced to retake a class are taking the test before they're ready.

It's still a bad thing unless people decide to make college free for all people, and at least in the US, the country can't even afford universal health care.

If someone is taking the SAT and getting 1000, they are so much better off going to a trade school and becoming an air condition repair person or learning home repair. Many of those people with 1000 will not graduate college, will not graduate with substantial debt, and will be trying to get office jobs in a country that already has too many people wanting that and not enough skilled people doing physical work.

It's not what people want to hear, but everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Some people are terrible at intellectual things, some people are terrible at things requiring dexterity, some people are terrible with things requiring emotional intelligence.

Another "forbidden topic" that I'll likely get in trouble for (for no reason) is that people who have children at older ages are more likely to have less healthy or even disabled children. There are costs to society of "let's try to have everyone stay in school and delay marriage and children until people's 30s."

Yes, we need to reduce income inequality and food insecurity and make sure everyone has wages that are livable, but the whole everyone gets a trophy thing is bad resource management. Yes, food insecurity and wealth is part of the issue, but everyone has access to a library. 1000 is so low, it's barely doing better than random guessing. Teachers are very happy to help out kids who don't understand things; they often can't motivate students to do anything on their own these days.

If a kid is getting a 1000 on the SATs, there's either no ability or no motivation or some combo, and college will not change that. Advanced schooling should not be encouraged by society for people who can't even understand a tiny amount of the basics.

This graph is actually encouraging and I suspect anyone who cannot process why doesn't have high sat scores.

More people are graduating. People who drop out don't take the sat. Since the sat drops at a slower rate then the graduation rate increases, those previous drop outs are on average better at the sat.

Analysis of this graph could be an sat question.

The number of students taking the SAT peaked in 2019

It’s showing how when the high school dropouts are included the scores drop 150 points

What is your basis for this claim? I don't doubt that's a possibility, but the number of students taking the test both rose and fell over the past decade, with a fairly consistent drop in scores

I think it was 2006 or 07 when they introduced the writing portion of the SAT, which students were broadly unprepared for. I was one of the first go-around. It was... weird?

when a measure becomes tied to your paycheck, you will do everything to inflate that measure as much as possible.

When a measure is used for a 100% target goal, sure.

Many measures, like food safety and reducing workplace accidents, are used as targets but not as 100% targets like with graduation. They set realistic goals.

Graduation being set at any target is counter productive because it never takes into account varying demographics or the fact that not all kids are able to graduate, yet the target is always 100%.

And by not all kids can graduate I mean the ones who could do the work, but cannot in the setting. A few friends from high school dropped out to work full time in tech or got their GED and went on to complete college. They just couldn't handle the restrictive and overbearing public education system.

Before No Child left Behind, schools/teachers were allowed to fail students. After that that 'educational reform' they were not.

Hence why most of our educational metrics go down, while our graduation rate went up. We simply lowered the bar.

It was closer to 1/3rd of students dropping out when I graduated high school, but living in the deep south was also a factor there.

I graduated in 2002 in a class of 600. We were around 800 in 10th grade, which was the start of high school at the time.

Unfortunately your assumptions do not reflect reality. The reality is that the number of students taking the SAT peaked in 2019

Further, the number of students enrolled in college has dropped between 2012 and 2022

I would recommend doing a bit of background research before making a conclusion based on presumptive numbers

If college wasn't such a scam I'd agree with you.

I imagine they're taking the score as a percentage then applying the percentage to 1600 instead of 2400.

But you're right that it doesn't seem to account for changes, either in the test or in the high school curriculum.

Yeah, I think it's a case of schools meeting their metrics by any means necessary, because we shouldn't be seeing reading and math skills dipping while graduation rates go up.

Yes I was wondering if anyone was going to mention them. My partner teaches AP CS classes and the monopoly they have is ridiculous.