THE PROB LEMS OF EDUCATION ARE NOT GE NE TIC 331that this unexpected fi nding can be traced to a fl awed methodology that
tends to infl ate multiple correlation estimates.”^19
At least part of such correlations is a foregone conclusion: to some
extent college exams will be testing the same knowledge already learned
at high school. But part of it will be the mutual refl ection of noncognitive
aspects of exam readiness: social- class- related anxiety levels, self- confi dence,
and self- effi cacy beliefs, all of which are impor tant per for mance variables
(see chapter 3). In other words, not so much “less able”— the usual inter-
pretation of test scores—as less “prepared.”
Th is is why much of the debate surrounding the SAT as a college pre-
dictor has been about its fairness to working- class and female students,
and why it has under gone frequent revisions (the next one being due in
2016). Calling the use of SAT scores for college admissions a “national
scandal,” Jennifer Finney Boylan, an En glish professor at Colby College,
argued in the New York Times (March 6, 2014) that we need to look at the
“complex portrait” of students lives: “what their schools are like; how
they’ve done in their courses; what they’ve chosen to study; what pro gress
they’ve made over time; how they’ve reacted to adversity.” Similarly, Eliz-
abeth Kolbert wrote in the New Yorker that “the SAT mea sures those
skills— and really only those skills— necessary for the SATs.”^20
In sum, the so- called mea sures of potential seem to be of dubious
merit. Just as worrying, however, is that in the conventional school cur-
riculum, children are being cheated out of their futures in more ways
than one. In lacking relevance and the deeper structures essential for
learning, the conventional curriculum actually denies all children the
learning they most need for fuller participation in a demo cratic society.
By relevance, I mean learning how their local and national economies
work, how social institutions operate, the social and technical nature of
economic production and ser vices, how local and national administrations
function, the nature of civic rights and responsibilities, the true nature of
science, artistic creativity, historical movements, and so on. In sum, young
people are being deprived of access to the broader understanding of our
society, of the perspective and vision that comes with true learning, and,
thereby, their true learning powers and development of potential.
Sadly, the “means to an end” mentality is widespread. In her book,
Th e Smartest Kids in the World: And How Th ey Got Th at Way, Amanda
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