The IAEP/NAEP Crosslink Study

The SAT Math Equivalent (SATME)

American blacks scored 17.0 on ACT Composite, which is .8 points lower than Washington, DC, which scored dead last of all the states in both ACT Composite and NAEP Math (17.8 and 231.4 respectively).  Mozambique scored 427 on IAEP which corresponds to 214.1 on the NAEP/IAEP crosslink study. The 0.8 point difference in ACT Composite corresponds to a 17.9 point difference in IAEP, which gives American blacks an IAEP score of 221.1 and a crosslinked score of 211, which is 3.9 and 3.1 points respectively lower than Mozambique. 

South African 8th graders scored 354 in TIMSS Math which corresponds to 225 on the crosslinked study and 234 on IAEP.  This is, respectively, 6.4 and 5 points lower than Washington, DC, and 14 and 12.9 points higher than American blacks.  14% of South African students are Whites, most of whom are from or descended from Whites in the Netherlands, who scored 541 in TIMSS.  Had these Whites not been involved in the test to raise the average scores, South African blacks would have scored 324 on TIMSS, which corresponds to 214 on the crosslinked data, just slightly lower than Mozambique.

This well concealed statistical evidence that federal involvement in education failed both blacks and Whites is proof that this government will do anything to protect its failed programs.  Furthermore, the dramatic difference in test scores between public schools and non-public schools [read: mostly religious schools] is proof that public schools have never recovered from the banning of school prayer in 1963.  There is almost no overlap between the students at the top two percentile of public schools in Louisiana and the lower two percentile of students in private schools in Texas.

Had SAT scores not decreased 98 points since school prayer was banned, the US average would have been in the range of Switzerland and Hungary, but still lower than almost all of the US private schools.  At one end of the spectrum,Taiwan and Korea who never banned school prayer consistently score higher than even our private schools, whereas at the other end of the spectrum, the 900 million pagans of black Africa consistently score at the bottom of the world in all international tests.   That American blacks would score even lower than blacks of pagan Africa is testimony to the colossal failure of the great American experiment known as "multiculturalism", for both blacks and Whites.

Table S23 Mathematics proficiency scores for 13-year-olds in countries and public school 8th-grade students in states, calculated using the equi-percentile linking method, according to Beaton and Gonzales, by country (1991) and state (1990) provides the opportunity to create an "SAT Math Equivalent" (SATME) to grade each country based on 12th grade SAT Math score of each state.  The IAEP:NAEP curve has a linear correlation with actual NAEP scores of public schools by state of r-squared = 0.9363, which provides confidence in the accuracy of this correlation.  But when compared to the NAEP scores of non-public schools by state, r-squared decreases to 0.6583, which raises questions about how accurate the IAEP:NAEP will be with other countries; or with a grade level which represents an age difference of 4-5 years; or with 12th grade TIMSS scores by country; or with the percent of correct answers by country on the TIMSS test subjects for which scores are available.

The problem is an inconsistent deviation between the NAEP scores of public and non-public schools.  The difference in states like North Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island is only 6-12 points, but the difference in states like Texas, Georgia, California, and New Mexico is 20-31 points.  The reason that all states fall into two distinct classes like this is unclear, but it does explain the poor correlation with Beaton/Gonzales.  Since the difference in average math scores between blacks and whites of 28.9 NAEP points is equivalent to 110 SAT Math points, the 31 point difference between the public and non-public schools of Texas is the equivalent of 118 SAT Math points.  In other words, the difference in math skills within one state between public and non-public schools is as big as the difference in math skills between engineering and education majors.

Based on this, it would be expected that the NAEP which tests 13 year olds and SAT Math for 12th graders would not show very high correlation, but r-squared with 12th grade SAT Math scores by state is a surprising 0.8483.  This demonstrates that *within* the US there is a high consistency between states between these two grade levels.  In other words, there is little change in state ranking from 8th to 12th grade in NAEP scores.  The SATME is created from a linear extrapolation of the IAEP:NAEP data and assigns an SAT Math score to each country which is linearly proportional to its IAEP score.  Taiwan, the highest scoring state with an IAEP score of 296.7, is assigned an SATME of 555, and Jordan, the lowest scoring state with an IAEP of 236.1, is assigned an SATME of 445.  R-squared for SATME and 8th grade TIMSS Math scores by country shows the same low correlation which non-public schools show, or 0.5287.  But r-squared between the TIMSS Geometry scores of the 16 countries whose 12th graders participated in TIMSS and their SATME grade is 0.8128, which is equivalent correlation to IAEP:NAEP to TIMSS Geometry (0.8483).  This is evidence that SATME is an accurate way to grade the average math skills of students in each participating country.

TIMSS provides the ability to correlate the percent of correct answers by country to each country's TIMSS score, which in turn enables a correlation to be made between the percent of correct answers in TIMSS math and SAT Math scores.  As would be expected, there is a close correlation between TIMSS Geometry scores and the percent of correct answers on TIMSS Geometry questions.  But there is also a high degree of correlation with probability and statistics questions, and an even higher correlation with calculus questions.  This suggests either that geometry is an important foundational skill for advanced math skills, or that those countries whose schools are good at teaching geometry are also good at teaching other math skills. 

The average r-squared for the 7 math items which show the highest degree of correlation is 0.6675.  You can see from the graphs that SATME predicts the percent of a country's students who can correctly answer Geometry Item J11 to within plus or minus 6.4%, and for Probability & Statistics Item I05 to plus or minus 10%, which is sufficient accuracy for a correlation to SAT Math.  The SATME grade crosses zero percent correct at an average of 404 points, and it crosses 20% correct at 437 points.  If half of these questions were five-answer multiple choice question, and if half of them require a direct answer, then a student who just guessed at these math questions would receive an SATME grade of 420 points.  In other words, these TIMSS questions show that an SAT Math score of 420 is equivalent to zero math knowledge.  Each 1% increase in the percent of correct answers raises the SATME grade by an average of 3 points, so the upper limit of the SATME grade at 100% correct is 720 points.

Copyright @ 2007 by Fathers' Manifesto & Christian Party