NATIONAL MERIT SEMIFINALISTS IN YEARS PRIOR TO 2014:

   (This article was written in 2006 and then the 'years' have been updated over time.  MM) 

 

The National Merit Scholarship program has announced that there are forty-two National Merit Semi-Finalists from four Katy ISD high schools.  All of these students are to be congratulated for their accomplishment.  

All of these students took the PSAT in the fall of 2005, and their status is just now being announced.  The students are among less than one percent of the Nation’s seniors who have qualified.  They will now be eligible to receive scholarships accordingly as they satisfy additional requirements. National Merit Finalists are announced in the Spring as the scholarships are received.

There are two things that come to mind immediately with regard to these students. 

First, one can be assured that all of these students come from families where academic scholarship was a high priority for their parents and where acquiring knowledge was central to their upbringing.  Their parents spent much time insuring that their children acquired that knowledge.

Second, I’m wondering why there aren’t more of them.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation is quick to point out that “the program honors individuals, and the number of semifinalists in a state or a school cannot be used as a measure of the quality or effectiveness of any educational unit.”  If the disclaimer is true, it is the parents who deserve credit for their individual children’s accomplishments, not their schools.

I’m willing to give the parents the credit that they certainly deserve, but I’m not willing to believe that the schools they attend shouldn’t be helping them to achieve this honor. If we are to assume that only students with teacher-parents can achieve the ultimate level of academic success, what are we to say about the value of the schools that they attend for thirteen years? Notwithstanding the NMSC disclaimer, I DO think our schools are obligated to academically educate students so that many more of them  can become National Merit Scholars.

The schools DO play a role in academic success, but since public schools began their dumbing down mantra in the early 1970’s, they have been neglecting their obligation.

Look, please, at these statistics.  They indicate the year and number of KISD National Merit Semi-finalists.

YEAR  NUMBER OF MERIT Scholars  

 

1986            5

1987                33  (out of 14,800 total students)

1988                6                                                                     
1989                17                                                                   
1990                7                                                                     
1991*              9                                                                     
1992                5                                                                     
1993                7                                                                     
1994                14
1995*              10
1996                17  (out of 26,000 total students)  [SAT and ACT scores decreased in KISD from 1995 to 1996.]
1997                19
1999                12
2000                17
2002                37
2005*                32
2006                42

2007                49

2008                47

 

National Merit Scholarship semi-finalists

Cinco Ranch High School: Joshua Carroll, Sean Cattanach, Joy Chen, Jaimie Chung, Xin Ya Chuong, Rahul Devroy, Oliver Hatfield, Alexander Lee, Yo Li, Siyue Liu, Michael Luo, Thomas Malone, Kevin Meloy, Brett Morris, Jeffrey Nelson, Hans Peng, Rahul Rekki, Leighton Schlanger, Lydia Shen, Boying Shui and Isaiah Smith

Katy High School: William Schievelbein

Seven Lakes High School: Olaluwatoni Alimi, Austin Borden, Megan Brown, Erin Flattery, Lauren Hendrickson, Terry Huang, Douglas Ilijev, Melanie Kong, Sunny Lai, James Lamey, Ao Meng and Rose Thomas

Taylor High School: Connie Chan, Christine Chang, Becky Choung, Dina Consolino, Nicole Cordner, Samantha Darnell, Nikhita Garg, Dhrumil Mehta, Aprameya Mysore, Steven Pan, Rachel Sayers, Hillary Walker and Jeffrey Zhao

 

2009                40

National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

 

2010               40

Cinco Ranch High School: Reinaldo Amendola-Mayorga, Connor Bodkin, Esther Cheng, Aimee Ford, Neddie French, Austin Glova, Kyle Grabowski, Anuhya Jonnalagadda, Min Lee, Linda Liang, Rick Liao, Katherine Saxman and Adam Zhu.

Katy High School: Nicolas Ayllon, Jamie Linden, Danelle Pecht and William Wu.

Mayde Creek High School: Yeon Choe

Seven Lakes High School: John Agnew, Vivian Arabie, John Cheng, Kyle Dorman, Clare Jensen, Sirus Jesudasen, Jiawei Li, Apoorva Mahajan, Kelsey Mayfield, Sara Moore, Samuel Williams, Karen Wylie and Zhen Xu.

Taylor High School: Lynn Gai, Nikhil Garg, Mengyue Gong, Gabriela Hanco, Daniel Hatchell, Jay Murchison, Pooja Prabhakar, Elizabeth Stefanski and Travis Williamson.

 

2011               51

Cinco Ranch High School:   Varun Bora, Amy Chen, Nicole Chu, Johanthan Crookham, Raymond Han, Selena Ilbeig, Ha Jung, Brian Lambert, Tianyi Lie, Yuxuan Liu, Ariana Peruzzi, Rohit Rekhi, Camilo Ruiz, Rachel Stepanek, Matthew STromberg, Amber Wang, Raymond Xu, Kevin Yates, Ge Yu, Bert Shang, EVan Shang and Yiwen Shang.

 

Katy High School:  Kendal DeBoer and Ted Deng

 

Mayde Creek High School:  Mark Jablinski and Bo Suh

Seven Lakes High School:  Daniel Brown, Shannon Cheng, Xuezhen Du, Shelley Fang, Abhishek Garg, John Haley, Melissa LeRoy, Kami Lowery, Rajneesh Nair, Karson Ota, Juhie Vyas, David Wang, Jonathan Xu, Renee Zhan, Ming Zhao and Grant Zheng.

 

Taylor High School:  Ariel Chen, Stephanie Chung, Alexander Hunn, Anse Kwak, Jenna Netland, Elizabeth Neville, James Pinkerton, Henry Wang and Clare Zhang.

 

2012               40  

 

2013               41 

 

2014               37

*Years when the SAT test was dumbed down.

At first glance, it would appear that the increase in numbers indicates that our district has made some progress at times with regard to increasing the numbers of Semi-finalists.

Of interest is the fact that in 1988 there were about 16,500 students in KISD, and in 2005 there are 47,000, in 2013 there are 64,249.

The critical factors that one will not see in any press releases have to do with the changing PSAT/SAT tests.  I contend that without the changes, these increasing numbers would be flat, and that they indicate that we actually have proportionally fewer NMS than we should.

The SAT test was started in 1941.  That test taken by a test population of mostly white males trying to get in to prestigious East Coast schools is not the same as the one students take today.  It has been changed several times over the years in various ways beginning in 1981, then in 1993, in 1996, 2005 and now 2014.  The test is always made easier.

 

The man who heads up the SAT organization (as the president of the College Board, David Coleman), these days was a key figure in developing the Common Core curriculum pushed by the Federal Government, and which our governor, Rick Perry, opted Texas out of--thankfully.

Probably the change of most importance was the “recentering that was done in the  1990’s.  That effort added about 95 points to everyone’s score.  Making the number not an even hundred was part of the deception to make it difficult to compare scores with previous SAT takers. The year before the recentering, 25 students nationwide scored 1600.  The first date the test was administered after the recentering, 137 students scored 1600, which at that rate would have created  959 1600’s by the time all tests were administered. Students can now even miss items and still make the “perfect” 1600!

What difference does recentering make?  For starters it makes it more difficult for Tier I universities to distinguish between the very best and the second best.  That differentiation matters when one is trying to get in to a Tier I school or when the Tier I university is trying to secure the very best students.

Since SAT scores in our country had declined as a whole in the decades prior to the recentering, slapping this ruse on the matter was quite necessary for those whose fault it was for the decline.  College Board officials were quick to pick up on scoring aberrations of the basic skills tests administered by the States and saw how easily-manipulated test scores were used to make students appear successful when they were not.  

Recentered SAT scores were also a way to make those who did not score so well, women, minorities, and the poor, look better.  In using them in this manner, Charles Krauthammer, in an excellent article titled “Fooling With the SAT Scores Won’t Make U. S. High Schoolers Any Smarter,” states that “it is patronizing and insulting” to these groups “to insinuate that they cannot possibly be held to traditional standards of achievement.”  Of course, the spin by those who are failing our children never quite addresses the problem this way. For them making students THINK they have achieved is more important than actual achievement. If educators truly believe that “all children can learn,” then they would not engage in such deception.

According to a report in the Chicago Tribune at the time of the recentering, Benjamin Wright, a University of Chicago education professor, said, “What a crooked thing to do.” Professor Wright is an expert in psychometrics, the science of test construction. “That’s like thinking you can make people taller by using a shorter ruler to measure them with,” he said.

 

My sentiments exactly.

The other changes that have occurred over the years include:

            Students are allowed but not required to use calculators.

            Ten out of sixty questions in the math section require students to produce their own answers rather than picking from multiple choices.

            Applied mathematics and interpretation of data are emphasized more.

            More problem solving math questions are included. (These “problems” have more to do with “process” than with finding accurate and correct answers!)

            The old SAT verbal section had 85 questions to be answered in 60 minutes.  The new one has 78 questions to be answered in 75 minutes.  In the math section, the old test had 60 questions in 60 minutes; the new one is 60 questions answered in 75 minutes.  The PSAT test had 20 minutes added to the testing time. Because of the dumbing down, it was estimated at the time that the women’s scores which lagged behind the men’s by eight points on the verbal and 45 points on the math would virtually disappear in the verbal section, and the math gap would be cut by half. 

            The name of the test was changed from the Scholastic Aptitude Test to the Scholastic Assessment Test - a subtle but meaningful difference if one recognizes the “assessment” term as being of prime importance in restructured (dumbed down) education. Assess means to estimate the value of something or to appraise something--in this case they are assessing whether the students have had their beliefs altered sufficiently and to what degree.  Test means a critical examination or trial to ascertain the degree of knowledge acquired of a subject.

            The section on antonyms has been eliminated.

            There are more and longer reading passages which include meaningless references to politically correct subject matter.

            The questions require students to use words in the context of the passage.

            A writing sample is now required.

            The analogies section of the test has been removed.

Our school district will often announce that Katy ISD students did better than the average student in Texas or the nation.  What they never mention is that Texas over the years has been pretty much at the bottom among the 22 states that use the SAT for college entrance. 

 

When I was a member of the Katy school board in the 1990's, I asked for a list of the figures as I have presented them here by year.  They didn't have one!  It was the same as everything else that would track progress or the lack thereof over time--they didn't want to know what a terrible job they were doing!

 

While the school district touts the fact that 85 to 90 per cent of our students hope to go to college, I am more concerned with the lower 25% of each KISD senior class that perennially score less than 820 on the test.  That number additionally does not include those students who don’t bother to take the SAT because by the time they become Seniors they know they have not learned enough to gain entrance into any college.

 

Our school district has stopped teaching academically and has instead substituted social training.  They grade on the curve; they inflate grades; (Know any kid who doesn’t make A’s and B’s in our elementary schools?)*, they give grades for participation; they give group grades; and they teach process instead of substance. That’s what the SAT has been redesigned to measure.  That's why it is now called an "assessment" test instead of an "achievement" test.  Keep the initials the same, they are cheating.

While being a National Merit Semifinalist means that one is at the top of the heap, the question we should all have is “What constitutes the heap?”

 

*  I once ran into a lady while I was on the school board who questioned my seemingly negative take on the grading system in the Katy schools.  She said, "We moved here because of the schools."  I said, "And what is there about them that you like?"  And she said, "Well, my kids (in elementary school) make straight "A's," and they never did that before, ANYWHERE!!!"  I couldn't think of a thing to say back to her, so I just smiled, and said, "That's good."

 

Since 2012 more students have used and taken the ACT than the SAT.

 

The test has been revised yet again in 2014 and will, I think, affect those taking it in 2015.  It will return to the 1600 total score, among other changes.  Google 'SAT changes' to see what they've changed.  They always manage to make it easier--a result of declining academics in today's public high schools.

 

If your child scores better than you did on the SAT, point out that it's much easier than it used to be!  If you want to see the changes that will be occurring follow this link:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/sat-to-drop-essay-requirement-and-return-to-top-score-of-1600-in-redesign-of-admission-test/2014/03/05/2aa9eee4-a46a-11e3-8466-d34c451760b9_story.html