Folks can sit here and fabricate, pontificate, and generally make stuff up as they go along, but the fact is that the SAT's have radically dropped, beginning in the early 1970's.  The reason for this being is this:  After the federally mandated social engineering was begun in earnest in the mid-1960's, for the next 5 or 6 years of SAT tests were being taken by students who had not been subjected to the educational reforms that were being federally mandated.  Schools in this country were intended to be located in the communities where the children live, with local and community control.  The federal and state governments were to have no control of local education, except to insure that they were funded.  No federal mandates by blackmail such as they now have.  You ask, Blackmail?  Yes, that is exactly what it is and that is exactly how the Federal Government became a proxy dictatorship.  It goes like this, "do what we suggest, or We, The Gov't. Keeps Your Funding."  So, D.C. and it' worthless agencies and departments, such as the U.S. Dept. of (mis-education and propaganda) force communities and states to adopt things that do not align with community standards of decency or anything else.  So, as the federally mandated by blackmail system became firmly entrenched, the local control was lost.  The community schools were lost and kids got bussed to warehouses in strategic locations.  Then, standardized testing got started wholesale.  Any time that you standardize test, you lower the standards.  Over time, the kids got dumbed down to the Lowest Common Denominator, which is a math term that few recent high school graduates know the meaning of.  It is not fault of the kids of today.  It is the fault of this huge bureaucracy that we have created in this country.  As for the SAT scores, yes they have consistently declined since the early 1970' and especially in the areas of reason and logic.  There is a reason for this.  Learning math the old fashioned way with pencil and paper exercises a part of the brain that has to do with reason and logic.  Not just reasoning in math terms, but reasoning and logic generally.  Also, when you use pencil and paper to write, do math, etc., you are creating experiential learning.  We all learn in various ways, listening, seeing, and doing.  In the old days, teachers used a blackboard and chalk, the students used paper and pencils.  After they had basic skills up to at least 8th grade competencies, that is the time to introduce a calculator or computer to be used as a tool to speed up work, but should never be used when learning.  The Social Engineers of the 1960's armed with good intentions destroyed the school system, the family, values, and our culture, generally.  But, here is the good new.  To fix America, we need to demand the end of the U.S. Department of Education, State Departments of Education, and the huge Local and County Boards of Education.  Then put the schools back in the neighborhoods where the children live.  Build no schools that house more than 400 students.  Class sizes no larger than 20.  No calculators or computers until at least 8th grade.  Then, you will see SAT scores that truly head back in the direction where they were in the mid 1960's.  And the country will be better off for it.  And not only, do the academic standards go down in mega schools as they teach to the lowest common denominator, the emotional and behavioral problems go up.  The public school system is directly responsible for the majority of the emotional and mental illnesses being manifested by youth today, who grow up and carry the dysfunction into their adult lives.  We better take our country back, beginning with our children and put there schools back in their neighborhoods with Local Control So that the kids know their classmates and so that their parents can more easily be involved.  This social engineering project has failed, and no, we do not need to throw more money into doing more of the same crap that we are already doing.  This writer is a master's level teacher and has experienced first hand a great education system that he experience as a child in a rural community school in Alabama and has experienced the modern era schools from the inside, as a teacher of high school age students who were in a self-contained classroom for students who had been identified as having emotional/behavioral problems.  Fortunately, since this teacher had them in a self contained setting, this teacher was able to help them overcome the emotional damage that had been inflicted on them by the public school system itself, and of course, after some of the emotional and behavioral stuff was straightened out and discipline established, we went to work on academic matters and my students caught up and excelled, and surpassed the "regular" students academically and more importantly were more emotionally stable and had a sense of self worth.  Start with the kids if you love this country.  Demand all politicians support local controlled education, and you will begin to make a difference.  As for SAT's I remember a decade or so ago, they came up with the idea of spotting the kids X number of points on the SAT, sort of like a golf handicap, to make it appear that scores had suddenly gone up based on some new idea the U.S.Dept. of Ed. had forced schools to implement.  These idiotic ideas such as "no child left behind" is total bunk.  We need to start a program, "no mega schools left period."  No U.S. Dept. Of Education is a great place to start in reforming this country.

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