My family is poor. When I was a high school student studying for the ACT, I noticed a graph on a website that showed different family incomes resulted in different scores. Families with higher incomes of 80,000 dollars had an average score of 24. On the other hand, families with poorer incomes of 80,000 dollars had an average score of 20. I belong with the families of poor incomes. Many of my friends belonged to the families of rich incomes. They tend to earn higher scores than me. I didn’t consider money to be a huge factor for better scores until I saw a graph showing economic inequality affecting ACT scores.
There are numerous reasons why wealthy students would perform better in standardized tests compared to poor students. Firstly, wealthy students have enough money to take the ACT many times. Poor students do get free test waivers, but they don’t get many free test waivers. Moreover, wealthy students live in a comfortable environment. Wealthy students usually live in a calm, spacious, clean, and quiet house. In contrast, poor students usually live in dirty, loud, and cramped spaces. Furthermore, rich students attend prestigious schools that have high quality teachers, computers, and advanced classes. Additionally, rich students would also be able to hire tutors.
One of my sources is a ACT website that talked about trying to help poor families with the ACT tests, but I don’t think much action happened. In the website, there line graph showed years between 2012 to 2016. The lines for both rich and poor families were both straight horizontal lines; no significant increase or decrease were shown. The situation of rich students getting higher grades continues to stay the same. This is a systematic injustice since almost every poor student will do worse compared to rich students. Poor students simply don’t have the same advantages and tools rich students have. If there is a government law that helps poor students have the same amount of money and advantages as wealthy students, this systematic injustice would be solved. Another solution is to create a different standardized test that doesn’t involve money to get higher scores.
When relating to this issue in class, I think about John Lewis’s book March. According to the government census website, in 2019, there is a poverty rate of 18.8 % for African Americans while white Americans have a poverty rate of 7.3%. If African Americans are more poor, they are less likely to have good results in standardized tests. Even though African Americans have achieved civil rights, they did not achieve economic equality. Not only is there economic injustice against poor people, but there is a hidden racial injustice against African Americans.
Sources:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/03/rich-students-get-better-sat-scores-heres-why.html
Hello, I really enjoyed reading your showcase. I wrote about something similar. It is are problem that so many resources for the ACT/standardized test are so difficult to get. Many of these things cost a lot of money that most people cannot afford. I personally was not able to take classes and purchase numerous books, to raise my score. I think it is good that ohio provides one free ACT test. This at least gives some students the chance to take it when they may not be able to without this. Great job!
Hello!
This is a great post! I really enjoyed the personal aspect you included in your post. It really made it feel more personalized than many other posts. I feel like the ACT/Standardized testing score conversation is one that is very prevalent to many students both in high school and even college students. It’s a topic which I feel needs to be more widely discussed especially in times like these! Once again, great post!