The ACT College Admissions Test Making Science Section “Optional”
Another milestone on the road to complete ideological capture of our scientific institutions.
When my son prepared college applications, the only standardized test he wanted to use was ACT. It covered four academic skill areas: English, mathematics, reading, and scientific reasoning.
As many of you know, my physics-oriented son figured he would do well on the scientific reasoning portion. He did well enough to be a US Air Force Academy graduate working as a physicist.
Scientific reasoning is important, as it helps discern truth from fiction and allows sensible policies based on facts and reason to be formed.
Unfortunately, the ACT organization that administers the test has figured that American students are not getting enough science in their academic experience, so the test is now optional.
In fact, the whole test has been dumbed down.
The science portion of the ACT is no longer required. When registering for the test, students will have the option to take the science section, like the writing section.
The composite score will now be the average of the English, Reading, and Math sections.
One part of the decision was that ACT wanted to align more with other standardized tests. For example, the SAT does not have a science section. Another factor in the decision-making process was student opinions.
“They got lots of feedback from students, the test takers, about what are some things that you struggle with, with the ACT, and not needing that science component was something that those students spoke to,” said Laura Clark, Rankin County School District Assessment Coordinator.
Clark served on a district advisory committee for the ACT.
Also, the entire test will be shorter. ACT cut questions from each of the required sections, cutting a total of 44 questions.
Passages in the Reading and English sections have been shortened to give students more time to focus on the question.
The step is just another milestone on the road to the complete ideological capture of our scientific institutions. Some recent Legal Insurrection articles that highlight the unintended and potentially destructive consequences of this ideological capture include:
- Study Concludes Nature’s 2020 Endorsement of Biden Hurt Trust in Science
- Former Reuters Science Writer Slams Climate Hysteria Promoted by Today’s Media
- Proof that Ideological Capture of Our Scientific Institutions Kills Innovation
- The Ideological Capture of Our Scientific Institutions Accelerates
- UN Official Says Quiet Part Out Loud: ‘We Own the Science and We Think That the World Should Know It’
The trend is continuing. In City Journal, contributing editor John Tierney reviews how the preference for DEI dogma over scientific inquiry on campuses has become increasingly prevalent. His many examples are disturbing, especially as they push clear-thinking men out of science.
Other psychologists, frustrated at the growing reluctance of journals to publish anything that offends progressives, have been quietly advising their best students to avoid this politicized discipline altogether, particularly the male students hoping to become professors.
… As today’s younger professors gain seniority and hire colleagues who share their politics and fit their preferred identity groups, fewer talented scientists will remain to tackle the difficult questions—and more scientists will be determined to stop anyone from trying.
I am glad my son can do the science that he loves. I want others who follow him to be able to do the same. I hope this trend away from scientific rigor in favor of social justice metrics can be reversed.
The Legal Insurrection team has been doing good work, but there is still much more.
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An overwhelming proportion of those now attending college have no business whatsoever being there. They are not nearly smart enough and would never have been admitted a century ago. I’m sure we can all think of at least one person in our academic careers that coughed up enough money (in the form of debt due Uncle Sam) and majored in something with a negative ROI, which is to say they spent four years majoring in sex, drugs and rock & roll.
As a nation, we need to seriously rethink how we educate our children. Instead of turning out the brightest minds that will lead the human race forward, we’re turning out lazy, bigoted leftists who hate themselves, their country and humanity in general.
I distinctly remember starting in the late ’80s, prestigious colleges complaining that high schools were sending them too many unprepared students, that required the colleges to offer too many remedial courses just to get those students up to the college’s established entrance standards.
Looks like they took the easy way out and just quiet-quit the whole education goal.
An overwhelming proportion of those now TEACHING in college has no business whatsoever being there. Just like our public schools.
I took the act with scores of 32, 31 & 18 , math, science and english (1974).
As the article stated, having the science skills and critical thinking skills are invaluable. One of the most gifts of the science and math skills is the ability to recognize good credible scientific studies vs the junk science that dominates much of what masqurades as science today. Most every pro masking study was junk science, The studies showing significant reduction in severity and death from covid by being vaxed are based on data from a compromised data base, something that is obvious to any one with data analytical skills,
Critical thinking skills are racist, sexist, and proof of white supremacy.
Then I guess that makes me a racist sexist male chauvinist pig or something.
Bear, not pig.
for context, the ACT in my day had a max score of 36, The 32 & 31 were in the 92-95% percentile while my english of 18 was at the 50% percentile.
English was also my downfall much of that was related to phonics, an inability to connect letter sound sound combinations which meant very poor spelling. It does seem like being gifted in one area is often associated with handicaps in other areas.
It didn’t help that the education establishment cancelled phonics, a system that had proven to work for centuries, and attempted to replace it with myriad trendy crap whose only results were to turn out illiterate dyslexics.
Public schools made education optional decades ago. Universities read from the same playbook.
The Universities wrote the playbook so that is not a surprise.
Universities have been corrupted in large part by Affirmative BS, same for K-12. I am currently teaching my grandchildren science, one a 13 year old is very interested in astrophysics, as I have been my whole life. I did not go into the field because of my entrepreneurial interests.
If I were a college admissions director, I’d simply pass on any candidate that didn’t take the science or writing test. A golden lining to the dumbing down of standardized tests!
When I was applying to colleges, the better colleges would specify that applicants HAD to take certain of the optional tests by name, often more than one.
We need more students with at least a cursory knowledge of hard science concepts. Our nation has too many DEI junk degree automatons. This decision will not be helpful.
Lack of scientific education leads to unthinking religious devotion things like “climate change” and green energy grifter schemes.
The “College Degree” of the current day is no longer the College Degree of the last Century. The introduction Pell Grant system of free money for college for the poor created a self-perpetuating downward spiral of standards. It became another example of the danger of good intentions.
The thought: America needs a better educated populace. Income is not correlated with IQ. If the chance is provided, individuals and the country will benefit.
The reality:
The Colleges had a chance for guaranteed income from the government. However the pool of actually qualifying students was comparatively small and interest and ability were generally lacking. In order to gain enrollment, the schools began to offer “remedial classes” (high school level math, et al) to bump students up to entry qualifying levels. Finding themselves in control of the grades, they began to grade to generously.
Next came the problem of finding classes to give that these ‘financially and academically assisted’ students could pass. Let’s just say that very few Physicists attend community college on Pell grants. So… the emphasis became social studies of various forms.
The ‘classic colleges’ recognizing the new opportunity followed suit. So started the long march to Gender Studies, etc. The situation was not helped by the increased need for more teachers…meaning that qualifications there were also lowered out of necessity.
And who cared if the degrees were viable? Most students were never going to graduate anyhow. They would take a couple of years worth of classes and lose interest. But.. the colleges got paid by the government so all was well.
Thus we have come to the point where the value of a college degree (excluding STEM and the classic fields) has become what the old high school diploma used to be: mere proof that the recipient could show up somewhere on schedule consistently, and generally do as they were told: compliant and teachable in rudimentary job skills.
The worrying thing is that the rot has reached the Ivy League level… the level from which the actual leaders of industry and government are drawn.
It seems to me that the science section of the ACT is the only thing which made them stand out.
science and medicine go together
the losers who will be performing medicine who come from these
Kentaji labs are going to make 15th century barbers look stellar
Next up:
The optional science section will be replaced by the mandatory essay on Diversity and White Privilege.
In other news. Liberal Lawn Signs LLC has announced the recall of 33,000 of their signs currently in consumer hands, in order to replace the line “WE BELIEVE IN SCIENCE” with “DEATH TO AMERICA.”
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