[Phil153]

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the deviation in SAT scores that you show is perfectly explained by the Stereotype Threat effect that is discussed elsewhere in the thread.

Testing cannot accurately show differences between races in the US.

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It's astonishing to me that the race issue can make otherwise intelligent people come out with silly, unsupported statements.

The stereotype threat has no proven validity when applied to SAT or IQ scores. Firstly, where's the proof that this factor doesn't apply to the dumb half of white students, thus pulling down white scores as well? Secondly, where's the proof that the stereotype threat is actually occurring outside of controlled conditions, on important tests such as the SAT? Thirdly, the largest change the researchers could get under any contrived conditions wasn't even half the actual gap.

From wiki:

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Furthermore, while Sackett et al. do not dispute the fact that stereotype threat has a real, measurable effect on test scores, they posit that in the part of the experiment where Steele and Aronson removed the stereotype threat, the achievement gap which did remain correlated closely with the existing African American - White achievement gap on large-scale standardized testing such as the SAT. In their own words:

Thus, rather than showing that eliminating threat eliminates the large score gap on standardized tests, the research actually shows something very different. Specifically, absent stereotype threat, the African American-White difference is just what one would expect based on the African American-White difference in SAT scores, whereas in the presence of stereotype threat, the difference is larger than would be expected based on the difference in SAT scores.

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