Norming the SAT? Are they serious? The purpose of this test is to determine aptitude. Why don't we just use the scores "as is" without any regard to hair color, foot size, political orientation, or anything else (including skin color). That would be just. Anything else would be a joke.

Ole

I am not sure what was meant by "norming" in this article (I couldn't access the NYT article via my Internet connection). When you norm a test, you simply gather oodles of folks to take the test (preferibly a random and representitive sample) and then scale the raw scores accordingly (it is more complex that this, but this is the general idea).

If there are seperate norms, it is almost always done on an age/development basis, because it helps maxamize its predicitive capabilities. But the thought of norming via race is non-sensical, b/c then the test would have very limitied predicitve power (i.e., a Black score of 100 would not be the same as a Whilte score of 100). This idea is not new though, as it was around in the 70's 80's to have race-normed IQ tests (i.e., Williams' B.I.T.C.H. test). It didn't cut the mustard back then, though, and it is highly doubtful it will cut it anytime in future.

I agree 100% with godless: math, physics, medicine, ad inifinitum are not race-normed, and the consequences for lowering the bar can have horrible consequences.

Godless, actually if you enroll low-scoring people in the engineering program, you just get more first year dropouts. Getting an engineering degree still requires meeting objective standards. The problem is, they'd be taking class slots from people who actually have a chance, and so we wind up with even fewer engineers.
Ditto for doctors. On the other hand, if race-norming at law schools causes fewer graduating lawyers, I'm all for it - assuming we can't do the logical thing and cut back on the entering class slots...

Getting an engineering degree still requires meeting objective standards.
But who is to say that norming wouldn't be extended into the awarding of degrees as well? I'm totally opposed to this idea: it's an extremely stupid notion. We shouldn't use different measures for everyone simply because certain groups come up short.