![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
And the point was made that foreign students who want to get into an American university usually need about a 500-600 on the TOEFL, while American students who speak English as a second language can't take the TOEFL, they have to take the SAT and get 500+ on the verbal part.
But a 500 on the TOEFL is like a 200 on the verbal part of the SAT.
When foreigners are given some help on the English part of college admittance, this is seen as fair, but when it happens to American immigrants, it's seen as a "double standard".
Of course, it's obvious why this is. Those foreign students are usually better off than the American ones, and their families aren't the dregs of American society - they're not part of American society at all! So we can say "you're smart, even if your English isn't great". But the American ones are usually poor, and we've really got a vested interest in saying "you're poor because you can't do well". If we didn't say that, we'd have to say "you could do better if things were fair" and then we'd have to ask why they're poor still.
At least, that's my view of the situation, which I'm sure is really much more complicated.
But a 500 on the TOEFL is like a 200 on the verbal part of the SAT.
When foreigners are given some help on the English part of college admittance, this is seen as fair, but when it happens to American immigrants, it's seen as a "double standard".
Of course, it's obvious why this is. Those foreign students are usually better off than the American ones, and their families aren't the dregs of American society - they're not part of American society at all! So we can say "you're smart, even if your English isn't great". But the American ones are usually poor, and we've really got a vested interest in saying "you're poor because you can't do well". If we didn't say that, we'd have to say "you could do better if things were fair" and then we'd have to ask why they're poor still.
At least, that's my view of the situation, which I'm sure is really much more complicated.
