Reining in the Test of Tests
Some say the SAT is destiny. Some say it's meaningless. Should it be scrapped?
But there's no mystery about what the test does, says College Board President Gaston Caperton. The three-hour exam measures "the sort of higher-order math and literary-reasoning skills that students need to succeed in college and later in life," he argues. The test correlates well with freshman-year college grades, the College Board says, especially when used in combination with high school grades. "The SAT works," insists Caperton. "Scapegoating the SAT will not provide better teaching and learning in the schools."
The latest assault on the SAT follows the demise of affirmative action in several states, where universities can no longer give special admissions breaks to minority applicants. Continued reliance on test scores makes it hard to sustain previous levels of minority enrollment, so there's been a scramble for race-blind alternatives. Already, the state of Texas and the UC system have adopted college admissions systems based in part on class rank. Regardless of test scores, a student at the top of his or her high school class (the top 10 percent in Texas, the top 4 percent in California) is automatically admitted to state universities. The new policies are politically popular, but critics fret that they rely on the continued segregation of high schools and may lower admissions standards because school quality varies so widely.
In the short term, Atkinson wants UC to continue requiring the subject-specific achievement tests (known collectively as the SAT II), which measure knowledge in such areas as writing, math, history, and foreign languages. Eventually, he'd like to see new tests linked more directly to UC's required college-prep curriculum. There's nothing wrong with "teaching to the test," he says, so long as the test is measuring mastery of the curriculum. UC officials say their research shows that SAT II subject tests are a slightly better predictor of freshman grades than the SAT I. What's more, they note, racial disparities in test results, though still considerable, aren't as dramatic for subject-area tests as they are for the SAT.
But skeptics say that it's only a matter of time before there is pressure to scrap subject-area tests as well. Abigail Thernstrom, an affirmative action critic and coauthor of America in Black and White, is especially concerned about the move toward "holistic" criteria that go beyond both test scores and grades. "Getting rid of the SATs is the first step in a wretched direction," Thernstrom says, predicting the move will lower standards.
While the debate over testing and college admissions continues, high school students are focusing on the SAT (and another widely used but less controversial test, the ACT) like never before. Indeed, an entire test-preparation industry (box, Page 49) has grown up to cater to nervous parents, and students who are convinced that their shot at the good life will rise or fall on one Saturday morning's performance. Even high-scoring students pull out all the stops to boost their numbers. Jennifer Harrigan, an 18-year-old senior at Satellite High School in Satellite Beach, Fla., scored 1310 on the PSAT in her junior year--high enough to qualify for a National Merit Scholarship commendation but far below what she needed to snare a full scholarship to Emory University, her top choice. Staging a marathon study session over her March 2000 spring break, Harrigan spent four hours a day scouring test-prep flash cards and a CD-ROM. The result? A 1430 on the SAT's April administration. Still dissatisfied with her math score, Harrigan devoted over an hour a night to math review and a four-hour block each weekend to practice tests. The persistence paid off. Her new combined score of 1460 nailed her a $7,000 scholarship to Georgia Tech, plus acceptance to Emory. "It's a fair test," says Harrigan of the SAT. "They don't keep a secret what's on the test, so you can totally study for it."
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