You know, sometimes the anti-testing reflex is so strong that people don't even catch themselves making a really silly comment. I mean, what was the editor of this ABC News Report thinking?
Many schoolchildren got an early start to their weekend: Dozens of schools closed early on Friday. Some high school students got a lucky break when several schools canceled Saturday's scheduled Scholastic Aptitude Tests.
Emphasis mine. As Best of the Web puts it:
Yeah, we suppose that's a "lucky break"--unless they want to go to college!
USA Today, on the other hand, recognized the SAT snow issue for the hassle that it is:
Foul weather canceled long-awaited college entrance exams on Saturday for thousands of high school students up and down the East Coast, forcing them to reschedule their Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SATs) until either five days before Christmas or sometime in January.
The snow forced the closure of test centers from New Hampshire and Vermont to North Carolina and West Virginia, says The College Board, which oversees SATs...College Board officials estimated that more than 10,000 students would have to reschedule exams. The next regularly scheduled SAT date is Jan. 24, but most affected students will be allowed to take the test at a special session on Dec. 20. The students are automatically allowed to take the test on Jan. 24 if they wish.
Most students taking the test in December are high school seniors in the midst of applying to colleges. For many, the Dec. 6 test represented one of their last opportunities to record a good score on college applications.
Trust me, ABC, those snowbound kids don't consider themselves "lucky."
Posted by kswygert at December 8, 2003 04:59 PM