Another rarer-than-a-dog-bites-man story: Defending the SAT, in the Cornell Daily Sun.
The SAT periodically appears on the national radar. Recently, the film The Perfect Scorereminded us to what lengths high school students will go to get that elusive 1600...
Embellishments aside, the film shows just how skewed and misguided the prevailing wisdom on standardized testing is. Brian Robbins, the director of the movie, was quoted in a recent Sun article as saying: "I've often questioned the ethics of standardized testing, and I feel that the importance placed on SAT scores has too much of an effect on a kid's future." What special insight Robbins -- who specializes in teen sports movies -- has into the SAT is unclear.
Ah, I'm lovin' this article already. Not only for its pro-SAT stance, but also because it's willing to poke at people who pretend to be experts in subjects about which they know very little.
Were college admissions offices to actually stop requiring SAT scores...increased emphasis would fall on more biased measures instead. The other main components of a college application -- GPA, admissions essays and recommendations -- are all highly subjective methods of evaluation...Relying more on these tests than on the original SAT puts students in lower-performing schools at an even higher disadvantage.
A common complaint about the SAT is that it is biased against minorities and the poor. This condemnation is often heard on college campuses, where ironically, research has consistently shown that the test accurately predicts college students' grades. In the case of minorities, the SAT actually overpredicts college grades slightly, on average. Were it biased against them, their SAT scores would be significantly lower than actual school performance.
Though flawed, the SAT is a statistically accurate measuring stick. Its critics are quick to point out its shortcomings yet ignore the fundamental educational problems -- those of our public schools...
...sadly, the public debate over the SAT is largely based on fantasy and fabrication as well. As painful as it may be, the SAT is the only way to keep college admissions fair.
It may seem like a cliche when SAT-supporters turn the focus back around to the quality of public education, but that's where the true crux of the matter lies. The SAT is but a measuring stick, and removing the SAT does nothing to make students more prepared for college, even if the lack of a standardized test is more likely to result in the admission of some students to college. Testing critics almost always confuse the message with the messenger.
Posted by kswygert at February 11, 2004 04:07 PM