Anybody other than me find it interesting that, as more and more small colleges are dropping the SAT as a requirement for admission, students may find themselves required to take the test in high school anyway?
The [Maine] Department of Education is pushing ahead with a plan to have all 11th-graders take the SAT on April 1, despite objections from some educators and legislators, who say the standardized test usually required only of college-bound students may not work for everybody.“It’s one more time where the Department of Education has done a ‘ready, fire, aim,'” said Jay Readinger, new Wiscasset Superintendent of Schools, who used to work in the department. Schools are being told “here’s what we're going to do. Now let’s sort out the details,” he said.
“The SAT is a valid test for what it does, which is predict a student’s ability to do college work,” Readinger said. “We in the schools still have serious questions about whether it is closely enough aligned with Maine Learning Results to determine how well we’re teaching to those standards.”
Those serious questions should be taken, well, seriously. If the test isn't aligned with the standards, it won't be a very good replacement for an MEA. And, as with others quoted in the article, it's not clear to me that forcing a student to take the SAT will push them to apply to college, if they were not already going to do so.
Posted by kswygert at December 14, 2005 04:21 PM