Equity aptitude test
by Sam
As many of us remember, the SAT score reports that went to universities where we applied had every result of every test, good and bad. No more. The College Board, which administers the SAT, has decided to allow students to pick and choose which scores go to universities. That means students who take the test more than once can select the top math and verbal scores to create the highest composite score across every attempt they’ve made at the exam.
According to the Washington Post, the policy change has some up in arms:
But critics say score choice encourages students to take the test as many times as they want without consequence, giving an unfair edge to the wealthy and injecting an additional level of strategy into an admissions process that can already feel like a cabalistic ritual.
The charge that the new system exacerbates class inequities in education is a serious one. How to flatten out disproportionate college attendance rates across race and class lines has been a major challenge in this country, with ethical sticking points on both sides.
On the one hand, the idea that a privileged economic background or one’s race has an impact on the ability to attend college offends the common sensibility that everyone ought to at least have equal opportunities to get ahead. On the other hand, policies that account for such differences, such as affirmative action, tend to frustrate our belief that merit should win the day in college admissions.
In essence, Americans want it both ways. We want to minimize the role arbitrary factors like race or class play in our educational system so badly that we feel leery of discussing how those factors might actually affect the opportunities for students from different backgrounds to develop the necessary skills to gain admission to college.
The College Board is an independent agency and so does not have to worry as much about the potentially unequal consequences of its policies so long as it provides roughly equal access to the test. Even private universities, however, are usually bound by diversity statements that would prohibit unduly restrictive admissions policies. Not surprisingly, then, the Post reports that “A quarter of more than 700 colleges tracked on the SAT Web site are asking students to send all their scores regardless.”
Our nation’s education system has often been the great hope and great frustration of our basic commitment to equal opportunity. We tend to see education as an important way for everyone to have the same chance at a successful life, despite having one of the most developed private university systems in the world.
It’s hard to imagine the College Board’s testing policy would stand for the GSCE’s in England or the French Baccalauréat. Of course, what those nations gain in uniformity they trade in flexibility.
Perhaps the real question isn’t which standardized testing system provides for the highest equity in college admissions. It’s whether standardized testing is really the best way to promote equity in education.
Related posts:
- Is exercise part of education?
- What happens to philosophy?
- Thomas Jefferson didn’t get into Harvard
- Are too many students going to college?
- The politics of identity
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