Skip the disaster spelling standard test – Orange County Register

Recently, Harvard University and California State University’s CSU colleges followed the University of California’s lead in not requiring standardized test scores for college admissions. This is emblematic of a larger statistical trend showing that more than 1,800 higher education institutions in the United States have waived SAT/ACT scores for the class of 2022. Many have used this pandemic as an excuse for a optional “temporary” test plan; but there is nothing temporary about a structural reform to remove merit-based considerations.

Advocacy organizations led by FairTest allege that the administration of standardized tests represents an outdated system and is systematically unfair. However, a wide range of empirical studies spanning several decades have shown that standardized test scores are more reliable predictors of college readiness, student success, and student success. career readiness, such as the ability to break barriers for law school students. Admittedly, neither the test nor the GPA can capture the full potential or define the complex persona of any candidate. But achieving a post-secondary education is a much more narrowly focused and academically oriented goal than the lifelong pursuit of self-realization.

All things considered, quantitative measures of academic aptitude are objective measures of achievement that, according to 73% of Americans, should be the primary consideration in college admissions. Similarly, maintaining the SAT or ACT among all student assessment factors, inevitably, adds to the rigor, prudence, and transparency of college admissions. In other words, sub-scores on these quantitative measures, compared with other admissions criteria such as personality scores, teacher recommendations, or essays, may better signal knowledge acquisition. and inadequate academic aptitude, thereby predicting suboptimal college achievement.

So why are so many American colleges and universities in such a hurry to abandon the age-old American habit of seeing these tests as the primary measure?

They do so to embrace the legitimacy of fairness at a cost that is fair, objective, and competitive. Some, like the University of California system, are simply responding to activists hijacking frivolous lawsuits or requests to downgrade pedagogy for equal outcomes. According to the National Education Association (NEA), the standardized tests were originally designed and “as a tool for racism and a biased system.” The NEA made this allegation based on observations of race-based disparities in test performance and broader achievement gaps between different groups of students, a concept that has been widely ignored, including Both the National Association for the Advancement of Black Americans denied it.

Unfortunately, optional testing or trial blinding will do nothing to reduce observed disparities that are misinterpreted as “racist”. Doing so would only dust under the rug or bury your head in the sand, assuming no painful policy reform is needed to correct any group-based differences both educationally and culturally. Sadly, this illogical argument has been adopted and propagated throughout the public education system.

For example, a number of low-performing urban school districts in California, including Los Angeles Unified, have been slow to remove the numerical measure of high school graduation outcomes after failed reforms aimed at lowering high school graduation rates. graduation standards down to a meager 1.0 GPA in previous years. California Math Framework 2022, which has blatantly called “wake-up math,” suggests that schools delay offering advanced math classes until 10th grade for the sake of leveling the playing field and focusing attention. BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and Colored) experience.

These diverse attacks on achievement from college admissions to K-12 instruction underscore parents’ growing concern about the American education system. An honest soul search reveals that lowering or eliminating standards is not a proven effective tool against “systemic racism”, but a means support to conceal deeper problems. Education officials and special interest groups, some well-intentioned reformers and other hard-line ideologies, are only suggesting dismantling the achievement structure to cover up the collective failures that have dragged on. decades-long system to provide adequate education for all school-age Americans. children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Given the enormous risks of non-education, those inside the higher education scene conveniently use the SAT and ACT as scapegoats.

The removal of standardized tests to fake the failure of public education could have disastrous effects on students’ global competitiveness. A 2021 study by the Brookings Institution found:[O]only about 36% of two-year college students graduate within three years and less than 60% of four-year college students graduate within six years… About 60% of high school graduates are not adequately prepared to follow study college-level subjects… 88% are much worse off in math; 76% is much worse in English”.

In other words, American college students may have spent their precious time on more meaningful courses, but now they have no choice but to study hard what they should have learned in school. high school. The loss of valuable academic time also extends back to their formative years in K-12. Spending too much time on high school courses also reduces a student’s ability to compete in the job market.