Comments on SAT Controversy Continues

• Posted by math prof on July 21, 2006 at 11:45am EDT

• The College Board commissions a report on itself. The report praises the College Board. Why am I not surprised?

• Posted by Mick on July 21, 2006 at 8:35pm EDT

• A more basic issue concerning the SAT (and the ACT)is their basic utility in making admissions decisions at all. While both testing agencies make claims of validity for the tests, the questions of gender, race, and cultural bias have not gone away. Neither is a reporter or a predictor of work habits, which probably have more to do with college success than the basic reading and math skills tested. Both maintain that admissions decisions should be based solely upon such test results, but one has to wonder what role such test results should play at all.

• Posted by Patrick Mattimore , Teacher on July 21, 2006 at 8:35pm EDT

• Interesting that in numerous media accounts one of the persistent critics of the College Board, Robert Schaeffer of Fair Test, calls this 75-page report a red herring. Fair Test would love to see the end of the SAT altogether. Kenneth Lavalle, the NY Senator, says he wishes the report got at the causes of the scoring mistake instead of being a risk management study. Both of these guys carry some pretty heavy prejudgment baggage into these critiques.
  The real red herring is that the scoring gaffe is being used to attack the SAT test itself. The College Board makes itself an attractive target by being generally arrogant. But until someone comes up with a better standardized predictive measure, we're better off to leave the messenger alive and insist on working with the CB to improve the test.

• Posted by Patrick Mattimore , Teacher on July 22, 2006 at 2:45pm EDT

• "Both maintain that admissions decisions should be based solely upon such test results, but one has to wonder what role such test results should play at all." (from Mick).
  This is the kind of misinformation that is widespread. Neither the makers of the SAT nor the ACT maintain that the tests should be the sole criteria in admissions. In fact, the College Board (who bring us the SAT) state on their web site that "test scores supplement, not replace, other important information." CB makes a variety of other cautionary statements re. use of the SAT (www.collegeboard.com/research) but, of course, the weight colleges choose to give the SAT's are up to them.
  What the CB does maintain is that the "SAT Reasoning Test scores, combined with high school grades, result in more accurate predictions of college success than either measure alone or any combination of other measures."

• predictor of what?
• Posted by Jesse Bacon , Teacher at Chicago Public Schools on July 30, 2006 at 4:45am EDT

• I think that even if SAT's combined with grades are an accurate predictor of college "achievement", that says more about what are colleges are rewarding than the virtue of the tests themselves. If our colleges are churning out gradegrubbing, uncritical, social climbers, than it stands to reason test scores would be a good predictor of that. if nothing else, it tells us that colleges are teaching only people who already learn in the dominant manner. However, if we want to know if our colleges are helping students to think for themselves, become ethical member of society, and pursue their intellectual passions, tests would be absolutely worthless as a predictor. We need to question our assumptions of what constitues "achievement" and what kinds of assessment are useful to meeting those goals.

• The College Board's OTHER debacle
• Posted by Truth Seeker on August 9, 2006 at 1:45pm EDT

• Those wondering about how the College Board scores the SAT, should look into how they judged the 2004 Siemens-Westinghouse Science Competition. Was this a great example of competance or what?