SAT-I tests need more effective revisions

I was browsing in Barnes ‘ Noble a few days ago when I overheard a woman speaking to her son…. I was browsing in Barnes ‘ Noble a few days ago when I overheard a woman speaking to her son. He was prepping for the SATs.

“Which one?” she demanded. “This one is approved by the College Board. And this one comes with a CD.”

“OK,” he mumbled.

I felt bad for the kid. I was reminded of the morning when my mom staggered into my bedroom, hefting one of those SAT-prep books that weighed at least twice what she did, and dropped it onto my floor with a thunderous bang. I stared at it for a few minutes after she left, then squeezed it into my bookshelf where, for all I know, it is still probably gathering dust.

This year, students will face a revised Scholastic Aptitude Test. Despite the availability of 3,000-page tomes and $3,000 “tutoring” sessions, the College Board insists that outside coaching will not be as much of a factor as it has been in the past.

Of course, the Board has made these kinds of claims before, only to watch shamefaced as thousands of suburban kids gleefully skipped away from Kaplan centers boasting of point differences in the hundreds.

The changes include an elimination of those irksome quantitative comparison analogies (A lep is to a ball as a korf is to a … ). Independently hired readers will grade the added writing section.

The College Board and Educational Testing Service agreed on the changes after Richard Atkinson, president of the University of California, threatened to abolish SAT requirements. Atkinson realized something the Board should have realized long ago: The SAT is a fossil, an old Yugo that should have been abandoned by the side of the road, with a little white towel waving from its window.

Atkinson proposed abolishing the SAT-I requirement after tracking 80,000 undergraduate students from 1996 to 1999.

After taking both the SAT II and high school grade point averages into account, Atkinson found that SAT-I scores improved the university’s prediction rate by a meaningless 0.1 percent. “Furthermore,” claims the National Center for Fair ‘ Open Testing, “SAT-I scores proved to be more susceptible to the influence of the socioeconomic status of an applicant than either the SAT II or HSGPA.”

Even in light of these so-called adjustments, the SAT has serious problems that require serious answers. In both form and content, the two exams are still remarkably similar, meaning that affluent students who can afford both the materials and extra tutoring (read: coaching) will retain a significant advantage over poorer ones who can’t.

It also means that public schools, particularly suburban districts ever-eager to please local taxpayers, will keep building their curricula around standards set by an exam controlled principally by an independent non-profit organization.

“No matter how the SAT-I is altered, there will be strong pressure on teachers to drill their students on the narrow subject matter and formats it covers,” FairTest argues.

Nearly 400 schools have now made the SAT optional as an entrance requirement, among them private schools like Mount Holyoke and Bates, as well as members of public institutions like the University of Texas.

Pitt needs to consider the place of the SAT in its own admissions process. The administration should conduct a study similar to that undertaken by the University of California to determine if the SAT actually provides them with meaningful results concerning the scholastic aptitude of their student body.

But if standardized tests remain an essential part of the admissions process, we would do well to demand more than just token revisions. The SAT needs to be replaced with a more effective means of testing student achievement. One model worth examining is the efficiency of the New York regents, a statewide exam controlled by the state government that a student must pass before earning his or her diploma.

“The SAT does not incentivize schools to improve their general quality, and does not incentivize students to study hard in school,” said Nicholas Lemann, author of “The Big Test: The Secret of American Meritocracy.” “A national achievement test would make it possible to measure how good a school is, and would make them suffer the consequences if they’re not teaching.”

Sounds like a no-brainer.

Until then, should you find yourself in need of a good study guide, don’t bother with the prep books.

I think I’ve got one you can borrow.

If Michael Darling had his way, the SAT-I would definitely contain more Yugo analogies. Send feedback to mdarling82@yahoo.com.