Essay urges College Board to end – rather than tinker – the SAT

Earlier this month, we  told you about College Board’s decision to redesign the SAT with the stated goal of focusing it toward “the core knowledge and skills that … are most important to prepare students for the rigors of college.” This announcement marks only the second time in the test’s 87-year existence that a change of any sort were to be made (the other in 2005 when analogies were dropped). Joseph A. Soares, professor of sociology at Wake Forest University, who is also one of the leading voices in the test-optional movement, points to several factors that continue to render the SAT inadequate. After its initial makeover in 2005, the SAT produced even greater disparity between different racial, socioeconomic and gender groups than those previously witnessed. Furthermore, educational policy, including the “common core” standard which has been adopted in 45 states and the District of Columbia, continues to provide better predictive analytics than the SAT/ACT. And let’s not dismiss the role that the test-optional movement has played; nearly a third of the nation’s colleges no longer require the SAT or ACT.

Read more of Joseph Soares’ essay here.