Will the perception fade away sooner or later?
I'm sure many of you have encountered individuals who believe the SAT to be a classist exam that is largely correlated with income. But if you haven't, here's a blogger who does: la caprichosa.
In a recent blog post called "On the SAT, Test Preparation, and Extracurricular Activites", la caprichosa talks about a chart that shows the relationship between family income and SAT scores. In brief summary: the higher your income the higher your SAT score; while the lower your income the lower your SAT score. La Caprichosa also responded to VinceYang92 concerning the inequality that is perpetuated by the SAT exam and the disadvantage given to individuals of a low-income status by saying:
Yet, the problem remains that the SAT is still considered an "objective metric" when it tells us more about family income than intelligence. This is where people think of other alternatives to the SAT, but is it even necessary? GPA IS actually considered within the context of a student's high school. During the admissions process, a school profile is generated to better understand what the grades of a student mean. This, in itself, brings up a lot of important questions related to public schools and private schools in general, but that is a blog post for another day. Point being, we must not place the SAT on a pedestal and need to think about how it reinforces class privilege.
I totally agree. Why is the SAT given to students when they reveal to us the prejudice towards certain income level students? Is there a need to find other alternatives for the SAT?
In my opinion it should not be given to students if such results are being found. These results reveal that there is obviously a problem with the way that the exam is being presented to students all across the US. No exam should be so leaned for success for a certain group, those of wealth, if it fair.
In regards to finding alternatives for the SAT, GPA is the best tool to identify students with strong academic performance. We as students go through 4 years of high school trying to get the best GPA we can, therefore GPA should be valued much more than a 4 hour test. We must take into consideration that students are not all good test takers, that anxiety might intervene in their results, among many other things. Therefore the SAT should not be weighed similar to, or even half the weight of a GPA.
However, I do not think the SAT is a bad idea. The SAT allows us to get some kind of idea of the knowledge someone has (taking in consideration the the poitns mentioned above); however the SAT must not continue to perpetuate inequality nor disadvantage low-icome students. They need to change the way it is being presented to students in order to make the material more familiar to all students. We need this to be a test that is not targeted to benefit a few and not the majority, because if it is, it questions the educational system on why it has been driven by such a classist measure.
In the article called, "Major changes coming to 2016 SAT test: Here's what, how and why", we are informed of the new redesigned SAT exam that will begin examination in 2016. They themselves have become aware of the perceived notions of inequality towards the low-income and as a result are trying to take this measure of academic performance into a fair examination. Coleman, College Board President stated:
"Partnering with the free, online resource is intended to make the SAT more transparent, and cut back on perceptions of inequality around expensive test preparation services, Coleman explained Wednesday."
I think test preparation will help battle these negative notions of inequality, however as La caprichosa mentioned in her post, "[R]esearch has shown that 'there is no evidence that commercial test preparation makes much of a difference in admissions test performance....Regardless, the benefits of commercial test preparation appear to be small...". Yet, even if such does not cause any change, they are also trying to combat these issues by targeting the way it is presented in the questions themselves, Coleman mentioned that:
"Admissions officers and counselors have said they find the data from admissions exams useful, but are concerned that these exams have become disconnected from the work of high school classrooms and surrounded by costly test preparation."
The questions will now be guided by the material learned in class and not by what's given in expensive test preparations. Students will be asked to identify words that are actually used repetitively in their classes, asked to analyze a context of word to define it, and apply math to solve 'real world' problems.
I like the idea of change in this examination, however I feel like these are things that were expected from older generations. One change that I believe would lead to positive results would be to give students more time for each section. The test should be concerned about what the students know, not in how much time they can complete it. Personally I struggled a lot with the time limit and I think this can make a huge difference in getting a higher SAT score than that compared to a 4 hour test. Also, another suggestion would be the addition of another section - science. This section can be useful in preparing students for the required science class in their chosen college.
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I really enjoyed your post but I am also skeptical about how these online programs will be able to help students out in terms of the SAT. Regardless, if the amount of support increases for those taking the examination that does not mean that this examination is not a significant barrier to college for many of the students taking it. However, it does reinforce that fact that it privileges some and discriminates against others. In the future I hope that this test will be eliminated.
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