Unsurprisingly, a college panel calls for less focus on SATs — and more focus on, well, I think you can guess:
Mr. Fitzsimmons’s group, which was convened by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, also expresses concerns “that test scores appear to calcify differences based on class, race/ethnicity and parental educational attainment.” The report calls on admissions officials to be aware of such differences and to ensure that differences not related to a student’s ability to succeed academically be “mitigated in the admission process.”“Society likes to think that the SAT measures people’s ability or merit,” Mr. Fitzsimmons said. “But no one in college admissions who visits the range of secondary schools we visit, and goes to the communities we visit — where you see the contrast between opportunities and fancy suburbs and some of the high schools that aren’t so fancy — can come away thinking that standardized tests can be a measure of someone’s true worth or ability.”
What’s amusing is that they attack the SAT, because students spend so much time “gaming” it, and recommend using the so-called achievement tests, which aren’t gamed as much, as a substitute — ignoring the fact that any alternative will start getting gamed as soon as it replaces the SAT.