SAT changes

In an impressive display of honesty, College Board President David Coleman said yesterday what many of us already know: Standardized tests, such as the SAT and the ACT, “have become disconnected from the work of our high schools.”

The SAT has been a ubiquitous part of American education since its debut in 1926. It’s meant to measure the proficiency of high school students in reading, writing and mathematics, giving colleges an easy standard to assess each student’s academic skills. But the test, and standardized testing in general, has been endlessly criticized as an unfair roadblock to college access and an inaccurate representation of students’ abilities.     

Finally, the test is receiving a much-needed makeover. With Coleman’s admission came an announcement of drastic changes to the SAT format and additional new programs that will hopefully work toward greater access to college for all Americans. Here are the biggest changes:

• Obscure vocabulary words like “perfidious” will “be replaced by words that are common in college courses, such as ‘empirical’ and ‘synthesis,’” according to The New York Times.

• The required essay, added in 2005, will become optional again, and the required sections’ combined point values will accordingly drop back down from 2400 to 1600.

• There will no longer be a penalty for getting a question wrong rather than leaving it blank.

These changes make sense. Many of the old SAT vocabulary words are incredibly outdated and irrelevant, and the essay requirement forced students to memorize a format and speed-write in a limited amount of time — not exactly a great way to measure good writing.  

But before we give the College Board too much credit, we should recognize that these changes are undeniably a business decision. In 2012, the ACT (which doesn’t have an essay requirement, and is tied more specifically to high school curricula) surpassed the SAT as the most popular standardized test. The College Board recognized that it needed to change to stay relevant.

But beyond the basic test changes lies a bigger story. From now on, the College Board will provide free online practice to all interested students. Low-income students, who traditionally have had limited access to test preparation, will now have the opportunity to take these free tutorials online. That doesn’t quite balance the unfair advantage for higher-income students, who still have far greater access to expensive private classes, but it’s a start.

A separate initiative will provide certain low-income students with college application fee waivers, allowing them to apply to four schools for free.

“It is time for the College Board to say in a clearer voice that the culture and practice of costly test preparation that has arisen around admissions exams drives the perception of inequality and injustice in our country,” Coleman said. “It may not be our fault, but it is our problem.”

Indeed it is, and it’s nice to finally see the College Board own up to this reality. At this point, standardized tests are too ingrained in our educational process to throw them out completely, even if we’d like to do so. But we should strive to always make them more accessible, more affordable and more applicable to the actual high school and college experience.