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By Noah Grand
Daily Bruin Reporter
SANTA BARBARA “”mdash; The University of California is looking
for a fairer test to use in admissions because less wealthy and
underrepresented students receive on average lower standardized
test scores than their wealthier and non-minority counterparts.
The College Board and ACT Inc., the two largest standardized
testing companies in the nation, announced Friday at a meeting of
academic and state officials at UC Santa Barbara that they would
work with the UC in addressing this issue, though they did not
mention specific actions.
“This is all to open up the university to people who do
not have all of the advantages that our society has to
offer,” UC President Richard Atkinson said at the
meeting.
“My arguments against the SAT I were not based on
predictive validity but on pedagogical and philosophical
convictions about achievement, merit and opportunity in a
democratic society,” he continued.
Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board and former
governor of West Virginia from 1988-96, defended the SAT as being a
valid ““ but not perfect ““ test.
“We think we have the best test in the world, but it can
be better,” Caperton said. “We are here to learn from
you to be better.”
Despite Atkinson’s proposal last February to make the SAT
I optional in UC admissions, the president said he favors using
standardized tests in admissions. But what he would like to see in
the long term is a test more closely aligned to the high school
courses required to be eligible for UC admission.
While the SAT II is subject-based, the SAT I is a more
generalized test less related to the curriculum, he said.
The UC Office of the President’s report on the SAT by Saul
Geiser and Roger Studley released last month showed that after
considering all other academic and socioeconomic factors, the SAT I
does not add to the predictability of a student’s grades in
college.
The Geiser and Studley study also showed the SAT II writing
test, which requires a short writing sample in addition to
multiple-choice questions, to be the best predictor of any SAT
test.
Atkinson said he would like to see more writing portions on
standardized tests and in school before students apply to colleges.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin agreed,
but said teachers have trouble teaching writing because they are
responsible for too many students.
Predictive validity was not the reason the UC started requiring
the SAT in admissions, said Dorothy Perry, chair of the Academic
Senate’s Board on Admissions and Relations with Schools. When
the board originally endorsed using the SAT in admissions in 1956,
the Academic Senate voted down the decision because it felt the SAT
didn’t add anything to predicting students’ performance
in college.
In 1963, 18 percent of California’s graduating high school
students became UC eligible. Five years later, Perry said, the UC
added the SAT requirement to limit eligibility to only the top 12.5
percent of graduating high school students ““ a limit the
University had already agreed to in 1960.
This limit was set to comply with the state’s Master Plan
for Higher Education, which defines the role of the UC, California
State University and community colleges.
Atkinson did not make specific proposals for what could replace
the SAT I if it is made optional, but mentioned short-term
solutions of requiring more SAT II tests or other curriculum-based
tests. This question has been referred to BOARS, which will present
its findings in a research paper next quarter. Any changes must go
through the UC Academic Senate and the regents before being
finalized.
Richard Ferguson, president of ACT Inc., said its test is a good
alternative to the SAT because the questions are made by educators
based on existing curriculum throughout the country. The UC
currently accepts ACT scores as an alternative to SAT I.
Approximately 40,000 students in California took the ACT last
year, Ferguson said, adding that achievement tests such as the ACT
tend to minimize race as a factor.
The Geiser and Studley report showed that success on the SAT II
is based less on socioeconomic factors than the SAT I, but they did
not mention the ACT in their research.
Without commenting specifically on whether he thought the ACT is
a fairer test, Atkinson said the ACT is an option for BOARS to
consider and that he “wouldn’t mind” testing
students over the last two years of high school.
Most discussion of standardized testing revolves around its
fairness, since it has often been criticized as discriminatory
against less wealthy and minority students.
Amy Schmidt, director of research for the College Board ““
the company that administers the SAT tests ““ acknowledged
that these groups average lower SAT scores and that this racial
difference “troubles” the College Board.
Students from a family with an income of more than $100,000
average about 120 points higher on each section of the SAT I
““ which uses an 800-point scale ““ than students with a
family income below $20,000, according to Rebecca Zwick, professor
of education at UCSB.
But less wealthy students also tend to have a poorer high school
GPA, less rigorous high school schedule, fewer teacher
recommendations and less extracurricular activity involvement
““ other factors used in college admissions ““ Zwick
said.
“The SAT is a wealth test only as much as all these other
criteria are wealth tests,” she said.
Socioeconomic differences in test scores reflect inequalities in
K-12 education for less wealthy and minority students, not problems
within the SAT I, Caperton said.
“I don’t think this has to do with the test; it has
to deal with the unequal system of education in the state and in
the country,” he said.
For the UC to get the diversity it wants, Caperton said, more
time must be spent working with students who need more help to
achieve in school.
Eastin welcomed UC participation in the K-12 system in order to
get more students from disadvantaged areas attending the UC and to
improve the quality of education at these schools.
“I need you (UC) in my schools. I need you to take our
students to your campuses,” she said.
Eastin also raised concern about the number of standardized
tests students must take. Students could spend up to 20 days a year
taking such tests, she said.
Caperton said he spoke with representatives from 25 states
““ but not California ““ and concluded there was no way
to align state exit exams with college entrance exams as one
test.