Whatever you think of the virtues of Smart Start and the Excellent Schools Act, you cannot argue that they increased the rate of educational improvement in North Carolina.
RALEIGH — The Scholastic Assessment Test has been a fixture in college admissions since the 1920s. The 2005 revision of the test eliminated the familiar analogies from the verbal section and increased the difficulty of reading selections and math problems to reflect heightened college entrance expectations.
SAT scores for 2006 were released this week, sounding off yet more alarms about high school performance. Nationally, SAT scores dropped by an average of 7 points – the sharpest decline in 31 years.
RALEIGH — The College Board has decided to stop “flagging” the results of Scholastic Assessment Tests taken with special accommodations in their reports to colleges. Disability advocates generally applaud this move, but removing the asterisk from the scores that appear on student transcripts may compromise the ability of admissions officers to make informed decisions about college applicants, particularly those who through reasons of disability qualify for the special accommodations, such as extra time to take the test.
RALEIGH — The latest changes in test reporting from the College Board are gathering both approval and protest from education policy analysts and test takers. The College Board has decided to stop “flagging” the results of Scholastic Assessment Tests taken with special accommodations in their reports to colleges. Disability advocates generally applaud this move, but some say removing the asterisk from the scores that appear on transcripts compromises the ability of admissions officers to make informed decisions. In North Carolina, the state’s SAT Report 2003 makes no mention of the number or percentage of students taking an SAT test with accommodations.
Karen Palasek writes that the Princeton Review, long known for preparing students to take college and graduate study admissions tests like the SAT, the LSAT, and the MCAT, has ranked North Carolina at the top in their first annual evaluation of state testing and accountability.
What is so wrong with the SAT that it needs an overhaul? The SAT is, quite frankly, too objective -- and one of the things it measures objectively is the vast difference in educational preparation between black and white students.
State education leaders may study replacing the use of the SAT and ACT in college admissions with the state's end-of-course tests.
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