> Our education was built around testing because if our school got bad testing, then the school would lose funding.
> Getting rid of SATs from my perspective sounds like a fantastic idea.
There are two types of standardized tests. The first kind you reference measures the school. They are not used for college admissions. They can affect school funding.
The second type of test measures the student. Sometimes a school will report those numbers. But they do not affect the funding a school gets.
Getting rid of the SAT would have zero effect on contingent funding for schools.
Consider this: if the schools weren't dependent on the test scores, then they could use that same energy-for-testing to teach their students methods for improving their SAT scores. I genuinely doubt they'll switch energy, but the fact remains that the requirement to game a test-well-or-lose-funding system by necessity removes education opportunity for students in order to focus on the tests over education, especially for schools in lower income areas because they stand to suffer the most. We're relying on a system that ensures that people stay where they are. Now, if there isn't a correlation between lost education opportunity and SAT scores, then you might be right, but...
I don't understand what you are trying to argue. Your first GGP comment talks about school testing and then ends with a conclusion about the SAT. That is not a school test. It is a student test.
Your immediate parent comment indicates that if school testing were eliminated then students would improve their SAT scores. I agree with that. But it is beside the point. This thread is about whether the SAT should be eliminated, not whether school testing should be eliminated.
At the end, you start to make a point about correlation between "lost education opportunity" and SAT scores. But my reading is that you're saying there's a correlation between LEO and SAT scores. Are you saying it's a positive correlation? Or are you saying students are spending time prepping for SATs, and what they are learning there is negatively correlated with actual learning?
I am trying to understand what you mean. Are you advocating elimination of the SAT? If so, why?
My point was about this: "Are most kids from lower socio-economic backgrounds still clueless about the college admissions process, the difference between colleges, and scholarships." My original post was saying that kids from lower socio-economic backgrounds aren't as aware of these processes, largely because of the broken incentive systems around testing.
So, I'm opposed to standardized tests, in general, as a strong measure for capability because of their tendency to force the focus of schools on testing over education and in doing so, deep and localized problems are reinforced. I gave the example of my own school, because the school barely touched on the SAT since the focus was, by necessity, focused on the ACT. The SAT was an afterthought. For the teachers, it was a legitimate existential crisis if the ACT wasn't taught well, while the SAT was effectively irrelevant to them.
A large body of students don't know how important the SAT is, nor whether or how they should push themselves to test well -- we weren't taught that because of a shift in priorities. In some ways, both tests were expressed as on the same level of importance, despite the ACT not mattering in the slightest to the future of the individual student, leading to confusion by students about what is actually important.
For schools that the SAT isn't an afterthought, the SAT might make sense, but in doing so, we are culturally prioritizing the reinforcement of already-strong communities while simultaneously continuing to weaken already weak communities.
In other words, a proxy besides the SAT should be sought after, at least while we have so many broken systems and wildly different implementations of incentive systems in-place. I don't know what that proxy is.
> the school barely touched on the SAT since the focus was, by necessity, focused on the ACT. The SAT was an afterthought. For the teachers, it was a legitimate existential crisis if the ACT wasn't taught well, while the SAT was effectively irrelevant to them.
The ACT and SAT are two tests used for college admissions. If you take one, you don't need to take the other.
> despite the ACT not mattering in the slightest to the future of the individual student
The ACT is used for college admissions. Are you thinking of a different test?
It sounds like you have an issue with the teach-to-the-test mentality and the fact that "the test" isn't the SAT. I understand the concern that students are pulled in too many directions. But according to what you've written "the test" is the ACT. That is a substitute for the SAT. They are only being pulled in one direction. It is the direction that will help get them into college.
> Getting rid of SATs from my perspective sounds like a fantastic idea.
There are two types of standardized tests. The first kind you reference measures the school. They are not used for college admissions. They can affect school funding.
The second type of test measures the student. Sometimes a school will report those numbers. But they do not affect the funding a school gets.
Getting rid of the SAT would have zero effect on contingent funding for schools.