Paul Thomas is not impressed by the ballyhoo over the redesign of the SAT.
He predicts that it will continue to be a test that stratifies students by family income and that means far less than the students’ grade point average. He says that the SAT is “possibly the oldest and longest running education scam.”
He writes:
“…this reboot is just another publicity move by the College Board/SAT that falls in line with recent history: the mid-1990s re-centering (scores were dropping due to the testing pool changing and thus the SAT was getting bad press), the expansion in 2005 (the University of California caused a stir by calling for opting out of the SAT and thus the SAT was getting bad press), and now the 2016 reboot (the ACT surpassed the SAT in number of students taking the exam and thus the SAT was getting bad press).
“There simply has never been and will never be a way to justify the time and expense needed to implement single-sitting standardized tests in pursuit of doing something for which we already have rich, credible, and free data (GPA) to guide decisions about students entering higher education.
“The relentless faith in the SAT (and ACT) in the U.S. is trapped inside a misguided belief in objectivity—even though standardized tests have been shown repeatedly to perpetuate biases related to class, race, and gender.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Basically, David Coleman is doing his job as a very well paid CEO and trying to preserve the value of a corporate property that is facing pressure from both the market (ACT) and from vetting (the SAT has always been a dangerous product, akin to a badly designed wonder drug). What’s of interest to me in addition to what you’re reporting here, Diane, is that The New York Times magazine did such a typical job Sunday of creating slick propaganda for the “one percent of the one percent.” From beginning to end, that report was David Coleman’s version of reality, with barely an aside to the potential historical and other criticisms of the SAT since forever. We ought to create a list of the most slick propaganda centers for the one percent of the one percent, with The New York Times magazine in the top ten. My others include The Atlantic, Harper’s, (usually but not always) The New Yorker, and of course The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.
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We live in an age of information where the answers to millions of questions can be Googled in milliseconds. Perhaps a more important ability than providing the right answer is the ability to ask the right question.
This puts into perspective just how antiquated standardized tests are becoming, and how much educational time is lost not just taking these tests, but preparing for and modeling instructional time around them as well.
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American colleges and universities seem to be getting a deluge of international applications. It is already difficult to compare between American high schools. Are there any college admissions officers or hs guidance counselors among us? It seems to me that colleges strive for the highest GPA and standardized test combos they can achieve and also that there are many students who will present with their level of GPA + test scores. Schools even reject people with scores above that combo, perhaps to maximize yield. Removing standardized test scores from the equation, especially for international students, will require the institution of a similar metric. What do people think of the SAT subject tests?
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What does “perpetuate biases” really mean? Is that a critique of the validity of the test?
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If colleges and universities would stop using this high stakes measure for entrance, the whole business would fall flat on its face. When I attended CUNY, thankfully, there was no SAT score requirement. It was my high school grades that were looked at. I had one chance to take the SAT and I did not score very high. However, I was an honor student, did well on my regents exams that at the time measured what we learned and my attendance was excellent. I graduated college (a BS in Biology and a teaching degree in elementary education) with honors in both areas including Phi Beta Kappa..I went on to graduate school to get my Masters Degree in Early a Childhood Education. My biggest accomplishment and the thing I take the most pride in is having taught for 31 years in the field of Early Childhood Education in the public domain.. The other is having three children who have been educated primarily through the public school system who are working in fields they love and are upstanding citizens. Isn’t this what we want for all our students? Many who may not have excelled in HS, but who were given an opportunity to go on with their studies, have also become accomplished because they were given a chance., not because one test made or broke them. Personally, if CUNY had used the SAT as the ultimate decision for my acceptance, I don’t know where I would be today. I was not seen as worthy by the likes of Columbia Teachers College or Bank Street nor could my parents pay to get me into a “good private school.” CUNY gave me the chance and I proved them right. To Hunter College I will always be greatful. How many students today are not getting this opportunity because of the SAT? Many!
No one has ever asked what my SAT scores were. No one ever cared. They wanted to know if I could do the job I was trained for and that proof came through my schooling and my work experience. The College Board is a money making business feeding off of our students, poor and rich, ripping them off so the likes if a David Coleman can pontificate about things he knows nothing about!
I also want to add that I agree with John Stoffel when he says that perhaps asking the right questions is more important than providing the right answers especially in this age of technology.
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