University of California President Richard Atkinson has asked the university to consider eliminating one type of Scholastic Aptitude Test for college-bound students, a proposal that could transform not only the entry process for California’s colleges, but also schools across the nation because of California’s leadership role on the educational front. SAT tests, particularly the general SAT One test, have long been the target of critics who say they are not adequate predictors of how students will perform in college. Atkinson was interviewed by telephone last week.
Q: Universities have been depending on scholastic aptitude tests forever, to the point at which they have shaped American high school education. Why change that course now?
A: I think this is a debate that is long overdue and I think we have been making a mistake with the emphasis on the SAT One test. Hopefully, the debate that goes on among the faculty here will be heard around the country.
Q: You are basically saying get rid of it?
A: Yes, I am. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a high regard for the Educational Testing Service [which develops and distributes the test]. They have the expertise and experience. On the other hand, the basic concept of the Scholastic Aptitude Test One is a mistake. It dates back to the 1930s, when most people thought we had a technology that allowed us to measure innate ability, and that was the goal of the initial test. The same strategy that led to the origins of the SAT One in the 1930s is still a part of that test today.
Q: But without the Scholastic Aptitude Test One as a gateway for college admission, what standard should be applied?
A: Clearly we as a country have talked about a set of core subject matters taught at the high school level that we would expect the typical student to have mastery over, and those are the subject matters that should be tested. There will be coursework and grades from the classroom, too. In algebra, for example, to have a standardized test that the student took, the same test that everyone else took, would be a way of calibrating whether that classroom experience was really accomplished by the student.
Q: But does that tell you about the student or about the test or, more specifically, about the school?
A: It tells you about how much the student learned in that course. Obviously sitting down for a half-hour test is not enough to tell you about a student’s accomplishments in high school. The high school grade based on coursework is one of the best things for that. We use these tests as a supplement to see whether there is anything that contradicts the grades.
An entire hierarchy of American education has been constructed on preparation for the SAT tests and the role they play in a student’s life. Given the emphasis on those tests, how do you get rid of them without affecting the very foundation of American education?
It’s not such a big problem for the University of California. We have always required both the SAT One and the SAT Two. The SAT One is the test that most people are familiar with and that I am objecting to. The SAT Two is a series of one-hour exams. We require three of them. They focus on particular subject matters. There is an SAT Two writing test, an SAT Two algebra test and we then permit the student to choose a third test from a group of tests that they choose from. And what we find is that the SAT Two is a better predictor of college performance than the SAT One. The transition will not be a difficult one and I hope we will develop a test more closely attuned to the high school curriculum.
Q: What kind of test would you develop?
A: It would be a series of tests that would focus on the curriculum that the student was exposed to in school. They would include algebra, writing skills, basic science skills. The student would clearly understand and the parents would clearly understand what the subject matter is that is being tested.
It’s not going to be easy to wean schools from SAT tests. They use the results in so many different ways, including, for private schools, as a promotion tool to show how well their students are doing so the school becomes attractive to new students.
I think that is the wrong thing for schools to be doing. If they see an opportunity to do things differently, I think that they will. Is there a transition period where we are doing one thing and other schools are doing other things? Yes there is. But this nation has learned to live with many different approaches to a lot of things.
Q: People have been upset about the pressure the SAT process creates forever. Why hasn’t change happened before now?
A: In a sense, we have had the debate in sporadic ways, but without any effort to conclude it. And at times, people have wanted to link this to issues of affirmative action and the like. I think the debate has to be carried out independent of that discussion. The question is what is the best way to determine the opportunities that the student has in high school and what is the best way to try to use these tests to determine what happens in terms of the teaching experience of the students in schools?
Q: Should testing be a way to get anyone into school at all? Adults have been going back to school in legions for years, and in many cases they are accepted, even at the graduate level, on the basis of life experience. That being the case, why should so much emphasis be put on testing for young people?
A: I don’t want to knock testing across the board. Some form of standardized testing at the level of students finishing high school and qualifying for colleges is well worth doing. On the other hand, in an adult’s case, for example, when you are moving on to advanced-level work, the best measure is what they have already achieved in life, and tests don’t necessarily mean a great deal in those cases. I am not against the medical school board tests, level one and level two, for example. They are tied very much to information students are expected to master if they are to advance in medical school. That is probably a very worthwhile test that students take. I am not against tests, but I am against tests that are viewed as independent of a curriculum and that are viewed as an innate measure of ability. I have spent a lot of time in the last year or so just sitting with a pile of books with sample SAT questions in the books. Going through those books, I found that a lot of the questions were really good questions that I thought would be very useful in terms of showing how a student would master algebra or writing or the like.
But generally, the tests depended too much on the nature of the environment in which the student was raised. Think of a home in which both parents are college professors and the atmosphere places an emphasis on intellectual and social development. Some of these family environments obviously give their kids a wonderful head start. On the other hand, kids from low-income families should be able to make up for that loss if, in the curriculum, their schools really do a first-rate job. It is the special experience of some kids that gives them such an edge on the SAT One test.
Q: What about kids who are plagued by anxiety when it comes to test time?
A: It is very real, but testing is ubiquitous in the schools, and one has to take tests. But the nature of the test is what is in question here. If it is really clearly tied to something the student is prepared for, that is a different experience than stepping into the SAT One, where you have no idea about what is really going on.
Q: Would eliminating the test transform attitudes in public education?
A: I would hope it would go some distance in helping us to focus on curriculum materials rather than to bypass those and prepare students just to take the SAT test. I am a product of the Chicago area. I went to Oak Park River Forest High School and the University of Chicago. At the U. of C., SAT tests were not required when I entered. I entered the University of Chicago after 2 years of high school and it was one of those remarkable experiences. They don’t do that anymore.
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An edited transcript.
