News: Dump SAT and ACT? University of California system wants to start homegrown test for admissions

[Arcadia]

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dump-sat-and-act-university-of-california-system-wants-to-start-homegrown-test-for-admissions-2020-05-11

“SAN FRANCISCO — The president of the University of California wants to end the use of the SAT and ACT as admission requirements and replace them with a homegrown test, according to a plan released Monday.

Janet Napolitano’s five-year plan was submitted in advance of a May 21 Board of Regents meeting where a final decision may be made. 

She recommended that the regents suspend the current test requirement until 2024 to allow the university to “create a new test that better aligns with the content UC expects applicants to have learned and with UC’s values.”

If UC can’t have a new test available for fall 2025 applicants, Napolitano recommends eliminating its standardized testing requirement for admissions altogether. 

If there is a new test, it would be made available to students from out-of-state schools. International students could submit either the new test or scores from the SAT and ACT.”

[Roadrunner]

Because they are so amazing that they can magically design a test that won’t discriminate against the poor applicants and by magic equalize everybody’s educational background and outcome, not to mention ability. God help us, because now kids will have to do with yet another test they have never seen before in addition to dealing with SAT if they are applying outside of UC system as well. Not that I am surprised by this. I am especially floored by the suggestion that they should put kids through assessment starting in grade 9 and measure such objectively measurable items as curiosity (Bravo for introducing personality contest into this as well 🙄). 

“A new assessment could potentially begin with ninth-graders, he said, analyzing their growth throughout high school, and use newer testing technologies to measure not only academic knowledge, but other valued qualities such as curiosity, resilience and collaborative problem-solving skills. Others, however, favor a single exam to minimize testing.”

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-11/napolitano-says-suspend-the-sat-test-for-uc-admissions
 

Devil you know being replaced by awesome progressiveness. 🙄    

[Hadley]

Nothing says fairness and equality like changing the rules for kids in the middle of the game.  What about all those kids who have already worked their tails off to earn a good SAT score?  Will California schools even look at them next year?  I am so very thankful that my son has no interest in any California school.

I’m no cheerleader for the SAT, but at least it is a common standard for every student.  I don’t know of a better plan...and don’t even get me started on testing collaborative learning.  Gag!  Does that mean that we just have kids take this test in groups?!  

[Clemsondana]

@Roadrunner the snarky emoji was a commentary on their plan, not your analysis of it.  I'm fairly convinced that the problem is that some kids get a content-free education (where they know 'reading strategies' but not enough background information to interpret what they read) and are allowed to use 'math tables' instead of learning arithmetic, and no test is going to show that students taught like this will do as well as students given a reasonable education.  I want to weep when I see where some of the very bright kindergarteners that i started volunteering with 6 years ago are now.  They started at basically the same skill level as my own K kid, but 6 years later the differences are enormous.  We could spend a year sorting out what the school, family, and community could do differently, but I can't imagine any test that you could give that wouldn't show a disparity except maybe an IQ test...and after some kids have years of doing puzzle books for fun, I'd expect that there would be a gap there, too.  

[Roadrunner]

10 minutes ago, Hadley said:

Nothing says fairness and equality like changing the rules for kids in the middle of the game.  What about all those kids who have already worked their tails off to earn a good SAT score?  Will California schools even look at them next year?  I am so very thankful that my son has no interest in any California school.

I’m no cheerleader for the SAT, but at least it is a common standard for every student.  I don’t know of a better plan...and don’t even get me started on testing collaborative learning.  Gag!  Does that mean that we just have kids take this test in groups?!  

That’s how I feel. I am not a cheerleader of SAT either (although I am very much a fan of their subject tests that are quick and in my opinion highly correlated with basic subject knowledge). I am all for some sort of standardized numerical assessment, something that’s tangible that kids can prepare for (French have a Bac exam) as opposed to obscure and highly subjective measures that resemble a popularity contest. (Are you curious enough? Did your parents create an NGO in your name to fight hunger in Congo?🙄). 

[Mabelen]

On 5/12/2020 at 4:54 AM, Hadley said:

Nothing says fairness and equality like changing the rules for kids in the middle of the game.  What about all those kids who have already worked their tails off to earn a good SAT score?  Will California schools even look at them next year?  I am so very thankful that my son has no interest in any California school.

I’m no cheerleader for the SAT, but at least it is a common standard for every student.  I don’t know of a better plan...and don’t even get me started on testing collaborative learning.  Gag!  Does that mean that we just have kids take this test in groups?!  

If a student has a good SAT score it can only benefit to submit. They have gone test optional, not blind, for the nest two years.

[daijobu]

On 5/12/2020 at 4:57 AM, ClemsonDana said:

I want to weep when I see where some of the very bright kindergarteners that i started volunteering with 6 years ago are now.  They started at basically the same skill level as my own K kid, but 6 years later the differences are enormous.    

 

This really piqued my interest!  Can you go into more detail here?  Are these students middle class?  What deficiencies do you see in their academic achievement?  

[Clemsondana]

@daijobu the kids are mostly not middle class - I volunteer at an afterschool program where the parents pay on a sliding scale, and our church has participated in buying Christmas gifts for the kids that attend.  The kids are taught reading skills, and they get worksheets that include content but the kids don't seem to know much.  On the flip side, keeping their attention to do a lab demonstration or a field trip would be difficult.  They have science and history content in their reading comprehension and vocab, but writing sentences using the words 'chlorophyll' and 'photosynthesis' doesn't really translate to knowing it without wallowing in it a bit.  Most of the kids don't seem particularly curious about anything.  I do remember one day when they were doing something goofy at snack time and I commented about people just being giant tubes and they were kind of intrigued by that, so I explained...but it was memorable for being rare.  Some of the kids have learned math well enough, but I have spent exhausting hours trying to do equivalent fractions or long division with kids who can't multiply or divide one digit numbers correctly. Others are doing quite well - they may just be doing the algorithms, but they can do typical-for-their-grade work correctly.  So many of the kids are good kids but they don't seem to see any relevance to anything that they're learning, and the ones who are having particular difficulties just fall more and more behind.  Probably 1/3-1/2 of the kids have been held back a grade, and I can 't object because they were behind where they needed to be.  Prior to this mess, I had been planning to talk with the director about trying to do some sort of math facts games boot camp over the summer, because I can't imagine some of these kids continuing on to middle school math while, every time they need to divide by 6, they have to count up 1,2,3,4,5,6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12... while counting each 6 on their fingers and trying to also use fingers to remember how many 6s they have.  Of course, some kids have their facts and are using them, but for many of them there is a lot of resistance to thinking about how to do anything.  I know all kids have these moments...or even months...but for so many to be like this for years on end...

[showelott]

Erica Meltzer has a nice analysis of this decision over on her blog at The Critical Reader

https://thecriticalreader.com/university-of-california-will-drop-sat-act/?fbclid=IwAR1O5fmD8wVaE-624pfYj_KBfu70-Q99LWVXjXhwq5bV-RV2Co8VZkLftDo

[Reefgazer]

On 5/12/2020 at 6:46 AM, Roadrunner said:

Because they are so amazing that they can magically design a test that won’t discriminate against the poor applicants and by magic equalize everybody’s educational background and outcome, not to mention ability. God help us, because now kids will have to do with yet another test they have never seen before in addition to dealing with SAT if they are applying outside of UC system as well. Not that I am surprised by this. I am especially floored by the suggestion that they should put kids through assessment starting in grade 9 and measure such objectively measurable items as curiosity (Bravo for introducing personality contest into this as well 🙄). 

“A new assessment could potentially begin with ninth-graders, he said, analyzing their growth throughout high school, and use newer testing technologies to measure not only academic knowledge, but other valued qualities such as curiosity, resilience and collaborative problem-solving skills. Others, however, favor a single exam to minimize testing.”

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-11/napolitano-says-suspend-the-sat-test-for-uc-admissions
 

Devil you know being replaced by awesome progressiveness. 🙄    

This serves the purpose of lowering standards while pretending not to, and of pretending "objectivity" (but not really).

[Reefgazer]

On 5/12/2020 at 7:54 AM, Hadley said:

Nothing says fairness and equality like changing the rules for kids in the middle of the game.  What about all those kids who have already worked their tails off to earn a good SAT score?  Will California schools even look at them next year?  I am so very thankful that my son has no interest in any California school.

I’m no cheerleader for the SAT, but at least it is a common standard for every student.  I don’t know of a better plan...and don’t even get me started on testing collaborative learning.  Gag!  Does that mean that we just have kids take this test in groups?!  

That's a feature, not a bug.

[Mabelen]

5 hours ago, Reefgazer said:

That's a feature, not a bug.

I am not going into the essence of that statement, but students can still submit SATs and have them considered in their admissions for the classes of 21 and 22, who are the ones who realistically may have been preparing already.