The Standardized Test War Heats Up Again

For quite a few years, the opponents of using standardized tests in college admissions were riding high. More and more schools were falling for the argument that the tests were unfair if not outright racist, and were not good at predicting whether a student would succeed in college. More recently, the battle’s course has shifted, as numerous colleges and universities have reinstated the requirement that applicants submit their scores on one of the tests.

Naturally, this has inflamed the anti-testing forces. 

In a New York Times piece published on Sept. 16, Miriam Pawel declares, “This California Educational Juggernaut Doesn’t Need the SAT.” (It’s subscriber-only content.) In it, she argues that universities such as UCLA should not restore the standardized test requirement. Why? Because without it, California’s universities can be more “inclusive.” 

She acknowledges the criticism that has recently been lodged by faculty members throughout California that large numbers of students are entering college with ridiculously weak academic backgrounds—so much so that professors must teach basic high school math. Professors in the University of California system are pleading for the restoration of the SAT to screen out students who are terribly deficient in mathematics preparation. 

But to Pawel, the low level of math preparation is not important. What is important, she argues, is getting “underrepresented” students into top universities and through to their degrees. The problem with the SAT is that it screens out many of the “diverse” students she thinks are vital. Admitting “underrepresented” students makes the university more diverse and that, according to progressives like Pawel, is a key element of social justice. The SAT, she believes, gets in the way of inclusivity. That view fails to consider the students who are excluded. 

When a university admits one student because his or her ancestry has been deemed “underrepresented,” that also means that another student must be excluded because his or her group is not one that adds “diversity.” But people are not fungible group representatives; each individual brings a unique set of attributes that have little or nothing to do with where his or her forebears lived. There is no justification for labeling some students as “diverse” (and therefore beneficial) and others “non-diverse” (and therefore dispensable).

Pawel’s thinking is typical of “progressives”—focusing on abstract group identity rather than on individual attributes.

Instead of seeking “diversity” and “inclusiveness,” it would make far more sense for universities to figure out how to identify applicants who have both the academic aptitude and the desire to study what they offer. 

Moreover, there is a serious downside to the mania for group quotas—some of the students admitted will be poorly suited to the institution. 

Here’s an example. In 2013, UC Berkeley admitted Kashawn Campbell, who had been a top student at his high school in inner-city Los Angeles. But at Berkeley, Campbell discovered that his weak academic preparation left him unable to cope with the work expected of students. Campbell was an example of the mismatch phenomenon, in which students are admitted to a college on the basis of racial preferences but are unable to handle the institution’s academic rigor. (California has Proposition 209, which bans racial preferences in public university admissions, but the state’s universities have developed extensive infrastructure to circumvent it.)

Mismatched students often either fail to graduate or slide into one of the academically undemanding majors where the work is easy but the career path is dim.

Standardized tests help to identify students who have the academic preparation for success at a college or university. That is the finding of a recent study by Preston Cooper. He found that a 100-point rise in a college’s lower-bound SAT score was associated with a 7.9 percentage point increase in its completion rate. 

In short, standardized test scores are good predictors. Admitting students with low scores merely because they are from a group regarded as “underrepresented” is not beneficial since they are less likely to graduate. Using standardized test scores to evaluate applicants doesn’t mean that students with low scores are kept out of college, but that they will have to consider colleges that are not so academically rigorous. 

Cooper sums up, writing, “Ignoring standardized tests means ignoring a potent tool to evaluate whether prospective students are prepared to finish their degrees. Colleges that want to help students flourish have a moral obligation to bring back standardized testing requirements.”

That conclusion is certain to upset “progressives,” like Miriam Pawel, who delight in trying to socially engineer what they think are more equitable results in higher education. They should instead look at improving the education that students receive long before they think about college.

George Leef is director of external relations for the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.