Fw: SAT

["GERALD BRACEY" <gbracey1@verizon.net>]

This letter appears in today's Washington Post.  Monty, Bob and some other ARNers will recognize this as the same argument that engendered a long-running, acrimonious dispute between George Hanford, then President of the College Board, and SAT critic, Jim Crouse (The Case Against the SAT, 1988, with Dale Trusheim).  It will be amusing to see what, if anything, the Board has to say this time around.

Jerry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: GERALD BRACEY 
To: letters@washpost.com 
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 9:04 AM
Subject: SAT


Laurence Bunin of the College Board inadvertently gives the game away in his letter defending the SAT.  He wrote "Recent data compiled by the College Board show that the SAT...is almost precisely as predictive of college success as are four full years of high school."  In other words, the SAT is redundant with grades and useless.  As long as you've got the high school record, you don't need the SAT.

Carl Campbell Brigham, the principal developer of the SAT, saw it a "merely as a supplementary record" and the question has always been, "When the SAT is added to the high school record, does it increase the accuracy of predictions about college success."  It does not.

Gerald W. Bracey
1797 Duffield Lane
Alexandria, VA 22307
703-317-1716

The writer is a former Director of Research, Evaluation, and Testing for the Virginia Department of Education and author of Put to the Test: An Educator's and Consumer's Guide to Standardized Testing.