Quick Study: Standardized Tests

If you think your kids need to spend more time penciling in answer bubbles, the College Board has granted your wish.

In October, it presented a new, SAT-style exam—for eighth graders. Critics pounced, blasting it as a cynical ploy to make more money by extending the angst of college-bound teens to mere tweens. The College Board insists that the test, known as ReadiStep, isn't meant to predict how students will do on the SAT but to help guide "the course of a student's instruction."

Standardized tests' importance in college admissions has been growing for a decade. Now comes the backlash. A month before ReadiStep made headlines, a prestigious panel chaired by William Fitzsimmons, Harvard's dean of admissions, recommended colleges consider whether to even use SATs to help pick incoming students. Designed to help the brightest stand out, whatever their background, SATs now appear to "calcify differences" based on class, the panel lamented. They also criticized pricey test prep.

Just as contentious: federally mandated testing in grades 3 to 12. Created as part of the 2002 No Child Left Behind law, the exams were designed to hold schools and teachers accountable for student progress. Now teachers chafe at the idea of losing their once-secure jobs if they can't help students achieve baseline skills. Parents question the effect of so much testing on already overscheduled kids. And evidence mounts that there may be no such thing as a one-size-fits-all exam.

Oh, the Tests She'll Take
The typical student takes more than two dozen standardized tests by graduation.

SAT
Three hours 45 minutes of reading, writing, and math to test chops for college work. (Grades 11 and 12; $45.)

SAT Subject
One-hour, multiple-choice, in five subject areas. (Grades 9-12; $29-$40.)

PSAT
Tests readiness for the SAT and qualifies students for National Merit Scholarships. (Grades 10 and 11; $13.)

ACT
Like the SAT but claims to be more curriculum-based and also includes a science section. (Grades 11 and 12; $31.)

AP
Score 3 or higher on one of these 37 subject tests and possibly earn college credit. (Grades 9-12; $86.)

Exit
Around 25 states require exams to earn a diploma, as do 634 schools enrolled in International Baccalaureate programs.

State and District
Varied exams, sometimes given several times a year, to keep tabs on local schools.

ReadiStep
For "diagnostic" use, new two-hour multiple-choice test with three SAT-like sections. (Grade 8.)

No Child Left Behind
Mandated tests to help measure if a school meets teaching standards. (Grades 3-12.)

Flash Points

• "Test, label, punish" - Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), schools face the loss of federal funding or state takeover if students continually score too low on the math and reading tests. The downside is "teaching to the test." In one study, more than half of elementary school teachers said they had cut science instruction to fit in test prep.
• Cost - Like the nervous parent shelling out $1,500 for an SAT prep course, school districts often overstretch their budgets to prepare for high-stakes tests. Thanks largely to the sale of practice materials, revenues for a handful of testing giants like CTB/McGraw-Hill have jumped from $1.42 billion to $2.5 billion since the passage of NCLB.
• What's in an A - A study from the College Board actually gave an edge to grades over standardized tests in predicting college performance. But grades can be inflated or come from schools that aren't well-known to admissions officers. Judging those unknowns is one reason Harvard gives for holding on to the SAT.
• The tyranny - Colleges dread the SAT too: The Fitzsimmons panel called for U.S. News & World Report to stop using scores of incoming freshmen in its well-known rankings.
  
  

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