SAT - Why All the Controversy? Part 1

Author: Arlene Vinion Dubiel

High school students around the country are gearing up to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). For college-bound students, it is a right of passage, a way to compare with others, and one more way to get into the college of choice. But the SAT has come under fire lately with many colleges around the country adopting a “test optional” or a “‘test blind” policy for admissions. One judge in California has gone so far as to ban state colleges from using SAT results for admissions or scholarships.   

Why does this matter for us? As high school teachers, we need to be able to advise our students appropriately. As college instructors, we should know our college’s policy and be in a position to make informed decisions should we be called to do so. As educators in general, we need to know that standardized tests, like the SAT, are not going away and can be a valuable part of an assessment plan - if used properly. 

In this first of two blogs on the SAT and other standardized tests, we will address the claim that the SAT is biased against minorities, thus preventing some students from accessing a college education. Next week, we will look at the uses of SAT testing for accountability and discuss why some colleges have chosen to adopt “test optional” or “test blind” policies. 

The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)

The SAT has been around for over 90 years. It has its roots in IQ tests and was originally used by Ivy League schools to test incoming freshman. Its use grew to the point where many colleges require either the SAT or the ACT (American College Testing) as part of the admissions process. These are standardized tests - the test items, procedures for administering, process for scoring, etc. are standardized which means that the very strict rules must be followed to ensure the results are reliable. 

Because there are thousands of students taking these tests, the results are compared to a normative group. We can see that a student who receives a 1200 is in the 74th percentile - meaning that 74% of students scored as good as or worse than that student. The scores can be analyzed in many ways, looking at race, socioeconomic status, locality, etc. Indeed the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) collects and shares much of the data.  

The SAT has been validated for various purposes. A Validity Primer published in 2015 by Emily Shaw gives a very good description of what is validity. While it is published by the College Board, the not-for-profit agency that administers the SAT, this primer provides good evidence that SAT scores are linked to first year GPA (grade point average), cumulative college GPA, student retention to year two, and four-year graduation rates. The ability of SAT scores to predict measures of college success are above what is predicted using high school GPA alone, thus justifying its use for college admissions.

Is the SAT biased against minorities?

There are no shortage of people who claim that the SAT is biased. In the LA Times article referenced above, one of the lawyers is quoted as saying that the SAT is one of the “racist tests that deprived countless California students of color, students with disabilities, and students from low-income families of a fair shot at admissions to the UC system.” Indeed, if you look at the data from the NCES, racial minority groups, with the exception of Asian and two or more races, score below average. 

So does this mean it is a “racist” test, that it is biased against minorities? For that, we need to look at the test itself and how it is created. I invite you to take a look at released questions of the SAT from the College Board. As someone who teaches assessment, including how to write really good multiple choice questions, these are good questions. They are formatted well, they are written clearly, and the options have distractors so the answer is not obvious. The fact that these are good questions is no surprise as SAT questions go through several rounds of editing before they are used. 

What about the claim of bias? Companies that create standardized tests like the SAT have committees that examine each and every question. These committees are made up of individuals representing many different ethnic and cultural groups in many different locations across the testing area. They look for any potential bias in a question and field-test questions to ensure there are no issues. Another publication from the College Board addresses bias and provides evidence and explanations for how we know that the test itself is not biased. 

Follow the money

It takes a lot of money to create a test like the SAT or ACT. The organizations that create these tests, the College Board and American College Testing, respectively, are both not for profit. Instead, these organizations appear to get their funds from grants and from testing fees. I bring this up because we do need to follow the money to understand the issue.

Those students from families with a higher socioeconomic status perform much better on the SAT than those from a lower socioeconomic status. The reasons for this can easily be traced as summarized in a news article from CNBC published last year. Wealthy students can afford to take the tests multiple times, they are more likely to have special accommodations like more time, and, most importantly, they can afford additional support. 

“While the SAT test itself may not be biased, factors surrounding the test can give some populations of students advantages over others. ”

One of the biggest benefactors from the SAT, ACT, and similar tests are companies that engage in test preparation like the Princeton Review and Kaplan. These companies provide books, classes, practice sessions, and more - all for a price. These companies succeed because students who use the services get higher scores. If you can afford it, you can succeed at the test. 

So, more money equals higher test scores. But that doesn’t fully explain the differences in test scores and race, until we look at one more thing. School districts that are predominantly white have more money than those with more minorities. Much of school funding comes from local taxes. Those areas that are predominantly minority populations have lower income, in general, so less funding for schools. This disparity in funding is less for districts that are larger geographically as various populations are combined into one funding model. This issue is a systemic one that can only be addressed over time with creative solutions to school funding and resource access. 

While the SAT test itself may not be biased, factors surrounding the test can give some populations of students advantages over others. In the next blog, we will address the SAT in more detail. Looking at why colleges are adopting “test blind” policies and how it is used in ways other than for college admissions.  

Educate yourself about standardized tests in general. They are mired in controversy, but are not going away anytime soon. The more you know, the better you are at making informed decisions regarding these tests. 

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