College Board will delay 8th-grade test
Citing the dire economic condition of many schools and states, the College Board will delay launching an eighth-grade assessment test designed to gauge students’ readiness for college.
The test had been scheduled to premiere this fall, but school districts and states, facing cutbacks, were unable to afford it, a spokeswoman said.
“With the unforeseen challenge of the current economic situation, many states, districts and schools simply don’t have the resources to spend on new programs and services,” College Board spokeswoman Sheila Jamison said in an e-mail Thursday.
Some educators said they had welcomed the opportunity to get students, particularly African Americans and Latinos who are underrepresented in higher education, into the college game early. But critics questioned whether the College Board, whose SAT college entrance exam has come under increasing scrutiny from universities, was pushing the admissions frenzy into middle school to boost its revenue.
The exam would compete with testing rival ACT’s Explore, an eighth- and ninth-grade assessment test taken by nearly 1 million students in the 2005-06 school year. The PSAT, an SAT preparation test taken between the eighth and 11th grades, was taken by 3.4 million students in 2006-07.
Jamison said the eighth-grade test, called ReadiStep, could arrive as early as 2010 if enough schools or agencies put together the resources to purchase it.
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