Readers React: The SAT was never about ensuring equality
To the editor: The primary goal of the SAT has always been to engineer score spread in order to permit test takers to be ranked. What is new is the obsession with creating equal score patterns between the races. (“Why the new SAT isn’t as transparent as the College Board wants you to believe,” Opinion, April 29)
But there will always be disparate outcomes, no matter how much effort is expended in eliminating it. As political scientist Charles Murray correctly noted, it is educational romanticism to believe otherwise.
Walt Gardner, Los Angeles
Gardner is the author of Education Week’s Reality Check blog.
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To the editor: Thanks to Jay Rosner for shining a light on these disturbing disparities in testing. But rather than remodel our tests, curricula and expectations to achieve equity, we must find a way to teach all children the skills they need to excel.
Michael Helperin, Los Angeles
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