School, community leaders divided on SAT’s usefulness

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT-MESA -- School district officials say they are far from ready

to abandon the SAT test, but neither are they entirely opposed to a

University of California idea of looking at other options.

A high-ranking local college official, who specializes in ethnic

studies, however, agrees the time may have come to do away with the test.

The validity and equality of the SAT test has been a recurring

question for years.

The discussion began again with a renewed fervor last month when U.C.

President Richard C. Atkinson announced that he wanted to eliminate the

use of the SAT test as an admissions requirement for all eight U.C.

campuses, saying that it is an unfair measure of student’s abilities.

While the U.C.’s potential abandonment of the test would not directly

affect the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, it still raises many

questions.

For years there has been a debate about whether the exam is culturally

biased.

Atkinson is asking the U.C. board of regents to discontinue using the

SAT as a means for selecting students, but he has also challenged test

makers at the College Entrance Examination Board to come up with a better

test.

The top two questions Atkinson’s proposal raises withofficials in

Newport-Mesa are: What are U.C. officials trying to accomplish with the

test? And, what would they replace it with?

“There are so many other measures used,” said Peggy Anatol, director

of curriculum and assessment. “It is just a measure, but it is a measure

we all understand. What kind of other test would we have? We now have a

known and we’re going to replace it with an unknown?”

School board members and superintendents echoed that concern.

“What are they going to replace it with,” asked Jaime Castellanos,

assistant superintendent of secondary education. “If they want to replace

it with the SAT II achievement tests, that may be good, but then they’ll

say that test is culturally biased, too.”

There are advocates out there for dumping the exam.

While Jesse Miranda, director of the Center for Urban Studies and

Ethnic Diversity at Vanguard University, is also worried about what may

take its place, he agrees with Atkinson that the SAT is outdated.

He said the test should be done away with not because it is biased

against any one race or minority, but because it is outdated for the

whole of society.

“It is time [to change the test] due to changes in society and the way

of thinking,” Miranda said.

Miranda added that he is relieved to see the movement spearheaded by

an educator rather than an emotional community leader.

Others educators in the high school trenches are also more than ready

to see an end to the test and the stresses it places on students.

“I believe that grades and the level of class taken are more

indicative of college success than the SAT,” said Diana Carey, principal

of Costa Mesa High School.

With the all the indicators and advanced placement classes now

available at the high school level, she said, she feels the time for the

test has passed.

“My own personal view is that it’s a lot of stress on the kids that is

not necessary,” she said.