Classroom Grades Better Reflection than SATs

Although more than three million high school seniors take standardized college admissions tests like the SAT, “it is well known by educational researchers that high-school grades are the best indicator of student readiness for college, and standardized admissions tests are useful primarily as a supplement to the high-school record,” according to Richard C. Atkinson in a speech to be presented April 15, 2009 at the American Educational Research Association’s 90th annual meeting in San Diego.

“We now have a much deeper appreciation of why assessment of achievement and curriculum mastery remains vital as a paradigm for admissions testing. Curriculum-based achievement tests are the fairest and most effective assessments for college admissions and have important incentive or “signaling “ effects for our K-12 schools as well: They help reinforce a rigorous academic curriculum and create better alignment of teaching, learning and assessment all along the pathway from high school to college,” according to Atkinson.

The College Board’s SAT admissions test sends a confusing message to students, teachers, and schools. It featured esoteric items, like verbal analogies and quantitative comparisons, rarely encountered in the classroom. Especially troubling, the perception of the SAT as a test of basic intellectual ability had an adverse effect on many students from low-performing schools, tending to diminish academic aspiration and self-esteem. Low scores on the SAT were too often interpreted as meaning that a student lacked the ability to attend UC, notwithstanding his or her record of accomplishment in high school.

Read the full article in Science Daily