AROUND HIGHER EDUCATION: Conn. to investigate the SATs

The Yale Daily News NEW HAVEN, Conn. (U-WIRE) -- The Connecticut legislature is considering legislation that will regulate SAT preparation courses and investigate the extent to which the test affects college admissions. The legislation comes as the SATs are undergoing national scrutiny for suspected class and cultural bias. State Rep. Patricia Dillon (D-New Haven) commenced the initiative as a first step in finding out whether the SAT discriminates on the basis of economic status. The State's Education Committee will hold a hearing March 15 over a bill that incorporates two proposals involving the SATs, State Senator and Senate Chairperson Tom Gaffey said. One of these proposals calls for the state to do a study of how much colleges weight SAT scores in the admission process; the other proposes that the state regulate SAT preparation services. If colleges weight the SAT proportionally high in their acceptance decisions and these tutoring programs benefit people taking the SAT, then those who cannot afford these tutoring opportunities are at an inherent disadvantage at getting accepted into a choice college. But if colleges de-emphasize the importance of SAT scores in admissions decisions, then college admissions is less dependent on economic status. "Families are paying up to $20,000 a kid for [SAT] tutoring," Dillon said. Companies that provide SAT tutoring services claim that their classes can significantly raise a student's score. "If it doesn't have that great an effect [on college admissions], then parents are getting swindled," she said. State regulation would ensure that SAT tutors are qualified to teach, Dillon said. "The major argument for the regulation [of the SAT preparation services] is to test the qualification of these people," Dillon said. "The state regulates barbers -- people who remove hair -- and should certainly regulate this, too." Carl Brigham, a Princeton University psychology professor, originally introduced the SAT in 1926 as a test that would measure aptitude and not reflect class divisions -- one reason why the test was originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test. In 1993, however, the College Board changed the name to the Scholastic Assessment Test and in 1995 it began referring to the test merely as the SAT. Dillon said that because evidence of the role of SATs is lacking, the state should investigate the test's effect to inform the public. This move by the state to look into the effect of the SATs parallels a national interest in this topic. An article in the January 10 issue of The New York Times Magazine raised several concerns that Dillon hopes to address through her legislation, as well as other concerns that her legislation will not address, such as the effectiveness of SAT preparation services in raising scores. A debate between the College Board and test preparation services such as Kaplan and Princeton Review is ongoing. "This is a lot hotter in the West, where they are eliminating affirmative action in the acceptance process," Dillon said. Dillon said that if the SATs are race-biased, the elimination of affirmative action is taking away the safeguard for those who cannot afford reparation services to help them on the SATs.