By Marcelle Meyer
“Does anyone know what they want to major in?” I asked my class of ten high school juniors. One girl’s hand shot up. “Biomedical engineering,” she answered. I hoped that, together, the other volunteers and I would be able to support her aspirations to get into a school where she could become an engineer.
The class was entirely composed of first-generation college-bound juniors of low income backgrounds who were selected for a free SAT program at which I was volunteering. Many of them were very active in extracurricular activities and excelled in their classes at school; however, they did not have the standardized test-taking skills to earn the higher scores necessary to get into top universities. If colleges based admission on what students have accomplished with the opportunities available to them, students everywhere would have far better educational prospects
Hundreds of American colleges and universities, including St. John’s Colleges, Smith College in Massachusetts and University of North Texas, are making SAT and ACT scores optional in the application process.
This means that when the valedictorian of a Bronx public high school applies to these schools, she or he is judged on her or his accomplishments within the scope of opportunity available. The purpose of SAT and ACT tests is to provide a universal standard with which to compare students, but colleges and universities fail to give students an equal chance when they base admission on a test more accessible to higher-income students.
One thing I have come to more fully understand in my time as an SAT tutor is the extent to which public education is failing American teenagers. If a sick patient goes to a doctor and is not healed, we assume it is because the doctor has not done his or her job. Education is the only institution in which we blame the one seeking help, not the professional giving it, for a lack of results. Students of low-income backgrounds, especially those in poorer areas without access to well-funded public educational institutions, underperform on standardized tests.
The system by which we judge students attempting to enter college holds them responsible for the failures of a government that does not give public education the funding or legislative attention it deserves. If we cannot get American students up to the standard set by these tests, then we need to change either our education system or our standard. Of course, it would be ideal if we could get every student in America to a certain level in math, English and writing. Until then, we can at the very least reward students for doing the most they can with the dying public education system.
