The University of California is hopeful that the new, revised SAT “will improve eligibility of certain ethnic and socioeconomic groups,
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Just guessing here, but I think most of the kids who would have done well on the old SAT will do well on this one. I’m not sure that the ones who had done poorly on the old SAT will have great essay-writing skills that will bump up their scores…
In short, a new test is not going to fix educational deficiencies.
“fairness” seems a codeword for ethnic equality of the test results. Since certain groups consistently do poorer, one way to fix this problem is to make more questions really hard (advanced math) or really easy (qualitative essays). Most people will get all the hard ones wrong and all the easy ones right. Now the kids are finally equal, and the tests are fair (though less meaningful–but small price to pay).
As an instrument for comparative analysis, fitting the test to a desired result is counterproductive. As a sorting device to identify the elite (those who get the hard questions right, on whom we will base our reputation), the hopeless (those who get the easy questions wrong, who we want to avoid), and the cash cows (all the rest, who can get through & will generate income), such a test might serve an institutional purpose.