SAT Hypocrisy?

I’ve just read a fascinating, impressive article on the SAT by Charles Murray, who argues, perhaps surprisingly, that it should be abolished. Briefly, he argues for getting rid of the SAT because it’s “a red herring” with a bad (though wholly undeserved) reputation, and that nothing of value would be lost since the SAT II/Achievement tests are equally useful at predicting college grades.

I don’t want to discuss this argument now, but if you’re interested in the controversy over testing, especially the SAT, then you should definitely read the whole thing, and then take a look at some of the comments it inspired over the past few days on National Review Online’s Phi Beta Cons blog.

What I do want to note here is the editorial blurb at the top of Murray’s article:

The SAT got him into Harvard from a small Iowa town. But now, CHARLES MURRAY wants to abolish the test. It’s unnecessary and, worse, a negative force in American life.

Now recall the standard, almost boilerplate liberal criticism of Clarence Thomas: that as someone who “is where he is because of his race,” he is a selfish, ungrateful hypocrite for opposing affirmative action.

I’m waiting for some (even one) of the liberals who routinely denounce Clarence Thomas as a selfish, ungrateful hypocrite for opposing the affirmative action that was the foundation (they claim) of his success to denounce Charles Murray in similar terms for opposing the SAT, even though he benefited from it immensely himself.

I suspect I’ll be waiting a long time.

Say What? (2)

  1. meep May 3, 2009 at 2:29 pm | | Reply

    Given your daughter, you probably already know this, but the SAT I is used for purposes other than merely college admissions.

    I took the SAT when I was 12, for admission into Johns Hopkins’ CTY program – at that age, I was unready for college and certainly didn’t have enough knowledge for any achievement tests, intended for high school seniors as opposed to 7th graders. But I certainly knew enough math and English to take the SAT. Due to my high score on the math section, I got a scholarship to go to CTY. Standardized testing, whether aptitude or achievement, has helped me a great deal in my life, and I have no shame over that.

    Many of these other programs using the SAT I as an ersatz IQ test could replace it with an out-and-out IQ test, but the whole widespreadedness of the SAT made it affordable to take for such a program. IQ tests are more expensive to take independently.

  2. John Rosenberg May 3, 2009 at 4:58 pm | | Reply

    Meep – Very good points about the SAT. Thanks for reminding me. I say reminding because daughter Jessie did indeed take the SAT early for the same reason you did: the Johns Hopkins CTY program, which she attended for three summers.

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