Test-blind UC admits students who can't do algebra or write a sentence

A university committed to excellence and equity should consider applicants' SAT or ACT scores, editorializes the New York Times editorial board. Grade inflation has made test scores the best measure of college readiness and the best way to identify talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The University of California Regents should vote to end test-blind admissions at their meeting next week, urges The Times. Don't appoint a committee. Just do it. The experiment has failed.

UC San Diego faculty reported “a steep decline in the academic preparation” among entering students last year, notes the editorial board. At Berkeley, more than half of students who took a math placement test incorrectly answered basic questions (such as solving for x in x²> 4).

“The key problem is that many of the students coming in do not know algebra,” said Mina Aganagic, a Berkeley physics professor. . . . Reading and writing skills have also deteriorated, and professors say they must spend time teaching elementary skills. “After the SAT was dropped, I got students who could not write a sentence,” said Janet Sorensen, an English professor at Berkeley.

The world’s greatest research institutions should not be focusing on remediation, the New York Times board writes. Yes, the Times is a little late to the argument, but they have a lot of clout, so let's not carp.

The national anti-testing push misunderstands the reason that low-income and Black, Latino and Native students score below average on the SAT and ACT, writes the board. The evidence shows the tests aren't biased. Other tests show similarly large economic and racial gaps. The problem is in the K-12 system, not the tests.

The SAT and ACT don't measure every desirable attribute, the editorial concedes. But they "measure preparedness for highly selective colleges better than almost any other indicator." Grade inflation has made GPAs unreliable: "In 1970, only 7 percent of college freshmen nationwide had a high-school grade average of A or higher; today, the share is roughly 40 percent." Student essays, which may be written by Mom or by a chatbot, have lost value. Extracurricular activities and teacher recommendations "biased toward affluent students."

A growing number of selective colleges and universities have restored the testing mandate, the Times notes. All concluded the tests are "useful at identifying strong students from low-income communities."

Who should go to college?, asks Fordham's Michael Petrilli. The short answer is: Students who are prepared to learn a subject and earn a degree. About 30 to 40 percent of high school graduate are academically prepared for college. They'll do well. It's unlikely they'll be happier as plumbers or long-haul truck drivers.

However, there is no "college premium" for dropouts, and unprepared students rarely make it to a degree. Most never make it to sophomore year.

I know from my days reporting on community colleges that unprepared students usually fail in job training programs too. They don't have foundational skills -- especially a sold grasp of middle-school math -- to learn a skilled job.

"The tough calls are for students in the middle," Petrilli writes. They may build on their basic (but not proficient) skills to succeed in college. They might end up with debt but no degree.

We need to "dramatically improve the K-12 system and boost achievement as early as possible!," he concludes.