As you may have heard, the University of California has voted to ditch standardized tests for incoming freshmen:
In a decision that could reshape the nation’s college admissions process, University of California regents unanimously voted Thursday to suspend SAT and ACT testing requirements through 2024 and eliminate them for California students by 2025.
….Some hailed the vote as a bold and visionary move to expand access and equity. But others expressed concern that dumping the tests would lead to grade inflation, admission of less-prepared students and backlash over different entry standards for different classes.
My own guess is that this will make very little difference. A simple chart from the Education Trust shows why:
Practically every state, no matter what method they use, has a hard time enrolling Black freshmen in numbers proportional to their population. California has been unusually bad in this regard ever since the passage of Proposition 209 in 1996, which eliminated the use of affirmative action. We’ve tried over and over since then to figure out ways to get Black enrollment up on UC campuses, and nothing has worked. The obvious conclusion is that it’s too late to fix the longstanding effects of racism and poverty if you wait until the senior year of high school to do it. Black kids have to keep pace from preschool forward, which requires money, commitment, and a willingness to do something about geography. None of those things have ever been available in the amount needed.
So will this latest effort work? I doubt it. But I wish them the best of luck.
