A mandatory ACTion
Michigan is set to become the third state to require the ACT or SAT for all high school students (thanks to Kindling Flames for noting this). This is an intruiging idea, but it also carries potentially crippling pitfalls that makes me wonder if the ACT/SAT isn't a poor choice for a statewide assessment.
First, consider the other two states that employ the mandatory college-prep exams: Illinois and Colorado. In 2001, the two had overall graduation rates of 75% and 69%, respectively, with about a 50% rate for black students. In IL, they started using the mandatory ACT in 2001, and self-reported numbers have shown a meager 4% increase in graduation rate from 2001 to 2005. These are extremely average rates, not terrible and not superlative. So the argument that having everyone take the exam will significantly increase the graduation rate seems at least dubious.
It actually seems that Michigan didn't initially set out to replace it's current MEAP test with this intent in mind: While the press release notes, "By making [the ACT] available to all high school students at no cost to the student, the state will ensure that every student has the needed entrance exam completed in order to qualify for admission into a college or university," it also points out that "The Department of Management and Budget was instructed to contract with a provider to develop, administer and score an exam which measured English language arts, mathematics, reading, social studies, and science and would be accepted by colleges and universities for entrance and placement purposes. Pearson Educational Measurement and its partner, ACT, were awarded the competitively-bid contract."
Here's the problem: The ACT and SAT are probably the two most preppable exams out there. SAT prep alone is a $310 million-a-year industry. There are tricks, tools, shortcuts and a multitude of tips out there for public consumption on how to do well on these tests -- usually without actually knowing the material. I took an SAT prep course myself, and the entire program was spent teaching me how to beat the test while not employing actual mastery.
Moreover, and this is a crucial point, the prep courses and materials are disproportionately available to affluent students; in other words, students will have a direct, marked advantage or disadvantage on their state assessment purely on the basis of class.
These are bad tests for assessing true student learning. This isn't to say they don't serve any purpose, but they are not designed for the purpose of annual assessment. Annual assessments ideally should be diagnostic, telling you authentically what kids know, how deeply they know it and the degree to which they are learning to think. The ACT and SAT are designed more to give college admissions officers a crude measure of an applicants' intelligence (though the predictive validity is still debated). These are two very different missions.
This of course leads to the overarching point, which goes right back to the graduation conundrum -- should curriculum be aligned to getting every kid to college? In reality, curriculum should be aligned to getting every kid the opportunity to go to college. Now, that often means a rigorous curriculum which is a boon of college-prep classes, but its the rigor that's more important than the college-prep part. So, unless the ACT and SAT are demanding the type of skill set that will allow a student to exit 12th grade and be successful at achieving his or her potential whether or not college is in the immedeate future, fine. I'm highly skeptical. And if that equation doesn't mesh, it means that some students are going to have their educations ironically short-circuited by an arrogant attempt to shove each and every American child into college.
Let me be very clear: A 70% overall graduation rate and 50% minority graduation rate are utterly unacceptable. Those numbers should never start with anything but a 9. There are lifetimes of work to be done to achieve that equality of opportunity -- and close the achievement gap -- and we're not even close. But forcing every student to take a college-prep exam by substituting it for the state assessment is an interesting idea that just doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Make the ACT and/or SAT free for all students who want to take it; great. Making it the measure of student achievement is just asking for trouble.
First, consider the other two states that employ the mandatory college-prep exams: Illinois and Colorado. In 2001, the two had overall graduation rates of 75% and 69%, respectively, with about a 50% rate for black students. In IL, they started using the mandatory ACT in 2001, and self-reported numbers have shown a meager 4% increase in graduation rate from 2001 to 2005. These are extremely average rates, not terrible and not superlative. So the argument that having everyone take the exam will significantly increase the graduation rate seems at least dubious.
It actually seems that Michigan didn't initially set out to replace it's current MEAP test with this intent in mind: While the press release notes, "By making [the ACT] available to all high school students at no cost to the student, the state will ensure that every student has the needed entrance exam completed in order to qualify for admission into a college or university," it also points out that "The Department of Management and Budget was instructed to contract with a provider to develop, administer and score an exam which measured English language arts, mathematics, reading, social studies, and science and would be accepted by colleges and universities for entrance and placement purposes. Pearson Educational Measurement and its partner, ACT, were awarded the competitively-bid contract."
Here's the problem: The ACT and SAT are probably the two most preppable exams out there. SAT prep alone is a $310 million-a-year industry. There are tricks, tools, shortcuts and a multitude of tips out there for public consumption on how to do well on these tests -- usually without actually knowing the material. I took an SAT prep course myself, and the entire program was spent teaching me how to beat the test while not employing actual mastery.
Moreover, and this is a crucial point, the prep courses and materials are disproportionately available to affluent students; in other words, students will have a direct, marked advantage or disadvantage on their state assessment purely on the basis of class.
These are bad tests for assessing true student learning. This isn't to say they don't serve any purpose, but they are not designed for the purpose of annual assessment. Annual assessments ideally should be diagnostic, telling you authentically what kids know, how deeply they know it and the degree to which they are learning to think. The ACT and SAT are designed more to give college admissions officers a crude measure of an applicants' intelligence (though the predictive validity is still debated). These are two very different missions.
This of course leads to the overarching point, which goes right back to the graduation conundrum -- should curriculum be aligned to getting every kid to college? In reality, curriculum should be aligned to getting every kid the opportunity to go to college. Now, that often means a rigorous curriculum which is a boon of college-prep classes, but its the rigor that's more important than the college-prep part. So, unless the ACT and SAT are demanding the type of skill set that will allow a student to exit 12th grade and be successful at achieving his or her potential whether or not college is in the immedeate future, fine. I'm highly skeptical. And if that equation doesn't mesh, it means that some students are going to have their educations ironically short-circuited by an arrogant attempt to shove each and every American child into college.
Let me be very clear: A 70% overall graduation rate and 50% minority graduation rate are utterly unacceptable. Those numbers should never start with anything but a 9. There are lifetimes of work to be done to achieve that equality of opportunity -- and close the achievement gap -- and we're not even close. But forcing every student to take a college-prep exam by substituting it for the state assessment is an interesting idea that just doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Make the ACT and/or SAT free for all students who want to take it; great. Making it the measure of student achievement is just asking for trouble.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, October 12, 2005 at 10:52 PM.
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