Test problems
Schools to blame for poor scores

Early last week, Richard Atkinson, president of the University of California, proposed dropping the requirement that college applicants take the SAT.

This move by the 170,000-student system would be the first of its kind by a large university system with competitive admissions, and it could easily become the standard in America’s schools.

Atkinson said the test, which gained prominence with the help of the California system more than 30 years ago, distorts “educational priorities” by forcing students to prepare for it.

What educational priorities?

American schools fall far behind other industrialized nations when it comes to the quality of education standards. Therefore, it is unfair to blame standardized test preparation for the failure of American schools.

Even with the resources available in American schools, the United States is consistently outscored on these tests by other industrialized nations and often rank below even poor nations such as Bulgaria and Slovenia.

Why? It’s simple. Students aren’t getting the attention they deserve.

The best way to improve academic performance is to raise schools’ requirements and make students work harder. Extend the school year, require more homework — spend time with students.

American schools are failing the educated youth, not by teaching to the SAT and other standardized tests, but by not teaching beyond the test.

It’s the duty of not only America’s educators, but every citizen of the nation to educate its youth to ensure a fruitful future for the nation.

Instead of worrying about whether or not students can score a certain number of points correctly in verbal and math sections of a test, universities need to begin putting pressure on primary and secondary schools, so that someday, students won’t need to take a test to determine their intelligence.

There is an old saying that teams are only as strong as their weakest link. Until America concentrates on equalizing education standards, universities will need standardized tests to weed out those weak links.

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