Why are American schools so dependent on test scores? Are high test scores a benchmark for success?

ESSAY QUESTIONS

Why are American schools so dependent on test scores

Are high test scores a benchmark for success

No single characteristic can predict future success , as much as we try to isolate

such a characteristic . American schools are a diverse lot , encompassing people from

every nation on earth , every kind of educational background , every age Schools look

for some objective measure to use to evaluate their students , and that is why they turn

to test scores , but the closer they look into the issue , the more they

discover that test

scores do not fully encompass the skills and abilities of students For the purposes of this short essay , we will delimit the scope of the term schools

to mean colleges , and test scores to mean SAT scores . Otherwise , we will find

ourselves getting bogged down by too many different kinds of schools too many

different kinds of tests , which differ from state to state . If we were to look at tests

given to grade school students in New York state , and compare them to tests given to

Texas students , it would be hard to draw meaningful conclusions . But the SAT is the

same test , whether a high school student from Alabama or Connecticut takes it . It is

also the test which is most universally administered to high school students trying to

gain admission to college

The problem college admissions committees face is how to select from a pool of

applicants , how to choose between sometimes very similar students Grade inflation is

rampant these days , so what meaning do admissions officers put upon grades ? How

can an A in math at one high school compare to an A from another

One way to make such a comparison is to give students standardized tests

which will hopefully shed more light on the students ' abilities Sometimes , it works

and other times , it doesn 't , depending on the test and the students The real reason colleges use the SAT is to try to make these distinctions between

incoming students , to admit the more highly qualified students . It is an

understandable attempt to make distinctions , but it has limits , and fails to take into

account other more important factors , like motivation in particular something which

can never be measured using a standardized test

Standardized testing is a huge business today . Every year , American high school

students spend millions taking standardized tests , and millions more preparing for

them , with the SAT being taken by the most prospective college students Are these

tests an accurate means of determining future student success in college , or are they an

obsolete method , something which only enriches the coffers of the ETS (Educational

Testing Service ? ETS claims that the SAT is a good predictor of freshman academic

achievement , yet even they admit that a large body of research is pointing toward high

school grades as being a more accurate predictor

Since ETS is the administrator of the ETS , we should examine this company to

see how unbiased they are when...