What if there was no SAT?

If you’re child is on track for college or university pursuits, he or she is undoubtedly thinking about SAT or ACT tests. For decades it’s been a right of passage. In order to get into college, you need to make high or at least better-than-average scores on the SAT or ACT.

A recent study, however, tracked students who are attending colleges that didn’t require SAT scores for entrance and find that they are doing well, even excelling.

One might even conclude that just because a college-bound teen tests well, that doesn’t mean they will do well in college, and vice versa.

I understand that there have to be markers to evaluate children’s academic performance throughout the school years, but I’m not sure that SAT or ACT scores are the way to do it. Some kids just don’t test well, or others test really well, but that doesn’t mean they will do well with college-level studies. Not to mention the cost involved in taking the tests or paying to prep services.

I feel the same way about standardized tests for elementary schools. The ideas that third graders in North Carolina are going to lose instructional time to tests that show they can pass new Common Core standards has me baffled.

It’s too much testing for the young ones! I think we need to trust teachers to teach, and let’s not evaluate them based on standardized tests. 

Sometimes we forget to see the forest for the trees. The goal of education is for children to learn and expand their minds, develop interests that they want to pursue as careers. Tests don’t equal careers nor do they equal education.