Data shows tests like the SAT are biased against students from low-income households.

Poorer students tend to perform worse on the test. The difference might be the costly prep courses, books and tutors, some experts say. Blacks and Hispanics also consistently score lower on the SAT than whites.The new thinking is that dropping the SAT requirement might encourage more low-income students to apply. But does it really increase diversity among enrolled students?

We have have the first trials…. Here are results of minority representation in each of these 4 year colleges before and after the test score became optional for admission…………

opt-out-admissions

In 2011 Wake Forest dropped the SAT test as a requirement to entering their colleges. Before Wake Forest made its admission process test-optional for freshmen entering in 2009, about 18% of the students were non-white. The following year, the number jumped to 23% and it now stands at 30%.

The share of students from low-income households who are eligible for Federal Pell grants also shot up to 11% last year, compared to 7.5% the year before the policy was implemented, according to data provided by the school.

In other words the inherent bias of the test was preventing many students from achieving Pell Grants and being accepted into a school in which they could otherwise succeed….

At Marist College in New York, which dropped the requirement for the freshman class enrolling in 2011, the share of minority students has jumped from about 14% to nearly 18%.

At Franklin & Marshall College there has been a more modest increase in the share of minority students over the past decade. The school, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was one of the first to go test-optional. But it has seen a bigger jump in enrolled low-income students than some of the other schools: from 7% to 18%.

None of these schools had to water down their curriculum due to people entering schools based more on both their GPA’s and teachers’ recommendations, and less on a standardized test score that was inherently biased against them due to environmental factors of their upbringing…

The ability of poor and minorities to succeed in college is independent of their SAT test score…

If fact, these test scores were preventing good solid citizens from achieving their dreams ….

One would assume the Smarter Balanced Assessment actually takes that one step further…

Instead of simply limiting college choices, it now carries this same stigma right down to the tests in lower 3rd grade where these biased results now insist one must be dumber and not on par with those students with whom one in class equally competes, who all happen to be lily white and have rich parents…
Opting out of the Smarter Balanced should be mandatory for every poor and minority child in Delaware…   It is the ONLY way to achieve your dreams it appears……