College Board and the SAT

College Board and the SAT June 1, 2012 The College Boards summer SAT pilot testing fiasco needs to be addressed by the company. Have you read about The College Board and the SAT scandal? The College Board has received quite a bit of bad press for their summer SAT exam for rich kids. If we had a hand in contributing to that bad press, then were quite proud of that. What was The College Board thinking running a pilot test of a summer administration of the SAT for an exclusive group of students who could afford to go to a fancy summer program at Amherst College? Do they have no one working in their PR department? Is the CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings, Jr., also running The College Board? Its just utter stupidity. Rich kids arent a random sample. Why would any one run a pilot test on a sample that isnt random? What kind of scientific approach to testing is this? Or are they just trying to throw things at the board to see what sticks? Whose decision was this at The College Board? Who is going to step up and take responsibility? In years past, there have been allegations that the SAT exam is racist and many continue to argue that it caters to the economically advantaged. After all, with great tutoring, students boost their SAT scores. So youd think The College Board would have thought twice before they decided to run this pilot test at a summer program that costs $4,500 to attend. Maybe they could have run pilot tests in New York City public schools. Now that would have been great PR! But The College Board didnt think of that. The College Board brought this negative publicity on themselves for not thinking through the consequences of their actions. The press is now all over this story and its not going to go away until The College Board does something to address it. Silence isnt the answer here. Theyve got to own their mistake and either stop this pilot test or make the summer SAT exam available to all.