The ACT Discriminates...but not in the way you might expect.
Does the ACT discriminate? Yes, it does. It separates students based on how much high school material they’ve learned. That’s all.
Frederick R. Prete
16 Jul 2022
We can’t decide how we feel about standardized college admission tests like the ACT. Some schools think they’re fundamentally biased against female, minority and low-income students and have either stopped using them or made them optional. Others believe that abandoning the tests will harm low- and middle-income students by making the admission process more subjective, thereby advantaging wealthier, better connected applicants. On the other hand, some schools think that standardized tests are necessary to accurately assess student preparedness and identify those who will benefit most from college. Such schools have either continued or reinstated their test requirements.
Is there anything more to add to the debate, or are the tests just fatally flawed anachronisms?
Most of what I’ve read about standardized tests like the ACT has been written from the “30,000-foot perspective” by people who have faced the test once as teenagers. I’d like to offer a different perspective. I’m a biological psychologist. I’ve been a university professor in both Psychology and Biology departments for several decades. However, I also spent 12 years teaching high school biology, chemistry, math, and ACT/SAT prep courses for a nonprofit tutoring center which, unfortunately, recently closed. They did great work.
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What I’ve learnedI’ve been teaching for quite a while. Over the decades, a lot has changed, but much has stayed the same. For instance, students’ intellectual needs haven’t changed very much. Nor has the basic level of education necessary for a reasonably good life. (No, everyone does not need to code.)
Something else has stayed the same. It’s the students’ biology. Learning is actually a physiological process. In order to learn something, there has to be an actual change in brain organization. That’s why learning is difficult, and why it takes time. It’s no different from sports. In order to get better at tennis, you have to practice tennis. In order to learn math, you have to practice math.
To do well on a test like the ACT, you have to take it after having thoroughly and repeatedly practiced the material that it covers. That takes several years of high school, just like it takes several years to be a good tennis player.
Does the ACT discriminate? Yes, it does. It separates students based on how much high school material they’ve learned. That’s all.
Source:
https://quillette.com/2022/07/16/the-act-discriminates/