New SATs Still Miss Mark

By Margaret Lyons in News on Jun 17, 2008 9:39PM

Chicago schools are out for the summer, but education reporting gets no such vaycay. A new study shows the revamped SATs don't do a better job of predicting college grades than the old SATs. The new test, which includes a writing portion, is, like the older test, a better predictor for women than men and for whites than minorities. What the study fails to mention is that the new SATs have also created an uncrossable divide between people who took the old test and people who took the one--those new scores don't make sense at all. How are siblings supposed to compete now, we ask. How will classic Saved By The Bell episodes make sense to new generations?

In other education news, enrollment in CPS-mandated summer school is up 38 percent thanks to a new policy that requires students have at least a C in both reading and math to advance to the next grade; it used to be a D. And we somehow missed Will Okun's prom chaperone chronicle.

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