The Lessons of History

And you can imagine how the French felt about it. They were outraged! But there was nothing they could do about it; they had to wait for their opportunity to get their identity back. World War I was exactly that opportunity, and the festering resentments of the territory theft fueled, in no small part, the nationalism and ferocity that France brought to bear on Germany in that “War to End All Wars.” The resulting Treaty of Versailles, besides sowing the seeds of German resentment that would ultimately allow Hitler’s rise to power, gave the Alsace-Lorraine back to France.

The ground under French feet in shifted in 1871, but they got their revenge.

So what are students who took the SAT in June supposed to do? The ground similarly shifted under their feet; will they be able to get their revenge?

Covered amply by news outlets around the country, the story is this:

Students and their parents are outraged that the scoring curve was harsher for high achieving test takers on the June SAT, and they are seeking to have the tests re-scored or thrown out altogether.

Essentially, the June test was “too easy”, with far more test takers than College Board would like missing very few answers. Since it wouldn’t do to have such a high skew, College Board “equalized” the June test with its predecessors by penalizing each incorrect answer more strongly than in tests past. Thus, many students who missed fewer answers on the June test than on previous tests they had taken actually had lower overall scores than they had on previous tests they had taken.

And now comes the August SAT debacle; the test contained recycled questions from a previous test, and the answers had been leaked. Since the controversy came to light, law suits have been filed by outraged parents, and many students, parents, and counselors were fearful that everyone taking the test on the August date would have their scores invalidated.

I am skeptical that the outcry over the scoring of the June SAT and the leaking/selling of answers to the August SAT will be heeded by College Board, the parent company of the SAT. And I believe that the controversy will only help to fuel the anti-standardized testing lobby. I also think that many college admission officers will see this fiasco as yet another reason to consider standardized testing more lightly in their evaluation of applications.

Revenge may indeed come. The SAT and ACT may continue to lose power and ultimately disappear in the college admission evaluation process because of snafus like the June scoring scandal. But, like the citizens of Alsace-Lorraine, frustrated test takers (who thought they understood the boundaries of the test only to wake up and realize they didn’t) may have to wait until the standardized test giants (like Germany in 1914) overreach and relinquish their power.