College Board Has Failed Us

College+Board+Has+Failed+Us

On Jan. 19, College Board announced that it would be “no longer offering SAT Subject Tests in the U.S.” and discontinuing “the optional SAT Essay after the June 2021 administration.”

While this is good news for most students, it is difficult to ignore the fact that these significant changes for students all across the country are simply overdue. College Board’s system of standardized testing has often been a target of criticism, and reform was bound to happen under the pressure of COVID-19 impacts and restrictions. 

Now it’s time for reform to shift over to College Board’s equally controversial AP system, which has failed and continues to fail students during the pandemic. When the events of 2020 dropped a bomb of upheaval and distance learning on students all across the U.S., College Board was standing there, lighting the fuse with online AP exams.  

Students at AHS, who paid $110 early in November 2020 long before any certainty about what colleges they were going to in the future, were committed to taking these tests if they wanted to maintain competitiveness and college credit. In their rush to maximize profit, College Board stumbled through 2020, highlighting the flaws in standardized testing as a whole. 

How can we hold onto standardized testing, knowing that the environments we take these tests in aren’t standardized at all? The quarantine has only widened the wealth inequality between students. In 2020, the lack of digital access became a heavy problem. College Board distributed about 7,500 devices across the nation for AP testing, but there are at least 11 million students without access to a computer for online learning. 

This doesn’t even account for the number of students who struggle getting stable internet access, a majority being made up of American Natives, Black people, and Hispanic people. 

Beyond this digital divide, situations have worsened as parents struggle for employment and to provide food on the table due to the economic impacts of the pandemic. Lower income has been correlated with lower standardized testing scores, and it’s to be expected for this trend to continue into the pandemic. This struggle for stability trails heavily into 2021.   

Despite it being less than four months away from the dreaded weeks of AP exams, one of the most important and nerve-wracking times in an American student’s career, College Board has failed to provide students with decisive updates regarding the in person or online status of these tests on top of keeping them of full, three-hour length and with coverage of the complete subject matter (unlike 2020’s exams), despite the majority of students learning these subjects virtually and with condensed or limited curriculum.

According to College Board’s website, this monumental decision has been passed on to separate AP Coordinators, meaning that each school district will vary in the in-person or online status of their exams. Although this new system attempts to accommodate differing public health situations, it actually deepens the already existing disparity among students.

To compare the results of a student who takes a three hour test online and another who will be taking that same test in person is the very epitome of inequality, as both situations can yield very different results and disadvantages.

It’s still unknown how College Board is going to tackle this inequality. For instance, how will it monitor cheating amongst students who are required to take the test online? Access to websites, personal notes, a textbook, and other sources for cheating puts one student at an incredible advantage over the other. What about students whose home environments are not conducive to taking a three hour exam (such as students with several siblings in the same house, or those without a private room to take it in)? To further make a student go through a three-hour make-up exam with some of these possible interferences is unjust to that student, and could put a strain on their mental health and test results. The fact that the location of this test isn’t standardized is a contradiction to the test’s existence and purpose. 

The lack of clarity surrounding the circumstances of this year’s AP Exams also takes a hit at teachers who are uncertain about how they should be preparing their students halfway into the school year, especially with the circumstances of distance learning. 

In AHS AP Language and Composition teacher Mr. Maertens’ case, one of the biggest issues is time. “We only meet for almost three hours a week as opposed to five hours,” he said. “So we’re losing [about] 30% of our instructional time or so, but the [AP] test hasn’t changed to reflect that.” 

Junior Kyle Chen said it would be “way easier” if he could just know the status of AP exams as soon as possible so he can prepare accordingly. Instead, there are only three months left to prepare, and the uncertainty not only leaves him helpless but “anxious” and “impatient.”

As an organization that has so much control over the education system and the college decisions of millions of students, College Board should start putting in more action to make tests fair for everyone: students of different backgrounds, teachers from different schools, etc. This is an ongoing conversation that doesn’t seem to have a concrete solution yet, but hopefully College Board stays true to its commitment to “excellence and equity in education,” and prioritizes it.

In the meantime, we as students need to realize that these exams should not be at the expense of our health. The most we can do is hope that decisive updates will arrive in a more efficient manner as we anxiously prepare for the next few months. After all, we still have some good news to celebrate, such as the previously mentioned cancelled SAT Subject Tests and optional essay. Until then, it’ll be interesting to see how our education system adapts and if any dramatic change will happen soon.  

 

Graphic courtesy of COLLEGEBOARD.ORG