The SATs are the one thing that allows college admissions to have a universal standard in judging applicants. It is difficult to judge based on GPA alone, for every school is different in level of difficulty, standards, etc. The SATs are, essentially, the same test –given to everyone in the same manner, and the score gives an assessment of where a student stands compared to all other students in the country. In theory, the SATs should measure both a student’s intelligence and their willingness to work hard and prepare for a tough exam.

Not, however, if the educational establishment can get their paws on it.

The educational establishment – the College Board, from the influence of the universities – has turned the one method to judge student’s raw talent and ability, the SATs, into a method to judge their political views. For 2006, the SATs are being overhauled.

Foxnews.com reports about the new SATs:

“Gone are the verbal analogies. New on the scene is more reading comprehension and writing, including a timed essay requiring students to take a position on an issue.”

This should raise a red flag for any rational person. Why would a college admissions test encourage a high school student to state their viewpoint? Can’t any other non-persuasive essay judge a student’s writing ability?

The new SATs are designed for one purpose: to pinpoint and accept students that most fit the university’s political and ideological agenda.

The university has long been in the business not of training rational, productive minds but of indoctrinating their viewpoint. Their thuggish tactics to silence conservatives and all other dissenting viewpoints are well known and well documented. This just goes one step further, and allows the university to screen conservatives before even entering.

The problem runs even deeper than this, though. Overhauling the SATs in this fashion draws attention to a major problem in education: students aren’t being trained to think but are being over-politicized.

“The change came partly in response to complaints from colleges that the old SAT was too coachable and based more on memorization and drills and had strayed too far from subjects actually taught in school. The College Board, which administers the SAT, wanted the test to be more compatible with today's curriculum.”

Indeed, it is true: today’s curriculums do not teach logic, like the old SATs demanded. Instead, in public schools today, students are much more likely to discuss hot political and moral issues in class, be encouraged to write papers on it, and sit in large “class discussions” to debate them. Students will in fact be at home with the new test: not demanded to perform, instead allowed to discuss their arbitrary opinions.

However, just because the schools focuses on this does not make it rational, and does not mean a proper college entrance exam should be mimicked after it. A college entrance exam should be based on those objective things that indicate how well a student will do in college and in life. A young student aspiring to be a doctor has little to no need to be able to “take a stand on an issue.” They need to demonstrate intelligence, a willingness to be responsible for information (get tested on it), and an ability to develop a wealth of knowledge in their field.

The schools are not in the business of training students for rational, productive purposes anymore. To teach students how to read properly or think properly is spit on as “petty bourgeois.” Notice the language from the foxnews.com article, in which they accused the old SATs of being rote, boring “memorization and drill.” This has been the smear on rational education for decades from progressives, followers of the educational theory started by John Dewey. They accuse teaching skills that aid in actual life as being mere unthinking “drill,” while their ideas are for the free-thinking and intelligent.

What part of the old SATs was “memorization”? At best, expanding one’s vocabulary to do well on the verbal section requires memorization, but the rest of the test is (was) grounded in logic. The advanced vocabulary on the SATs should not be eliminated either, for it shows a students’ willingness to study and prepare for a test – clearly an important attribute necessary to be successful in college.

The left has waged a war on the SATs for a long time. First, they cried that the tests were racist, and that by design white students would do better than black students.

After failing to win over the public with that argument, they have now resorted to gutting the SATs from the inside-out.

Why does the left hate the SATs? That they want to strip it of any meaning should make you pause and think.

The SATs represent rational intelligence and reason. It is really quite simple. If they can remove the intelligence portions of the SATs and insert a political portion, they can get exactly what they want: illogical students who will march in line with their propaganda.

This bit of news about the SATs single-handedly makes me support the Bush agenda in education. Personally, I do not believe education reform will happen in any meaningful way until the government monopoly on education is ended, and free-markets are allowed to reign. But the Bush plan of standardized testing, in which basic skills are tested, seems like a beacon of reason compared to the anarchy that schools have come to be today. That teachers are so hostile to kids taking basic tests with basic skills is really a for-shame on them. Someone should tell them that the high school students being produced under their unmonitored watch are not much to brag about, anyway.

College officials should seek the best and brightest in high school applicants. They should look for students with the best academic record, proven success and interest in the field they want to go into, and maybe once upon a time, SAT scores. Instead, college admissions today look for bogus things, such as students who are, “well-rounded." Now, with this new change, not only are they going to find students who are likely to become political activists and make political careers, but the guess-work is done for them: they can pick students without morals and values of their own, and will easily fit the university’s agenda. The new SAT format should be seen as affront to rational education and an urgent stimulus to break the monopoly of government-run education.

Amber Pawlik