Sal Khan on Testing, Admissions, and Equity
Is Sal Khan the most respected individual in education today or just one of the most respected individuals in education? The founder of Khan Academy, the gold standard in academic training videos, has done more to “provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere” than, well, anyone, anywhere. While Sal’s been busy launching yet another free academic resource, he recently shared his thoughts on testing, test-optional admissions, and equity in an insightful interview with THE Journal. Here are some of his more salient points along with some editorial commentary: THE Journal: Is the SAT still relevant, now that many colleges and universities have made test scores optional for admission? SK: When I talk to admissions officers, behind closed doors, they will tell you that making tests optional did not remove the need for them to get a signal of college readiness from applicants. The reality is that savvy students continue…
The Value of Test Preparation
Effective test preparation delivers so many benefits beyond the obvious improvement in test scores. This post is authored and published by the National Test Prep Association and shared here with permission.
How Standardized Testing Benefits Individuals
The best standardized tests are designed to evaluate agreed-upon skills, standards, and proficiencies. Every test taker benefits from an objective assessment about where they place both in relation to specific benchmarks and the rest of their testing cohort. This post is authored and published by the National Test Prep Association and shared here with permission.
How Standardized Testing Benefits Society
In March 2022, the National Test Prep Association published the following persuasive post on How Standardized Testing Benefits Society, shared here with permission.
Different Ways to Interpret a Score Improvement
For students and parents accustomed to their high schools’ grading scales, standardized test scores can feel inscrutable. Bad enough that every exam adopts its own arbitrary scale, but the test scores they produce show little relation to the number of questions a tester may answer correctly. Even more confusing, test scores and school grades are not at all aligned. Perfect grades definitely don’t translate to perfect or even excellent test scores, depending, of course, on the complex interactions between students, teachers, and assessments. Yet, if understanding what a given test score means is difficult, comprehending the magnitude of an increase from one score to another can be exponentially more challenging. How should someone who isn’t an educational professional recognize that a 2-point improvement is outstanding on an AP exam, good on the ACT, and too low to measure on the SAT? Obviously, the easiest way to appreciate the impact of…
Advocating for Your Rights on Test Day
One of the central tenets of standardized testing is that every test taker takes a test the same way. Any aspect of exam administration from timing to breaks to even the instructions a proctor shares before starting the clock should be predetermined and implemented at all testing locations. This level of attention to detail permits fair comparison of scores from tests administered across a multitude of test sites and dates. In essence, everything possible about a standardized test must be standardized. So what happens when a proctor deviates from the script? One of my colleagues, whose state and district shall remain nameless to protect the guilty, shared the following legitimate complaints: I am LIVID. I just found out from my own daughter that the proctors at three ACT test sites/schools she has used in the last year have… not given a break because they poll the kids, who just want…