Standardized Tests

 

     Let's Talk About Standardized Tests!

     How can you compare students from diffenent
schools where standards are different?  A student
can have a 4.0 average from one school and be
illiterate, while a student with a 3.0 average
from a rigorous, inspired school could be one
of the world's best.  The answer is: well
designed standardized tests!

  Henry Chauncey, SAT steward
  HE CHAMPIONED THE EXAM AS A TOOL
  TO EXPAND OPPORTUNITY
     By Elaine Woo
     LOS ANGELES TIMES 12/2002

     Henry Chauncey, who as founder of the
Educational Testing Service played a pivotal
role in the rise of standardized testing
in college admissions, died of natural causes
Tuesday at his home in Shelburne, Vt.
He was 97.

     Mr. Chauncey was president of the
testing service from its inception in 1947
until his retirement in 1970.  During that
period, he championed the use of the exam
then known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test,
or SAT, AS A TOOL TO EXTEND OPPORTUNITIES
FOR A HIGH-QUALITY EDUCATION BEYOND THE
PRIVILEGED CLASSES.

     "HE HOPED THAT IT WOULD MAKE IT
POSSIBLE FOR COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES 
TO ADMIT PEOPLE BASED ON THEIR MERIT
RATHER THAN ON THEIR SOCIAL OR ECONOMIC
BACKGROUND BY FINDING A STANDARDIZED
WAY TO MAKE JUDGMENTS ABOUT PEOPLE'S
INTELLECTUAL ABILITIES," said his son,
Henry...

     "Henry was a truly gifted administrator.
He built ETS from scratch," said Nicholas
Lemann, author of the recent book "The
Big Test: The Secret History of the
American Meritocracy."  "Conant, his mentor,
was shocked by how big Henry made it."

     CONANT WANTED TO FULFILL THOMAS
JEFFERSON'S HOPE OF A "NATURAL ARISTOCRACY,"
BASED ON ABILITY RATHER THAN THE PRIVILEGES
OF HIGH BIRTH.  Mr. Chauncey was an
assistant dean at Harvard in 1933 when
Conant asked him to help expand the student
body beyond the usual circle of Northeastern
prep school graduates.  Was there a test,
Conant asked, that could help determine
who might be worthy recipients of Harvard
scholarships?  Mr. Chauncey found an answer
in the Scholastic Aptitude Test, which had
been invented by a Princeton psychologist,
Carl Brigham...
 
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