Death of a Messenger

For more than four decades, the Scholastic Aptitude Tests have brought Americans quantitative news about the mathematical and verbal abilities of American pre-college students. For the past two decades, they have brought bad news. Therefore the educational establishment, dominated by the National Education Association, has taken the obvious action. They have killed the messenger.

As of this month, the Scholastic Aptitude Tests no longer exist. In their place are "Scholastic Assessment Tests I & II.'' USA Today reported on September 15, 1993 that the name of the test was changed "to eliminate the idea that it is an intelligence test.'' A lot more was also eliminated. "Gender bias,'' the tendency for boys to score, on average, 8 points higher on the verbal test was also eliminated. The tendency for boys to score 45 points higher on the math test was reduced by half. The reading test has been revised to ask students the "unstated implications of the passage'' and to reduce the importance of "what an author says.'' The math now de-emphasizes the correct answers in favor of the approved method of working a problem - after all, everything is relative and "outcome based,'' not absolute. Calculators have been added to eliminate the need for students to have any ability in mental arithmetic, and an essay has been added to the SAT II as a further trap for students whose thoughts are politically incorrect.

Although it was predictable that the tests would be eviscerated when today's "educators'' decided to revise them, the real reason for revision can be seen in this figure adapted from the June 1993 Forbes Magazine article entitled "The National Extortion Association?'' The National Education Association, NEA, is essentially a union that has arisen to protect its membership from the consequences of the mediocrity that has been the inevitable result of socialism in education. "Public school system'' is no more than a euphemism for "socialized education,'' and, like socialism in general, it degenerates into poor quality and worse. Socialism is morally and ethically wrong and, moreover, it doesn't work.