You Need the 8th Grade PSAT Like You Need A Hole In Your Head
Earlier this month, the LA Times reported that The College Board will be launching a new PSAT in 2010 for 8th grade students. Currently only 10th and 11th grade students take the PSAT, a standardized test that has no real bearing on college admissions for the majority of students. The addition of the 8th Grade PSAT will bring the wonders of the SAT into the middle schools and junior highs of America for the first time.
To which I say "Blech!"
The public director of Fair Test sums up my feelings quite well:
"Now we're going to have a preadmission test to get ready for the
preadmission test? Get ready to get ready to get ready?" said Robert
Schaeffer, public education director of Cambridge, Mass.-based
FairTest, which is critical of standardized testing. "To believe you
need an eighth-grade test on top of the PSAT and SAT is just insane."
College Board is claiming that the new test will help to identify students who should focus on college preparatory classes during high school. I think it's far more likely that they want to compete with the ACT and generate additional revenue.
By their reasoning, students who will score well on the 8th Grade PSAT
will score well on the actual SAT and should be on a college bound
track. That relationship will probably hold up to scrutiny, but only because they are designing both exams. In addition, success on other standardized tests is plenty of notification already for parents and students to arrange for college prep classes.
ACT currently has a middle school test titled EXPLORE. I personally don't find the test to be particularly worthwhile, but it doesn't advertise itself as any sort of signal for future ability on the ACT. Instead, it's one of many diagnostic tests that administrators can give to help students understand their future choices by focusing on students interests, abilities, and values.
The new PSAT, however, is already being marketed in a way that makes parents and students who don't plan on taking the exam feel behind. It's not a diagnostic exam that will help students understand their choices. It's a marketing ploy designed by College Board to attach kids to the SAT brand while charging schools for tests that mean nothing.
Sound crazy? Here's what the LA Times says one administrator is already doing:
Cortines said he welcomes the new test, as it will focus families and
teachers on what students need to succeed. The deputy superintendent
said he has asked the board to budget $125,000 for eighth-grade PSAT
tests in the coming school year.
That's right. $125,000 of taxpayer money is going to go toward a test that is completely unproven to test anything. Just because College Board, a company that has no official relationship with colleges beyond supplying the SAT, says the test matters.
Blech.