What to Do About the SAT Adversity Score

Although colleges would be free to incorporate a student’s adversity score or not, it seems likely that many admissions offices will use the number to systematically privilege students based on their disadvantage. This prospect has parents alarmed; one college admissions officer told the New York Times that he has received e-mails from parents concerned that their children’s hard work “would be completely negated just because we happen to have some means.”

But one major question was left unanswered before the news cycle moved on: if citizens object to the adversity score, what can they do about it?

The answer isn’t immediately apparent. The College Board is the European Union of American education. No one really elected them, but they receive large taxpayer subsidies and have become an unmistakably political entity, one which just made a unilateral decision that will benefit some students at the expense of others.

This is not the College Board’s first foray into heated political waters. Four years ago, its first effort to rewrite its Advanced Placement U.S. History standards represented a hard lurch to the left, heaping praise on progressive presidents, epithets on Ronald Reagan, and framing World War II as an event that made America doubt its moral worth (making no mention of the fact that we defeated fascism).

But then the Republican National Committee issued a resolution condemning the new standards, and legislators in states like Oklahoma moved to ban school districts from using state funds to teach AP US History. At first, The College Board contemptuously dismissed criticism, but as political backlash kept growing, it solicited thoughtful criticism from conservative scholars and re-revised the standards, achieving an admirable balance.

That happy ending was partly due to grassroots political pressure, and partly to the open-mindedness and goodwill of the College Board leadership. This time around, however, College Board CEO David Coleman – who has been credited as the architect of the Common Core – appears too convinced of the rectitude of his decision to change course.

Fortunately, however, politicians have vastly more power over this issue than they had over AP US History for one simple reason: the SAT has a well-established competitor. Any governor or state legislator who feels that his constituents don’t want their children to be judged by an adversity score has the power to make that happen by subsidizing its competitor, the ACT.

The simplest step would be to pass a law stipulating that state colleges and universities may only accept the ACT. This move, however, would be all but certain to elicit political backlash from university administrators and social justice activists as an outright attack on the cause of “equity.”

A more prudent and productive path would be for politicians to take up the mantle of expanding equity – properly understood – while also defending merit.

The federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced the unpopular No Child Left Behind act, allows states the flexibility to use either a state standardized test, the SAT, or the ACT for their high school accountability system. Over the past few years, as the popularity of the Common Core and standardized tests aligned to it have waned, more states have been switching to using either the SAT or ACT.

Twenty-five states require high school students to take these college admissions tests, and offer subsidies to enable students regardless of economic background to take them.

Policies vary widely between states. Oklahoma, for example, allows its school districts to choose whether to administer the SAT or the ACT as part of its high school accountability system. If Oklahoma state legislators wanted to take the lead on this issue like they took the lead on AP US History, they could simply revise their law and tell school districts that only the ACT may be used for accountability purposes.

Other red states such as Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, North and South Dakota, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas still use state-designed and/or Common Core-aligned standardized tests. Enterprising legislators in these states could push to leave those unpopular tests behind, and ensure that every student has a chance to take a college admissions test and be judged solely on their merit by requiring all school districts to administer the ACT. 

For some, the idea that America’s division between Red and Blue states may be mirrored in a division between ACT and SAT states may seem an unpleasant prospect. But when a national, non-governmental actor makes a fundamentally political decision that will benefit some citizens at a cost to others, it’s incumbent on responsible political representatives to react accordingly. 

Fortunately, the genius of federalism still holds true in a scenario that the founders could perhaps have never envisioned. If citizens don’t mind the adversity score, then nothing need be done. But if citizens want their children to be judged on the basis of intellectual merit – not demographic circumstance – then they still have the power to effectuate their preferences through the political process.