The College Board's Initiatives: Beyond Assessments to Opportunities
The College Board is expanding its mission from simply delivering assessments to actively creating opportunities for students. This involves initiatives designed to work alongside assessments, propelling students toward college success. College Board President David Coleman unveiled these plans, emphasizing that the focus should be on providing opportunities rather than just administering tests.
Expanding Access for Low-Income Students
One of the primary actions taken by the College Board is to expand its outreach to college-ready, low-income students. This expansion aims to provide customized, targeted support throughout the college application process. A significant aspect of this initiative is the provision of fee waivers. Every income-eligible student who takes the SAT will directly receive four fee waivers to apply to college. This measure directly addresses a cost barrier that disproportionately affects low- and middle-income students, making college applications more accessible. Coleman stated that providing students with admission fee waivers, understandable information, and encouragement can significantly reduce hesitation and increase the breadth of their applications.
Free Test Preparation with Khan Academy
The College Board is directly addressing the inequities surrounding college entrance exams, particularly the advantage held by students who can afford expensive test preparation. To level the playing field, the College Board is partnering with Khan Academy to provide free test preparation materials for the redesigned SAT. This collaboration, set to launch, will offer all students access to sophisticated, interactive software that provides in-depth practice and helps diagnose their areas of weakness, all at no cost. Sal Khan, founder and executive director of Khan Academy, highlighted the long-standing imbalance between students with and without access to test-prep courses, emphasizing the importance of this initiative.
Redesigning the SAT Exam
The SAT exam itself is undergoing significant changes. The redesigned exam aims to retain the qualities that have made the SAT valuable while incorporating improvements based on statistical expertise regarding the exam's validity and predictive power. The exam will return to the 1600 scale and will be approximately three hours long, with an additional 50 minutes for the essay (though the essay is now optional). The first administration of the redesigned exam will take place.
Focus on Relevant Vocabulary
The redesigned SAT will shift away from obscure vocabulary words that students are unlikely to encounter outside of the test. Instead, the focus will be on "SAT words" that are relevant and commonly used.
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Evidence-Based Reading and Writing
The redesigned exam will emphasize evidence-based reading and writing skills, requiring students to analyze and interpret information from provided texts.
Optional Essay Analyzing a Source
The essay portion of the writing section will become optional. The essay will measure students' ability to analyze evidence and explain how an author builds an argument to persuade an audience. Responses will be evaluated based on the strength of the analysis and the coherence of the writing. The decision to make the essay optional stems from two factors: the limited contribution of a single essay to the overall predictive power of the exam and divided opinions among College Board member admission officers regarding the essay's usefulness. The College Board will continue to promote analytical writing through other assessments and instructional resources and will sponsor an awards program modeled after the Pulitzer Prize for the best student analytical writing.
Math Focused on Key Areas
The math section will narrow its focus to three key areas that are most relevant to college and career readiness: problem solving and data analysis; the heart of algebra; and passport to advanced math.
Real-World Context and Data Analysis
The redesigned SAT will require students to analyze data and texts in real-world contexts, including identifying and correcting inconsistencies between the two.
Emphasis on Founding Documents
Each exam will include a passage drawn from the Founding Documents of America or the Great Global Conversation they inspire, such as the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, and "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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Rights-Only Scoring
The College Board will eliminate the penalty for incorrect answers, adopting a simpler scoring model where students receive points only for questions they answer correctly.
Research-Driven Improvements
Coleman emphasized that research will guide the College Board's efforts to enhance the work students already do in their classes in grades 6-12. The College Board shared the complete specifications of the exam, as well as sample items, in advance of the first administration of the redesigned exam. The College Board continued to provide updated information in the lead-up to the first administration.
Khan Academy's Role
Khan Academy is a non-profit organization with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. It offers free online educational materials, including practice exercises, instructional videos, dashboard analytics, and teacher tools, to support personalized education for users of all ages. Khan Academy has delivered millions of lessons and billions of exercise problems and currently serves millions of users per month. Its subject coverage ranges from basic math to college-level biology and art history.
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