The problem with things like the SAT and other tests is less a 'culture' issue and more a money issue. Tests like the SAT have an entire industry around tutoring and prepping for the test. Doing well means getting into a better school, which means people who have more money can afford more prep which means they can get ahead easier.
The problem with things like the SAT and other tests is less a 'culture' issue and more a money issue. Tests like the SAT have an entire industry around tutoring and prepping for the test. Doing well means getting into a better school, which means people who have more money can afford more prep which means they can get ahead easier.
It also means the poorer, and often urban people tend to not have that time and thus tests become a way to exclude the poor, and there are more PoC among the poor than white people. And if you live in places like the south, if you're in public school, which probably got gutted in favor of defacto segregated private schools, then it's being used to keep you down.
The problem is not the idea of testing. The problem is that, as they stand, the tests are essentially a way to gatekeep higher education for richer, and often whiter, people. It's true that some people are better at tests than others. But the issue with these tests is that they're created with the idea that there is also a prep industry that you pay for to get good at it first.
In other words, it's a naturally unfair playing field being propped up and touted as though it was entirely neutral.
I think you have the cart before the horse, the test came first, then people who learned ways to game the test and then people who separated people from their money.
The problem with things like the SAT and other tests is less a 'culture' issue and more a money issue. Tests like the SAT have an entire industry around tutoring and prepping for the test. Doing well means getting into a better school, which means people who have more money can afford more prep which means they can get ahead easier.
It also means the poorer, and often urban people tend to not have that time and thus tests become a way to exclude the poor, and there are more PoC among the poor than white people. And if you live in places like the south, if you're in public school, which probably got gutted in favor of defacto segregated private schools, then it's being used to keep you down.
The problem is not the idea of testing. The problem is that, as they stand, the tests are essentially a way to gatekeep higher education for richer, and often whiter, people. It's true that some people are better at tests than others. But the issue with these tests is that they're created with the idea that there is also a prep industry that you pay for to get good at it first.
In other words, it's a naturally unfair playing field being propped up and touted as though it was entirely neutral.
I think you have the cart before the horse, the test came first, then people who learned ways to game the test and then people who separated people from their money.