It was the winter of sixth grade, and the pressure of getting into a selective enrollment school for the fall of my seventh-grade year was worse than ever. I spent my nights studying for a test that could potentially determine my whole life. I did multiple practice tests every day leading up to the selective enrollment exam. I cried because I continued to get less than 75 percent accuracy on the practice tests. I did this all while wondering why I put myself in this situation. I contemplated if I could get into a good-ranking high school.
On the day of the exam, I was astonished at how easy the questions were. They asked a 6th grader to finish the pattern of shapes: triangle, square, circle, triangle, etc. At the time, I was confused because my main focal point in studying was to study different equations and methods to different concepts that hadn't hit my 6th-grade classroom. So you could imagine the relief I felt at the moment of the exam.
However, I was surprised at how little time I had to answer these simple questions. This being my first ever timed exam, I had no experience, not even with the practice tests. It wasn't until that day and the acceptance into a selective enrollment high school as a middle schooler that I realized many of the tests given to me were not always based on how smart you are, but on how fast you can think. It made me question why all of my tests were timed (and why a lot of them had to do with how good I was at memorizing).
***
There is no debate that standardized tests and IQ tests originated from racist intent. Alfred Binet was a psychologist in 1904 who was asked by the French government to find a way for schools to determine which students were likely to succeed and which students were likely to experience difficulties. He developed the first recognized IQ test where he divided a child’s mental age by their actual age and then multiplied that number by 100. This was deemed an incomplete measure of intelligence by other psychologists because they argued that Binet’s IQ test failed to recognize the complexity of intelligence and how it is affected by many factors. Psychologists later developed a more modified version of his IQ test to better address these inaccuracies. The U.S. Army then developed Alpha and Beta IQ tests to place men into certain positions, which became a precedent for usage in schools. The U.S. also used IQ on new immigrants entering the United States, which created stereotypes against certain ethnic groups, insisting that they are genetically less smart. The U.S. Army gave birth to the SAT, which is used nationwide today. America's elite Ivy League used the SAT to group the worthy kids into admission. Now, many colleges in America require students to submit scores.
Being a Junior made me realize that 50 percent of the stress that I have experienced so far had to do with my SAT score. I try to remind myself that my scores do not define me and that whatever happens, it is okay. But it's not. The score is so heavily weighted because it is not only a determining factor of what school I go to, but also how much money I make in the future.
The SAT being the determining factor on whether a student can afford to attend college is a scam. Firstly, the gap between white and black students’ SAT scores is the result of racial segregation and unequal opportunity in schools since way back when. Black students are scoring relatively lower than white students, yet colleges do not acknowledge the root of this. Colleges are allowing for a pattern of generational segregation.
***
Ms. Jackson stresses more than anything the importance of SAT prep and how it only benefits you. She also reminds us that it is a privilege and that we are lucky to get it for free. This is not entirely wrong. I and everyone else at Brooks do not like to attend SAT prep on C days. Practically, my reason is that I do not feel like it helps when there is a clear disadvantage for black kids who have attended poorly funded schools their whole life. I feel as though I have already lost in the race because kids my age have been practicing taking the SAT since 8th grade and have been taking prep classes since they started high school.
This past C day, I realized the disconnect between the students and the SAT tutors in the classrooms. I have a math teacher who teaches us math on a slideshow. He stands at the board and just points and talks. I don't know about teaching, but I know that is not how to engage students. Throughout my years of high school, I have found that I learn the best visually, so this is entirely discouraging to me and students with similar preferences. Another reason why I do not believe that SAT prep at Brooks is effective is the timing of it. We only have so many C days a month, and we only started receiving it our junior year, so the consistency is just not there, which is in contrast to other students who are prepared for these tests and who happen to be our competition.
However, attending Brooks I admit is a privilege because there are students who have it worse. SAT costs thousands of dollars, and if black kids in underfunded schools are taking this test compared to rich white kids who were given a multitude of resources, colleges are most likely to admit the higher-scoring students because they are deemed “most likely to succeed."
This repeats the cycle of wealth for white people and continues the cycle of generational oppression of black people.
***
Since 1978, Colleges have sought to recognize this problem with affirmative action, which considers the race of students who have been subjected to discrimination during the admissions process. The Supreme Court recently overturned this in 2023. This completely undid the progression of reversing the effects of segregation.
Regression like this, which is seen throughout American history towards black people, is a clear representation of how society just does not care about black kids and black success. Maybe the engagement from the tutors and teachers in classrooms today is because they simply believe black kids do not care about education, so they show signs of disinterest as well.
There has always been a perception that teachers have of black students. Perceptions that they are unruly, disruptive, and incompetent. Because of this perception, society believes black children are less likely to succeed. Many black kids find it hard to find teachers who relate to them in a way that gives them hope and faith. So when they do find these teachers, they remember them and become inspiration. This is an important connection to have in a classroom, especially when society has already grouped the student as less likely to be successful just because they were born black.
On the day of the exam, I was astonished at how easy the questions were. They asked a 6th grader to finish the pattern of shapes: triangle, square, circle, triangle, etc. At the time, I was confused because my main focal point in studying was to study different equations and methods to different concepts that hadn't hit my 6th-grade classroom. So you could imagine the relief I felt at the moment of the exam.
However, I was surprised at how little time I had to answer these simple questions. This being my first ever timed exam, I had no experience, not even with the practice tests. It wasn't until that day and the acceptance into a selective enrollment high school as a middle schooler that I realized many of the tests given to me were not always based on how smart you are, but on how fast you can think. It made me question why all of my tests were timed (and why a lot of them had to do with how good I was at memorizing).
***
There is no debate that standardized tests and IQ tests originated from racist intent. Alfred Binet was a psychologist in 1904 who was asked by the French government to find a way for schools to determine which students were likely to succeed and which students were likely to experience difficulties. He developed the first recognized IQ test where he divided a child’s mental age by their actual age and then multiplied that number by 100. This was deemed an incomplete measure of intelligence by other psychologists because they argued that Binet’s IQ test failed to recognize the complexity of intelligence and how it is affected by many factors. Psychologists later developed a more modified version of his IQ test to better address these inaccuracies. The U.S. Army then developed Alpha and Beta IQ tests to place men into certain positions, which became a precedent for usage in schools. The U.S. also used IQ on new immigrants entering the United States, which created stereotypes against certain ethnic groups, insisting that they are genetically less smart. The U.S. Army gave birth to the SAT, which is used nationwide today. America's elite Ivy League used the SAT to group the worthy kids into admission. Now, many colleges in America require students to submit scores.
Being a Junior made me realize that 50 percent of the stress that I have experienced so far had to do with my SAT score. I try to remind myself that my scores do not define me and that whatever happens, it is okay. But it's not. The score is so heavily weighted because it is not only a determining factor of what school I go to, but also how much money I make in the future.
The SAT being the determining factor on whether a student can afford to attend college is a scam. Firstly, the gap between white and black students’ SAT scores is the result of racial segregation and unequal opportunity in schools since way back when. Black students are scoring relatively lower than white students, yet colleges do not acknowledge the root of this. Colleges are allowing for a pattern of generational segregation.
***
Ms. Jackson stresses more than anything the importance of SAT prep and how it only benefits you. She also reminds us that it is a privilege and that we are lucky to get it for free. This is not entirely wrong. I and everyone else at Brooks do not like to attend SAT prep on C days. Practically, my reason is that I do not feel like it helps when there is a clear disadvantage for black kids who have attended poorly funded schools their whole life. I feel as though I have already lost in the race because kids my age have been practicing taking the SAT since 8th grade and have been taking prep classes since they started high school.
This past C day, I realized the disconnect between the students and the SAT tutors in the classrooms. I have a math teacher who teaches us math on a slideshow. He stands at the board and just points and talks. I don't know about teaching, but I know that is not how to engage students. Throughout my years of high school, I have found that I learn the best visually, so this is entirely discouraging to me and students with similar preferences. Another reason why I do not believe that SAT prep at Brooks is effective is the timing of it. We only have so many C days a month, and we only started receiving it our junior year, so the consistency is just not there, which is in contrast to other students who are prepared for these tests and who happen to be our competition.
However, attending Brooks I admit is a privilege because there are students who have it worse. SAT costs thousands of dollars, and if black kids in underfunded schools are taking this test compared to rich white kids who were given a multitude of resources, colleges are most likely to admit the higher-scoring students because they are deemed “most likely to succeed."
This repeats the cycle of wealth for white people and continues the cycle of generational oppression of black people.
***
Since 1978, Colleges have sought to recognize this problem with affirmative action, which considers the race of students who have been subjected to discrimination during the admissions process. The Supreme Court recently overturned this in 2023. This completely undid the progression of reversing the effects of segregation.
Regression like this, which is seen throughout American history towards black people, is a clear representation of how society just does not care about black kids and black success. Maybe the engagement from the tutors and teachers in classrooms today is because they simply believe black kids do not care about education, so they show signs of disinterest as well.
There has always been a perception that teachers have of black students. Perceptions that they are unruly, disruptive, and incompetent. Because of this perception, society believes black children are less likely to succeed. Many black kids find it hard to find teachers who relate to them in a way that gives them hope and faith. So when they do find these teachers, they remember them and become inspiration. This is an important connection to have in a classroom, especially when society has already grouped the student as less likely to be successful just because they were born black.
The mother of the SAT, College Board, is also extremely shady. Just like everything else in America, the motive for something like this is always capitalism. College Board capitalizes off of students. They sell their information without consent to universities. Then, the universities promote themselves to students who they know are not going to be accepted. This increases the colleges' ranking by presenting them as more selective as more people apply and pay them to do so. College Board makes the SAT tricky to navigate so that students will have to retake multiple tests adding more money into their pockets. Before 2014, the ACT was way more common than the SAT. It was a competing college entrance exam to the SAT. It was also deemed a better test to assess what kids have learned. College Board intensively urged for the SAT to be the mandated exam so that it was the leading product in the market. College Board today makes $490 million each year from just SAT and AP exams. |
The nation’s biggest problem (and many Juniors around the worlds' problem) is that there is no exemption from this scam. No change can be made, starting with just one person’s refusal to conform to the expectation. Illinois and many other states in the U.S. make it mandatory to take the SAT. It would have to take society and their want for change to actually bring it forth.
Standardized tests should not be a requirement to ensure the placement of a student’s intellect. Instead, schools should prioritize more performance-based exams where their creative minds are up for interpretation, such as an oral or video presentation, an essay, a journal, art, or anything that can exercise a student’s motive to branch out from memorization of how to answer certain questions. Performance exams allow for students to apply what they have learned to real life and prepare them for the convention of being free thinkers. If students are taught and practice this standard early, there would be no room for standardized tests. However, there is no doubt that more inequity would materialize. As long as white America has the primary seat at the table, then nothing can inherently be fair for minorities in America.
Standardized tests should not be a requirement to ensure the placement of a student’s intellect. Instead, schools should prioritize more performance-based exams where their creative minds are up for interpretation, such as an oral or video presentation, an essay, a journal, art, or anything that can exercise a student’s motive to branch out from memorization of how to answer certain questions. Performance exams allow for students to apply what they have learned to real life and prepare them for the convention of being free thinkers. If students are taught and practice this standard early, there would be no room for standardized tests. However, there is no doubt that more inequity would materialize. As long as white America has the primary seat at the table, then nothing can inherently be fair for minorities in America.
Though the SAT can be beneficial, it is mostly proven beneficial to wealthy white students, which contributes to the idea that white wealthy people are the smartest, the setback of black people’s economic success runs deep, and its effort to build little black kids’ foundation on shifting sands is even deeper. America's conscience is tainted, and unless it addresses its modern-day racism, there is no way it can ever be what everyone thinks America is: a nation of economic opportunity and diversity.