<p>Hey,</p>
<p>If this means state subsidies for the SAT, I'll take it. College board has probably received a few hundred bucks from me by now after all the APs, SAT IIs, and SAT Is.</p>
<p>^I bet that the college board will come to some kind of agreement with the states so that it doesn't cost $42 per test. Thus the college board gets less money :).</p>
<p>I like the idea of having all students take the SAT as an incentive to think about college and to prepare. Maine has many low-income students who simply would not take the test otherwise. </p>
<p>But the price (not only the cost of the test) seems to me considerable: as I understand the policy, the SAT will be used as the main assessment tool at the HS level. No one seems to have pointed out the obvious to the legislature: the SAT-Reasoning test is not an test of high school achievement. Moreover, it requires almost no math beyond 2nd year algebra, and does not test science or social studies at all. The MEA, for all its shortcomings, at least measured achievement in the courses that students took in high school. The ACT is at least a reasonable measure of achievement; I wonder why they chose the SAT and not the ACT.</p>
<p>^SAT dominates the coasts, and ACT takes whats in between.</p>
<p>I think the ACT would be a much better test in terms of measuring achievement, which is the goal of state standardized tests. Reasoning skills don't mean much in this respect. With the ACT, both parties could benefit: students in Maine get a free/reduced-price college test, while the state gets their testing out of the way.</p>
<p>I think its a good idea that Maine mandates the SAT. The only downside is spending govt money for collegeboard :).</p>
<p>thank God some states are finding ways to fight against grade inflation and preserve SOME integrity of the educationsl system. this is comming from someone who earned an 810 on the SAT the first time.</p>
<p>problem with the act is that it doesn't test reasoning. any monkey can memorize a couple of facts. general consensus among sat and act takers are that act is far easier. </p>
<p>the "science" on there has a lot of just reading graphs and "what does the graph say" style stuff.</p>
<p>isn't the point of these state tests to "test achievement".... so wouldn't the ACT be a better test for that... i don't know that much about state tests, so i could be completly wrong...</p>
<p>Yes, fastMEd, that's all the ACT is. A couple of facts.</p>
<p>^^ that's new...</p>
<p>Except, fastmed, state tests measure what people have learned, not what they have intuitively. What, are you going to reward a school for the student's innate reasoning power?</p>
<p>Of course, your claims are pretty dubious anyhow. General consensus? Got any statistics to back it up? I have a friend who got a perfect 1600 on his SATs but 33 on the ACTs. I know plenty of people who could handle the SATs but never managed to finish the ACT on time. At least ACT doesn't have a third of it completely ignored by most colleges, and isn't so untrusted that its biggest customer threatened to take it off the requirements list. </p>
<p>Besides, you act as if SAT actually measures reasoning. If anything, at least the ACTs don't have vocabulary questions. How does vocabulary measure reasoning, again?</p>
<p>SAT measures ability to succeed in freshman year in college, not intelligence</p>
<p>Wow, I didn't know there are so many CCers who work for College Board.</p>
<p>But anyway, I think it's a good idea. I wish Oregon would replace the bechmark tests we have in here with either SAT or ACT. The only concern I have is, who is gonna pay that $42 per student?</p>
<p>I think it's kind of ironic that two of Maine's best colleges (Bowdoin and Bates) don't require the SAT for admission. Granted it's a lot harder to get in if you don't sumbit them, but they are still not required.</p>
<p>ok lets face it... SAT's are here to stay.... the reason that they work is not because they are a standard measure of how much you have learned, they are a standard measure of how hard your willing to study for them. </p>
<p>The reason the "smart" kids get a high score is because they understand that all you have to do to manipulate the SAT's is practice taking SAT's. It really isn't that difficult to understand, but of course, committing many hours of your summer to SAT prep is difficult. </p>
<p>I have a 4.0 at a very non-grade inflation school and my first run on the SAT's was mediocre at best. It wasn't because my school had gone easy on me, it was because the SAT is about mastering a very narrow set of question types (wow... i totally sound like one of those parents whose kids dont want to take a state exit exam because the test is "discriminatory or unfair")</p>
<p>But actually what I am saying is that it feels really good to beat collegeboard at their own game (yes...collegeboard has my money...but i finally ended up with scores that met my standards) </p>
<p>All I did was approach the SAT's with the same rigor I do for all of my classes.... I took every SAT/Kaplan/PR test i could get my hands on, and now whenever anyone mentions SAT on this board or in real life, I have a happy feeling.</p>
<p>We aren't talking about the SATs in terms of college admissions. This is about measuring achievement as a state test, which they do not do (and don't even claim to do).</p>
<p><em>Mandatory</em> SAT? No way! But I would support an optional texpayer-subsidized attempt at the SAT and ACT.</p>
<p>LAGator makes a great point--if the idea is to encourage students to take the SAT or ACT, Maine should subsidize the cost of tests for students with household incomes below a certain threshold, but use an assessment tool that's actually designed to assess student learning.</p>
<p>This decision came after a long, long process in Maine surrounding school testing. The state government committed itself to regular testing quite awhile ago, certainly before the No Child Left Behind Act. The whole effort has taken an incredible number of hours and state officials where not convinced that it had made any real difference in helping to increase achievement. </p>
<p>Furthermore, Maine has strong test scores in national K-12 tests and an excellent high school graduation rate, but a low rate of students going on to college. One reason for this gap between high school graduate rates and college-going is that parents themselves did not go to college and there wasn't always the sort of support CCers give to their kids. This included knowing the parameters of the system, including basics like taking the SATs. </p>
<p>Maine also has low income for a New England state (partly because of the low rate of college going) and the cost of the SAT was part of the reason why students didn't always take the test when they should have. Means-testing adds another step and the very proud, independent Mainer who would find the cost burdensome probably wouldn't be willing to ask for someone else to pay for the test.</p>
<p>Hope this context helps explain why Maine is willing to pay for everyone to take the test.</p>