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 n a column for
yesterday's NRO ("Academic
Postmodernity & the SATs") I argued that the shocking attempt
by
University
of California President Richard Atkinson to eliminate the SAT as
a requirement for admission was only the most glaring example of
the deeper, often hidden, damage done by "affirmative action" to
our democratic principles and academic standards. I mourned the
tragedy that preferential treatment has rained down upon both the
academy and our nation.
But today, I'm through with moaning. Actually, by overreaching,
UC President Atkinson has handed conservatives a winning cultural
issue. A look at the history of this controversy makes it clear
that if the Bush administration has the courage and savvy to make
an issue of the proposed SAT ban, the public will come down firmly
on the side of testing and standards. And once the higher-education
debate has shifted from the explosive topic of affirmative action
to testing-for-excellence, the Democrats will be split, and the
cultural Left marginalized.
The role of SATs in college admissions has been under assault ever
since public referendums and court decisions began to peel back
affirmative action in states like California, Texas, and Washington.
Without license to disregard SAT gaps of 300 points or more between
Asian or White students, on the one hand, and Black or Hispanic
students, on the other, advocates of affirmative action decided
that the tests themselves would have to go. In their quest for diversity
by any means necessary, these activists were perfectly willing to
sacrifice the very notion of excellence itself. But they were smart
enough to see that the public won't buy that sort of radicalism.
So the initial efforts to do in the SAT were stealthy.
In May of 1999, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights
produced a "guide" that warned educators against using tests that
had a "disparate impact" on minorities. Although the guide had no
legal force, it threatened colleges making use of SATs with a cut-off
of federal funds. And the guide was written as a virtual lawsuit
manual for aggrieved minorities with low test scores.
Naturally, all standardized tests have a "disparate impact"
on minorities (not because of test bias, but because of actual gaps
in educational achievement). So the guidelines were implicitly demanding
an end to all academic tests and grades. But the immediate
effect of the guide was to throw college-admissions offices into
a veritable panic. By threatening to cut off funds and facilitate
lawsuits, the federal government had virtually demanded an end to
the use of SATs in American higher education.
Although the potential impact of the new guidelines was huge, and
although college administrators across the nation were deeply alarmed,
this federal offensive against testing was conducted in virtual
secrecy. Although the Office of Civil Rights had worked on its new
guidelines for years, it allowed colleges only four days to respond
to the proposed policy. And when reporters inquired, OCR assured
them that nothing new had happened. The guide, clearly aimed at
precipitating an educational revolution, was described to reporters
as merely a useful synthesis of "settled law." Actually, no law
in this country is less settled than law on affirmative action
and "disparate impact." But OCR's ploy worked; the press turned
mute.
Liberal press bias clearly played a role here as well. Reporters
for the New York Times and Los Angeles Times knew
that college administrators were in a panic over the
| “By
overreaching, UC President Atkinson has handed conservatives
a winning cultural issue.” |
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proposed revolution. Yet they said nothing. It took an avalanche
of protests by conservative Op Ed writers, about a month after the
guidelines were issued, to finally shame the New York Times
into covering the story. At that point, Education's Office of Civil
Rights beat a hasty retreat, abandoning all efforts to put teeth
into the new guidelines by withholding federal funds.
About six months later, however, liberals at the Educational Testing
Service (which designs the SAT) floated a trial balloon meant to
restore the regime of preferences. The plan was to manufacture a
special "strivers" score that would artificially add perhaps hundreds
of points to the scores of minority students. Once again, hostile
reaction from conservative columnists helped to shoot the idea down.
So even before UC President Atkinson made his latest gambit, the
Left had already made several quiet attempts to circumvent the roll-back
of affirmative action. But every back-door effort to re-instate
affirmative action by dumping the SATs has led to conservatives
howls, the arousal of public support for standards, and, ultimately,
to the Left's retreat.
Until his dramatic call for the elimination of the SAT, President
Atkinson's tenure at the University of California had been marked
by the usual pattern of quiet resistance to standards, followed
by hasty retreats upon exposure. Atkinson was publicly humiliated
by then-Republican Governor Pete Wilson and the conservative UC
Regents early in his tenure when he attempted to delay the implementation
of the Regents' anti-affirmative action order. The Regents threatened
Atkinson's job by calling a special session to review his performance.
Atkinson retreated, but later sponsored several plans for downplaying
the importance of SAT scores in admissions. But the gap in scores
was too big to circumvent.
Now that Atkinson, at age 71, is set to retire, he's made it plain
that, with his career almost over, he's unafraid to say what he
really believes. So Atkinson's move to dump the SATs is less a well-considered
political strategy than the final score-settling act of a die-hard
proponent of affirmative action who has nothing left to lose.
In a worst-case scenario, conservatives will remain silent and Atkinson's
ploy will work. But a concerted attack on this misguided attempt
to restore affirmative action by torpedoing academic standards has
every prospect of both saving the academy and placing the opposition
on the political hot seat. The public supports testing and standards.
After all, the campaign forced even Al Gore to sign on to testing
and accountability. And a 1998 poll by the non-partisan research
group, Public Agenda, revealed that 78% of African-American parents
agreed that testing calls attention to problems that need to be
solved. So killing the SATs is a political non-starter, even for
many African Americans.
It's time for the Bush administration to act. It may be a year before
we get a new head of the National Endowment for the Humanities (and
this fracas shows just how important it is to get someone at NEH
who knows how to use the bully pulpit). That means Education Secretary
Rod Paige needs to speak out. Paige may be focused on primary and
secondary education, but as one of the nation's foremost advocates
of testing, this issue is tailor-made for him. Texas has long been
at the cutting edge of the national move toward accountability through
testing. And Paige knows from experience that testing helps reduce
racial gaps by highlighting them. That's just what testing did in
Texas, which is why Paige, late of Texas, is now Education Secretary.
Tests in Texas were a weapon against "social promotion" (passing
people to the next grade when they haven't mastered the required
skills). But admitting people to college despite low test scores
is the ultimate example of unwarranted social promotion. And after
all, President Bush's favorite point about education is our need
to eschew "the soft bigotry of low expectations." What expresses
that bigotry more clearly than an attempt to kill the test instead
of demanding higher performance?
So herein lies a real opportunity for the Bush administration. If
Bush truly wants to be the "education president," he'll have to
do something about higher education. If not here, on the issue of
testing and standards, where the administration is firmly on record,
then where? And remember, this issue is a political winner. Well-to-do,
hyper-educated meritocrats now make up a major component of the
Democrats' coalition. They will not be pleased to see their children's
SAT scores entirely discounted. And the rhetoric of those who oppose
the SAT is far too radical for the average American. Many of these
advocates believe that colleges shouldn't distinguish at all
between better and worse students.
If the Republicans are smart enough to call congressional hearings
on this issue, the Left is going to get clobbered. Even more than
with Ashcroft, the Democrats will find themselves caught between
the majority of their constituents and the radical advocacy groups
to whom they're beholden. And with stacked pro-affirmative action
majorities on faculty committees at the University of California,
the other side may just be stupid enough to keep fighting this one
out publicly, instead of beating the habitual retreat. Either way,
this issue's a no-lose proposition for the Republicans, if only
they have the guts and good sense to get out in front. So sharpen
that number two pencil, Mr. President. This is a test.
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