Remember taking the SAT or the ACT when you were in high school — the tests that colleges used to help decide if you had the academic preparation for the work they expected? I do, and it never occurred to me that there could ever be a political issue with them. For a long time, there wasn’t, but then along came a competitor.
In today’s Martin Center article, Michael Torres explains that the people who run the SAT and ACT are flexing their political muscles in an effort to protect their duopoly against an interloper, the Classic Learning Test.
He writes:
[T]he SAT and ACT are lobbying aggressively to try to maintain their political moat. In several states — including Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas, and more — they’ve hired lobbyists, even if one or both had not previously had one, and worked side-by-side to oppose bills that would merely make CLT legal. Thus, what would otherwise be a relatively mundane conversation between admissions officers and the makers of a newer standardized test is instead a pitched political battle.
Torres recounts the history of government meddling in this market, transforming what had once been free competition into a bunch of government mandates to benefit the two big players. He also points out that the Trump administration has the power to reverse some of the damage that’s been done.
Read the whole thing.