On the menu today: Everything you expected to find in the news, including students who botched their chance to attend Dartmouth College by refusing to send in their SAT scores; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Howard Schultz, and first jobs; the thorny long-term challenges presented by potential U.S. military strikes against Mexican drug cartels; and some opportunities from the National Review Institute.
The SAT and ACT Make a Comeback
Yesterday, our Caroline Downey reported that Dartmouth College will restore its SAT requirement for admissions beginning with the Class of 2029, making it the first Ivy League university to reinstate the testing requirement after doing away with it post-Covid:
In an email to the university community, Dartmouth president Sian Beilock wrote that the decision to reimplement the standardized test was made in response to a faculty study which found that “standardized test scores are an important predictor of a student’s success in Dartmouth’s curriculum” regardless of a “student’s background or family income. . . .”
The professors noticed there were certain cases in which applicants opted not to send their scores when the scores could have “helped that student tremendously, maybe tripling their chance of admissions,” Sacerdote said.
“For a long time, Dartmouth has always practiced holistic admissions,” Sacerdote said. “That means that even when test scores are examined and used in the process, they’re examined very much in the framing of the environment that the applicant is coming from. [Coffin’s] team is keenly aware of the level of advantage or lack of advantage, both at the neighborhood level and at the high school level.”
Rather than handicap underprivileged students, the test requirement can help shine a spotlight on achievers from poor areas and give them a chance to succeed.
“That’s why testing is so helpful to less advantaged students because when admissions sees, ‘Wow, this student is really excelling in a less than perfect environment,’ that can be a very strong signal for that candidate,” Sacerdote said. [Emphasis added.]
By contrast, last year, Columbia University announced it no longer would require standardized tests including the SAT and ACT for incoming undergraduate students; many schools had dropped the requirement for the 2020–2021 academic year applicants due to Covid-19. At the time, the editors of NR spat hot fire:
In short, we oppose the abolition of standardized testing because we recognize it for what it is: a cheap, shabby maneuver by educational institutions to racially discriminate. What is most appalling of all is that institutions such as Columbia have made a strategic calculation that they will ultimately benefit in terms of their social prestige from a thinly veiled act of bigotry. They should be proven wrong.
It says something about the evidence-free, ideology-heavy mentality in America’s colleges and universities that so many institutions ditched a tool for recognizing excellence in disadvantaged students because they believed they could persuade everyone else that the test was unfair, contrary to what the actual evidence said. (How many crusaders against the SAT had disappointing SAT scores themselves? How many academics’ mentality was or is, “I did worse than I wanted to on that test, therefore, it is an unfair and inaccurate test”?)
George Leef, who writes about education regularly for NR, wrote late last year:
Eliminating the standardized-test requirements allows school officials to engage in what they call “holistic” admissions. But what that actually means is that they can ignore aspects of the student’s profile that reflect poorly on his or her fitness for the institution or major.
No one is arguing that college admissions should be based entirely on the SAT or any other standardized test. Every school examines a student’s academic record, most look at the student’s outside activities, and then sometimes the school reviews personal essays or conducts an interview session. But a standardized test is a valuable component because so many kids of every conceivable background and circumstance take the same test. There’s no room for teacher favoritism or subjective standards.
A lot of our views about the SAT reflect our attitudes and fears about standardized testing, but whether colleges should use the SAT or ACT is a separate question from whether kids are subjected to too many standardized tests. In almost every state, every student from grades three to twelve takes one standardized test per year.
Back in pre-Covid 2020, Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia and state superintendent Richard Woods announced a plan to cut five mandatory standardized tests for Georgia public-school students, including four in high school. Kemp said, “When you look at the big picture, it’s clear Georgia simply tests too much. . . . On test days it’s making students physically sick because they’re worried they will not do well.”
But a lot of young people — and probably a lot of their parents — live in fear that they will be judged by tests that measure their value and potential on seemingly arbitrary criteria, and that if they screw up on that, they’ll be shunted off into some category of “lesser” people. There’s a reason this pops up so much in everything from young adult fiction to dystopian films. Teenagers in particular feel like their parents don’t understand them, their teachers don’t understand them, their community doesn’t understand them… so how the heck is a giant multiple-choice test going to understand what their talents are and what they’re capable of?
I don’t think this is a reflection of the “everybody gets a participation trophy” mentality we all enjoy mocking. I think it’s driven by the universal human yearning to be recognized, and to be told that we have value. Not every student is going to get straight ‘A’s, and only one will be valedictorian. But all of them want to be told that they have something useful to contribute and that they matter.
And while everyone’s middle-school and high-school experience is different, I think that it’s clear that only a small minority of people come through high school feeling like their schools and communities recognized their full potential for greatness, nurtured it, encouraged it, and helped them along. Even for the ones that did excel in some area, they may feel overlooked; the straight-A students may envy the jocks, the jocks may envy the valedictorian, the valedictorian envies the homecoming king and queen.
My older teenager recently told me about a fascinating assignment in English class. After reading Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance, the class was asked to design their own education system from the ground up, starting from a blank slate. (Who knows, maybe the school district is looking for ideas.) We adults in the real world will never have that opportunity, but it is revealing to think about how our elementary, middle, and high schools would look if we could completely redesign them from scratch.
I would contend that every human being, including every kid, is excellent at something. (God does not waste material.) Schools are pretty good at recognizing academic achievement, athletics, and at some schools, art or music. If you’re in the right school district, there are robotics teams, rocketry teams, Model U.N., student newspapers, Science Olympiad — you name it, some schools have it, and/or some student can found a club if it doesn’t already exist.
(It’s also good to know that different kids learn in different ways, and a visual learner is going to absorb information differently than an auditory or kinesthetic learner.) I think the job of a school is to help each kid figure out what it is that he or she excels in, and to figure out how to go forth in life, making a living and contributing to the world, using that exceptional talent. A high school will never be able to fully simulate every kind of job in the U.S. economy — the U.S. Department of Labor tracks data on about 750 different occupations — but by the time a kid hears “Pomp and Circumstance” at age 17 or 18, they should have some sense of where their talents lie and a potential career path ahead — knowing that it’s okay to change that plan in the future!
If I were starting from scratch, I’d try to get America’s teenagers to be less walled-off from the rest of society in their own little teen enclaves, have more interactions with adults and potential mentors beyond teachers, and apply to apprenticeship programs designed to give them a clear-eyed view of the real world and functioning workplaces. Howard Schultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, once described how a first job can show a teenager that they’re good at something:
What [my first] jobs taught me was that the value of early work experiences can exceed the amount of the paycheck. Work done well — building a house, helping a customer find the perfect new shoes, earning a promotion by serving cups of coffee — imbues us with a sense of self-worth as well as a sense of purpose. With dignity. And if you’re a lost young person with little proof of your potential, work can provide a window into yourself.
Yes, we all sounded like a flock of geese slowly being strangled during that elementary-school flutophone concert, but there was at least one kid in the class who was going to feel that spark of excitement and who realized, in that moment, that music was going to be a key part of their lives going forward. Ideally, a school would be exposing kids to all kinds of ideas and aspects of life, all kinds of subjects, so they have that “a-ha!” moment and feel like they have something significant to contribute to the world.
Why should we keep the SAT? Because it can tell some bright but underappreciated kid somewhere out there that they have the brains to go to college and excel.
Thinking about ‘The Next Day’ after Striking Mexico’s Cartels
Yesterday’s Morning Jolt was about reports that the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has been cozy with the notorious Sinaloa Cartel for a long time. Those reports have spurred another round of discussion of whether the U.S. should launch military action against the cartels, in defiance of the Mexican government’s opposition.
If you haven’t read John Noonan’s article on this option in the December 21 issue of NR, you should do so (and if you’re hitting the paywall, subscribe! It comes out to less than 14 cents a day!):
Few would disagree that targeted strikes against cartels would best be carried out in full concert with the Mexican government. It is a nice sentiment, and a description of something easier said than done. Mexico City is so inept, so compromised by the cartels, and so truculent that joint military action seems a pipe dream. This is the context in which the AUMF bill is best understood. It is not just a wake-up call to an administration asleep at the wheel and unconcerned with the southern border. It is a warning bell to the cartels and government bureaucrats in both capitals that American patience is wearing thin. In this sense, the proposal has value just in being introduced.
Let’s imagine that a President Trump or some other president launches airstrikes and commando raids against the Jalisco and Sinaloa Cartels. Let’s envision some dramatic video images of processing centers getting blown to smithereens, attack helicopters blowing up pickup trucks full of cartel thugs, and daring commando raids capturing kingpins. No doubt, all of that would feel satisfying, and Americans would feel like a slew of evil men were getting what they deserved.
But what happens the next day, after the attacks are completed? No doubt, U.S. military strikes would set back the cartels’ operations by a significant margin in the short term. But the precursor-chemical supplies from China would keep arriving. The demand north of the border would still be widespread. Drug processing and smuggling would almost certainly remain the most lucrative way to make a living for lots of people in Mexico. All the problems with the Mexican government would still exist. (It is almost certain that the Mexican government would be even less cooperative after unilateral American military operations on their soil.) The porousness of our southern border would not, by itself, be changed by U.S. military action against the cartels.
How long would it take what was left of the cartels to rebuild those processing centers and reformulate those supply lines into the U.S.? Three months? Six months? A year?
Mind you, I’m not saying, “Don’t do it.” I’m saying, “Don’t do it unless you have a good plan for the next day.”
ADDENDUM: Deadlines are approaching for two National Review Institute endeavors you do not want to miss! First, NRI is running the Foundations of Freedom Regional Seminars, featuring conversations about the Constitution and its protections from a rotating cast of National Review all-stars and guest speakers:
Richard Brookhiser | Janice Rogers Brown | John Buser | Charles C. W. Cooke | Lindsay Craig | Allen Guelzo | Allyson Ho | Charles Kesler | Rich Lowry | Heather Mac Donald | Karol Markowicz | Andrew C. McCarthy | Dan McLaughlin | Michael B. Mukasey | Brian Murdock | Ramesh Ponnuru | Ilya Shapiro | Father Robert Sirico | Will Swaim | Peter J. Travers | Kristen Waggoner | John Yoo
The seminars in Dallas and Houston are next week, New York City is March 6, Chicago is April 11, Newport Beach is April 30, and Silicon Valley is May 1!
Then, the National Review Institute Alaska Cruise, taking place from June 16 to 23, is sold out EXCEPT for National Review Institute’s cabins! Holland America starts to claw back some of the reserved cabins on February 6 and more on March 6. If you register before February 16, you’ll be entered into a lottery to win one of three individual drinks packages. For more information and to register, visit nricruise.com.