Free AI web copilot to create summaries, insights and extended knowledge, download it at here

Abstract

Ps down to their knee stockings. It was a way for the WASP overlords to weed out the “feeble-minded” from the few acceptable “good” immigrants.Fast forward to the early 20th century and Professor Carl Brigham of Princeton University. He published this book called The Study of American Intelligence, in which he wrote that Nordic race groups were superior in intelligence and warned of “promiscuous intermingling” with non-Nordic gene pools. After that, the all white College Board paid him to develop the SAT, because Oh My God what if tan and dark people thought they were (gasp) smart, worthy, equal?So in 1926, tadda!, SAT.Little bit of fact about Professor Brigham if you haven’t guessed by now — yes, he was a big supporter of eugenics. You know, that little thing Hitler used to do horrible experiments on humans and kill people and start a war.So how does it affect us today?For one, it’s a stupid elitist test. The kids who score the best have parents who can afford extra SAT-specific tutors.Secondly, it’s no measure of overall student performance. Just because you do well in the SATs does not mean that you will be a good or successful college student. It just means that you take tests well. College preparedness and success is a mix of psychological growth, self-reliance, fortitude, and so much more. Even if you score well in the SATs, without the proper mental fortitude, students will drop out of college or have their grades suffer.Thirdly, it is a test for memorization and not critical thinking, which is sorely missing in today’s society.But mostly, if we take into socio-economic breakdowns of minority groups and impoverished kids, the SAT is loaded with systemic racism. Though the College Board has changed the SAT over the last two decades a few times, it still does not erase the facts of its origin; its failure to measure true aptitude; nor its attitude of upholding elitism in higher education.Bruce G. Hammonds writes that “a loudly racist beginning is often followed by muting, obfuscation and normalization…The Black codes of the post-Civil War era were nakedly racist, but they eventually became vagrancy laws which were simply an effort to impose law and order, which became the core of the Southern strategy, and which also informed the Clinton administration’s 1994 crime bill. Racist impulses normalized.”And so, this too has been applied to the SAT, where its once racist beginning is now masked as a way to test acceptability into our most elite colleges.

Options

Even looking back to the days when I took my own SAT, it wasn’t hard to see which students did better despite GPAs. I grew up in the Central Valley in California where majority (by a small margin) of the students in my graduating class were Hispanic and Latino. There was a smattering of us war refugee first-generation Southeast Asian kids, a handful of Black kids (most Black kids didn’t live in our high school zone. They were clustered in a different section of town, even though most of our town was lower-income back in the late 90s), and then the balance made out of White students (who were neck and neck in population with the Latino/Hispanic kids).In our Honors track in high school though, the demographic looked different, with the majority being upper-income White students. Mostly jocks and cheerleaders, and even those White kids who weren’t athletes, they too were higher-middle income. Then there was the odd smattering of us extremely poor Hmong kids with a couple of other first-gen Mexican kids and a couple of middle and upper-income Black kids. Honors classes didn’t reflect the school demographics. Instead, it was more a show of elitist families versus immigrant children who got in on merit alone.But how did this reflect in our SAT scores? Those higher-income kids whose parents sent them to SAT tutors definitely scored better, but the majority of the immigrant kids — despite 3.8 and higher GPAs — barely cracked 1200 out of the 1600 possible. When you’re young, you don’t understand private advantages. Instead, you only saw yourself as not smart enough, despite your academic record saying otherwise.Sure, one could argue that this is more of a case of elitism and not racism; however, if we did a one-to-one between SAT scores and overall academic performance, the scoring doesn’t correlate. It goes deep into the breakdown of our society, which undoubtedly ties back into this country’s racist roots and the systemic oppressions set up to keep the less fortunate in their place.No, I don’t believe everything is racist, but when you serve a test rooted in racism that doesn’t honestly reflect college aptitude, that puts deserving minority and impoverished students at a disadvantage, you are upholding systemic racism and economic elitism. You are creating a higher education system that is based on unfair grounds for entry.The SAT and ACT are slowly falling out of favor in college admissions and I’m glad it is. Indeed the educational system here in America needs a closer look, but dismantling the SAT is a step in the right direction.</article></body>

RACE

Was the SAT a tool of racism?

Yes, yes, it is/was, and it is a poor indicator of overall intelligence or performance. Instead, what it really was? Eugenics.

For this one, we’re going to have to do a Cher and turn back time, all the way back to the early 1900s and to the early 20th century to Carl C. Brigham, the founder of the SAT.

Now, you have to understand the climate of the early 1900s to see how this test was a tool designed to weed out the unsavories. Loads of immigrants came to the US in the 19th century (1801 to 1900 for those of you who didn’t know). America was largely occupied by WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) until the 19th century when tons of Irish and Russians started coming over. Then there were the Chinese railroad workers as well, establishing settlements in New York and on the west coast. But more than that, the Civil War also happened, freeing Africans. All of that in one little century.

It’s safe to say, loads of WASPs weren’t happy about all these newbies suddenly running around town. If one can take away and understand about the days of Ye Olde English influence, even with our own forefathers, is that society was managed by elitism, classism, and racism. Back in the day, the racism didn’t just extend to us melanin-inclined folks. It also extended to other white folks who were seen as backward and unsophisticated. You know, peasant stock.

But the longer these peasants and unsavories were in America, generation after generation, they were climbing the ladder of possibilities. There was a rising new class of middle-income people.

Fast forward a couple of decades and these people’s kids were all graduating high school and hopping into colleges. And oh no, this couldn’t happen! How dare they get educations and disrupt the elite class?!

Now, back to the SATs.

The SAT was created as an intelligence test as part of a tactic to keep out all of the new immigrants and their kids from higher ed. There was this mad rush of testing in the 1900s created because of the tidal wave of new immigrants coming to America. It shook all the WASPs down to their knee stockings. It was a way for the WASP overlords to weed out the “feeble-minded” from the few acceptable “good” immigrants.

Fast forward to the early 20th century and Professor Carl Brigham of Princeton University. He published this book called The Study of American Intelligence, in which he wrote that Nordic race groups were superior in intelligence and warned of “promiscuous intermingling” with non-Nordic gene pools. After that, the all white College Board paid him to develop the SAT, because Oh My God what if tan and dark people thought they were (gasp) smart, worthy, equal?

So in 1926, tadda!, SAT.

Little bit of fact about Professor Brigham if you haven’t guessed by now — yes, he was a big supporter of eugenics. You know, that little thing Hitler used to do horrible experiments on humans and kill people and start a war.

So how does it affect us today?

For one, it’s a stupid elitist test. The kids who score the best have parents who can afford extra SAT-specific tutors.

Secondly, it’s no measure of overall student performance. Just because you do well in the SATs does not mean that you will be a good or successful college student. It just means that you take tests well. College preparedness and success is a mix of psychological growth, self-reliance, fortitude, and so much more. Even if you score well in the SATs, without the proper mental fortitude, students will drop out of college or have their grades suffer.

Thirdly, it is a test for memorization and not critical thinking, which is sorely missing in today’s society.

But mostly, if we take into socio-economic breakdowns of minority groups and impoverished kids, the SAT is loaded with systemic racism. Though the College Board has changed the SAT over the last two decades a few times, it still does not erase the facts of its origin; its failure to measure true aptitude; nor its attitude of upholding elitism in higher education.

Bruce G. Hammonds writes that “a loudly racist beginning is often followed by muting, obfuscation and normalization…The Black codes of the post-Civil War era were nakedly racist, but they eventually became vagrancy laws which were simply an effort to impose law and order, which became the core of the Southern strategy, and which also informed the Clinton administration’s 1994 crime bill. Racist impulses normalized.”

And so, this too has been applied to the SAT, where its once racist beginning is now masked as a way to test acceptability into our most elite colleges.

Even looking back to the days when I took my own SAT, it wasn’t hard to see which students did better despite GPAs. I grew up in the Central Valley in California where majority (by a small margin) of the students in my graduating class were Hispanic and Latino. There was a smattering of us war refugee first-generation Southeast Asian kids, a handful of Black kids (most Black kids didn’t live in our high school zone. They were clustered in a different section of town, even though most of our town was lower-income back in the late 90s), and then the balance made out of White students (who were neck and neck in population with the Latino/Hispanic kids).

In our Honors track in high school though, the demographic looked different, with the majority being upper-income White students. Mostly jocks and cheerleaders, and even those White kids who weren’t athletes, they too were higher-middle income. Then there was the odd smattering of us extremely poor Hmong kids with a couple of other first-gen Mexican kids and a couple of middle and upper-income Black kids. Honors classes didn’t reflect the school demographics. Instead, it was more a show of elitist families versus immigrant children who got in on merit alone.

But how did this reflect in our SAT scores? Those higher-income kids whose parents sent them to SAT tutors definitely scored better, but the majority of the immigrant kids — despite 3.8 and higher GPAs — barely cracked 1200 out of the 1600 possible. When you’re young, you don’t understand private advantages. Instead, you only saw yourself as not smart enough, despite your academic record saying otherwise.

Sure, one could argue that this is more of a case of elitism and not racism; however, if we did a one-to-one between SAT scores and overall academic performance, the scoring doesn’t correlate. It goes deep into the breakdown of our society, which undoubtedly ties back into this country’s racist roots and the systemic oppressions set up to keep the less fortunate in their place.

No, I don’t believe everything is racist, but when you serve a test rooted in racism that doesn’t honestly reflect college aptitude, that puts deserving minority and impoverished students at a disadvantage, you are upholding systemic racism and economic elitism. You are creating a higher education system that is based on unfair grounds for entry.

The SAT and ACT are slowly falling out of favor in college admissions and I’m glad it is. Indeed the educational system here in America needs a closer look, but dismantling the SAT is a step in the right direction.