The anti-SAT push is misguided

If you want to help less privileged students, help the schools they actually attend

(Photo by Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)

The University of California is moving to stop requiring SAT/ACT scores as part of college applications, and the trend seems likely to continue as part of a broader backlash against standardized testing, some of which originates from a completely different set of concerns.

But in terms of college admissions, the worry is basically that not enough Black and Latino kids earn high scores on the SATs, so relying on SAT scores as an important part of admissions makes it hard to assemble college classes that meet someone’s idea of adequate diversity. At the same time, it’s quite striking that Asian kids earn higher scores than white ones, and I think there is some reason to raise an eyebrow or two when antiracism initiatives that mostly seem to target Asians as the overrepresented group are concocted.

The whole anti-test push is misguided in some pretty fundamental ways.

And by relying on sloppy, factually ina…