The New York Times published a piece entitled, “The Misguided War on the SAT: Colleges have fled standardized tests, on the theory that they hurt diversity. That’s not what the research shows.”
William Draves and Julie Coates have written the following response:
Excellent Article, Glaring Error
There is an excellent article in The New York Times (January 12, 2024) about the greater validity of test scores than grades in determining learning and knowledge. It was written by David Leonhardt, who has a track record of revealing insightful data about the economy and education.
One glaring error, however. The elite Ivy League academics cited in the article suggest that test scores can predict college grades. They don’t. Boys receive worse grades in college than their documented test scores.
In communicating this week with the lead author of the study, John Friedman of Brown University, it became clear they didn’t even look at data by sex/gender.
Test scores should predict future academic success, as well as measure current learning and knowledge. But they don’t. Instead, flawed sex-biased GPAs, shown to be accurate for less than half of students, continue to be advertised falsely as “academic success.”
–Julie Coates and Wm. A. Draves