Pity the SAT people

A nice summary of the trials and tribulations of the SAT, from the Weekly Standard.

Those poor SAT guys, they’re doing their darndest to square this circle. You want a test that will highlight the diamonds in the rough? No problem, we’ll give you an aptitude test. Ah, you want a test that shows that all races and classes and sexes and “others” are equal? Okay, how about if we give you a string of random numbers (or, better, chicken entrails!) and you can use that for admissions. You want both? Hm... Well, we, uh... We may have to get back to you on that. Meanwhile, how about if we change the "A" in "SAT" to stand for "African American" as a sign of goodwill?

(I exaggerate slightly.)

What makes me shake my head is that some people are actually surprised that SAT scores correlate with "socio-economic status." Or, rather, they’re acting like they’re surprised. Really? Smart people tend to get rich and then have smart kids? Huh. I did not know that. Sounds like racism to me. Sounds phallo-centric. What if the parents are both pre-op transexuals, one of whom is a recovering heroin addict? What then? And what if one of them is Cambodian?

Listen, it's time to consider -- just consider -- the possibility that we're not all alike. Some of these variations, like skin color and whether your hair is straight, are not terribly relevant. Others, like footspeed and cognitive ability, matter more depending on the situation. We can't go on pretending that any test that suggested differences among races is necessarily biased. Psychologists and test-writers are just like the rest of us. If they could devise a test that both a) tested cognitive ability in meaningful way and b) showed no differenct among races, don't you think they'd have done it by now? I mean, the profit potential for the creator of a test that separated the smartest from the less smart and did so in racially proportional way is practically infinite.