More than six years after the University of California system’s Board of Regents moved to stop using standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions, The New York Times Editorial Board is urging the UC system to reverse course.
In an editorial published Monday, the paper’s editorial board called the UC system’s decision a “terrible” mistake that left students less prepared for their college coursework. The editorial comes just days before the UC Board of Regents is expected to consider revisiting the policy.
The UC system in 2019 put together the Standardized Testing Task Force (STTF), an 18-member committee comprised of professors from across all 10 campuses. The committee was tasked with studying how the UC system used standardized testing scores in its undergraduate admissions. Around a year later, the group released a 225-page report with its findings and recommendations.
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Despite the group’s conclusion that the scores played a key role in predicting student performance, the UC system voted in 2020 to no longer consider them, instead opting for a “test blind” approach. This meant that schools in the UC system would not accept test scores, even from students who wanted to send them. {snip}
The paper’s editorial board said the results of the “test-blind” approach “have been terrible,” noting that last year a faculty group at UC San Diego reported a sharp drop in academic preparation for new students.
“Last fall, for example, nearly 12 percent of first-year U.C.S.D. undergraduates were not qualified to take pre-calculus, a low-level class, up from only 0.5 percent in 2020,” the Times Editorial Board added.
The Times acknowledged that broader education challenges have emerged, such as artificial intelligence, COVID-19 school closures and smartphone distractions, but argued that the decline in preparedness among entering UC students was “larger than the regression elsewhere.” The paper said that this underscored the role of the UC system’s test-blind policy.
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