Another View: SAT’s new ‘adversity score’ leaves people guessing

The College Board plans to add a 1-to-100 “adversity score” to student SAT results, in a well-intentioned attempt to add context to a youngster’s performance on the test and – this is the theory, anyway – encourage schools to admit more high-potential youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds.

So far, they’re revealing the variables, including a school or neighborhood’s poverty levels, housing stability and crime rates, but not clearly explaining exactly how they are all weighed in boiling everything down to a single, simple number. Bad beginning, especially for an institution committed to teaching and learning.

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