Despite many colleges dropping SAT, New Mexico paying for it

Fees for the test, which many students take repeatedly in an effort to improve their scores, range from $49.50 to $64.50.

But some critics see the initiative as a windfall for the organization that markets the test — the nearly century-old College Board, whose CEO, David Coleman, earned nearly $1.6 million in 2017, according to the nonprofit’s most recently released tax forms. Records show the organization lobbied the state last year.

And the move to adopt the SAT in spring 2020, a mandate from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, comes as a growing number of public and private colleges and universities nationwide are dumping entrance exams like the SAT and ACT as requirements for admission.

About 40 percent of colleges and universities in the U.S. that award bachelor’s degrees do not require an SAT or ACT score for admission, according to the nonprofit National Center for Fair and Open Testing. In just the last year, the organization says, 47 announced they were removing the SAT.

In New Mexico, the importance of an SAT score varies. At the state’s largest institutions, the University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University, incoming freshmen must submit either ACT or SAT scores. Smaller public schools, however, such as New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas and Western New Mexico University in Silver City, are considered “open enrollment” institutions that don’t require entrance exam scores. But they do allow applicants to submit them for use as placement tests and to qualify for scholarships.

Issac Brundage, Western New Mexico’s vice president of student affairs and enrollment management, said in an email, “As an open enrollment institution, we are able to provide meaningful opportunities to students who may face academic, economic or socioeconomic barriers that may hinder their ability to successfully navigate standardized tests such as the SAT.”

St. John’s College, a private liberal arts college with campuses in Santa Fe and Annapolis, Md., does not require SAT or ACT scores.

Santa Fe Community College also accepts the SAT and the ACT to help determine student placement, as well as the Accuplacer, another College Board test designed to assess a student’s preparedness for introductory-level credit courses.

But the community college does not require the entrance exam scores to determine enrollment eligibility.

‘A tremendous marketing opportunity’

For New Mexico’s 11th graders, the SAT will replace the state’s previous standardized reading and math exams known as PARCC, administered to all students in grades 3-11 through a dwindling coalition of states called the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.

Although the tests aren’t popular among some parents and educators, standardized reading and math assessments are required for all public school students in the nation in grades 3-11 through the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.

In addition to the SAT, New Mexico education officials said they expect to adopt the PSAT — or Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test — as the official assessment for freshmen and sophomores. Both exams are products of the College Board.

According to the Public Education Department, the state will pay $1.2 million a year, or $52 per student, to the nonprofit College Board to administer the SAT beginning in spring 2020, compared to about $31.25 per student the state was paying for PARCC exams.

Warniment said New Mexico is still finishing the procurement process for reading and math exams for students in grades 3-8. Those tests will incorporate some questions developed by New Mexico teachers, she said.

New Mexico isn’t the only state switching to a college entrance exam as its standardized assessment for high school students. So far, more than a dozen states have begun using the SAT or ACT — or both — as a graduation requirement, and several others offer the SAT at no cost to students.

An effort to make a similar switch in California was nixed last month. Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation that would have allowed school districts to replace their 11th grade test with the SAT or ACT, saying a student’s performance on these exams “is highly correlated with race and parental income and is not the best predictor for college success.”

Robert Schaeffer, public education director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, said the College Board, which also administers Advanced Placement exams to high school students, which can help them earn college credit, has taken advantage of the federal education law by reaching out to states in hopes of persuading them to use its SAT as a standardized exam.

“With the Every Student Succeeds Act, the College Board saw a tremendous marketing opportunity,” Schaeffer said. “Instead of selling the tests one-on-one to kids and parents, they could now sell the test wholesale to state departments of education.”

Records indicate the nonprofit met with New Mexico officials last year. According to lobbyist reporting forms, Michelle Cruz Arnold, executive director of government relations for the College Board, paid $553.92 in December 2018 to take Legislative Education Study Committee Director Rachel Gudgel and a handful of her staffers to dinner at Santacafé, an upscale downtown Santa Fe restaurant. Arnold also gave Lujan Grisham’s campaign $500 in October 2018, records show.

Gudgel said nobody on her staff was part of the Public Education Department’s task force that decided on the SAT. “We had nothing to do with it,” she said.

The Governor’s Office had a similar comment. “The decision to make the SAT the official high school assessment was made by the Public Education Department — the LESC has no bearing or impact in such a decision,” spokeswoman Nora Meyers Sackett said in an email.

Responding to a question about the governor’s campaign donation from Arnold, Meyers Sackett said, “A donation is an expression of an individual’s or group’s support; accepting it does not infer reciprocal support or endorsement or in any way dictate policy or decision-making​.”

‘A score that is useful’

State Sen. Bill Soules, D-Las Cruces, said he expects New Mexico students’ average SAT score to initially take a large dip after the test is administered to all public high school juniors. But in general, he said, the exam will help more students apply to college and will help schools assess their own effectiveness.

“The SAT has general subject areas,” Soules said. “It’s more of a statistical sampling of how students are doing,” said Soules, a former public school teacher and principal. “… Also it gives students a score that is useful. PARCC did nothing for students once they left home.”

Education officials said the state will pay for every student to take the test once. It won’t cover repeat testing for those who hope to boost their scores.

And while every high school junior in the state might have a set of SAT scores to submit to colleges, there’s no guarantee those scores will ensure the student enrollment at an institution with an SAT admission requirement.

At NMSU, for instance, incoming freshmen must have a high school GPA of at least 2.75, an ACT composite score of 21 or an SAT score of 1060, or must graduate in the top 20 percent of their class. There is no minimum SAT score at UNM, but UNM Admissions Director Matt Hulett said the school generally does not consider students with an SAT score of 900 or below to be prepared for a four-year college.

Still, Hulett said the state’s new SAT initiative will help speed up the college admissions process.

“In years past, we have had to wait for kids to take the test sometime during their senior year. Sometimes they never take it, and we can’t accept them even if their high school transcript is good enough,” Hulett said. “Now we will have everything we need for a complete application by the end of junior year. This will help us admit more students faster.”

The state’s switch to the SAT also means faster testing for students. While teachers in the past have had to set aside entire weeks to prepare students for the PARCC exams, and several days for the tests themselves, the SAT takes most students no more than four hours.

Veronica García, superintendent of Santa Fe Public Schools, said she doesn’t expect the new SAT requirement to have much affect on students or high schools in the district. Schools aren’t likely to alter their curriculum or add SAT preparation courses ahead of the SAT rollout, she said, because the Common Core curriculum standards the state follows are already about 85 percent aligned with the exam.

“What our teachers should continue to do is to teach to rigorous standards,” García said. “If we’re meeting those, students will do well on whatever assessment the state gives them.”