Educators in Britain, home of the content-driven "A-levels" similar to America's SAT II "Achievement Tests," have decided to add the more talent-oriented SAT next year for thousands of top students. They give two reasons for the change.
The first is ironic in light of America's discomfort with parallels between SAT performance and socioeconomic privilege. Some Brits see A-level performance as too closely tied to teaching quality, and want to level the playing field for those students attending less-than-excellent schools.
The second reason is one to which American university officials can certainly relate. Apparently, A-level grade inflation has made it impossible to draw distinctions between top students. Over 20% of exam takers now receive an A, making admissions to top universities a "lottery" like process. If that is true, what should they think about Prince Harry's D in Geography? No trouble making distinctions there. But he'll be fine. My cousin who was a poor student joined the army too.
Posted by Marie Gryphon on August 18, 2003