A test for College Board

This past Friday, College Board President Gaston Caperton announced his resignation, effective in 2012. As the search begins for his replacement, the organization has a responsibility to its consumers to look for different qualities in the next president. Caperton, who began his career running an insurance brokerage firm, served as Governor of West Virginia, and also founded and headed Columbia’s Institute on Education and Government. Since 1999, when Caperton accepted the position at College Board, the organization that offers the most popular standardized tests including the AP and the SAT has rapidly expanded, in what a New York Times article called “a period of enormous growth.” Over 7 million students take College Board tests each year, a figure that has nearly tripled under Caperton’s watch. This number is truly staggering when we consider that there were 3.2 million high school graduates in 2009, many of whom were not bound for college. These figures suggest that a great majority of—if not almost all—college applicants now find it necessary to take a College Board test.

Along with enormous growth have come enormous profits. The most recent records available from 2007 show a profit of $55 million, from which Caperton drew a near million-dollar salary. Americans for Educational Testing Reform, an organization that explores issues of fairness in standardized testing, writes that the College Board’s 9.5% profit “would be respectable for a for-profit company,” but that “when a non-profit company is earning those profits, something is wrong.” AETR is hardly alone in its criticism of College Board—with these exorbitant profits, it has abused its tax-exempt status as a non-profit organization, and it has formed a monopoly out of the educational establishment such that consumers have no choice but to buy its product.

Since we are those consumers, college students have a responsibility to fully evaluate the product and its effects. The most popular criticism of tests like the SAT is that they serve to entrench social distinctions more deeply in our society, as there is a strong correlation between financial privilege and test performance. Professional tutoring industries have blossomed as the SAT and AP have increased in importance for college admission—services that are expensive and available to few. The famous regatta question captures the tension between social class and SAT performance: Students were asked to find an analogy for “runner” and “marathon.” The correct answer was the pair “oarsman” and “regatta.” Can a junior at an underfunded inner city high school be expected to identify crew-racing terminology? The analogy section was eventually phased out of the test, but the question of inequality still stands at the center of the SAT debate.

It is important to mention that the SAT, and with it the College Board itself, was formed in 1900 with the explicit intention of helping to level the playing field for applicants of different socioeconomic backgrounds. Almost all Ivy League attendees were wealthy white males, the children and grandchildren of others like themselves. After all, what was there to go on before the SAT? Grades must have varied between high schools as they do now. In this light, standardized testing can be seen as a Progressive-era innovation to shift the college admissions process from its emphasis on legacy and privilege toward an ideal of personal merit. But how, under the oversight of Caperton and his predecessors, has College Board strayed from this founding principle?

The intensified relationship between big business and education, embodied by College Board, is most dangerous where a single organization’s interest in profit has a determinative effect on what is taught in schools. Almost all College Board revenue comes from fees that schools, programs, and individuals pay for testing. So if certain subjects are more widely taught, then there will be a greater demand from schools for testing in those subjects. The College Board makes a fortune off of popular tests and loses money selling unpopular tests. Because of this, in 2008 College Board made a logical business decision to eliminate AP tests in several subjects including Italian, Latin Literature, and French Literature. Here, normal business practices translated into a bad decision for education. The effect was to send the message to schools that these subjects are not important to teach. Elvira G. DiFabio, Harvard’s director of undergraduate studies in Italian, was quoted in the Crimson as saying in response, “They’re taking everything away from Italian.” As high school Italian programs shut down, students in college were less prepared, and also less likely, to pursue Italian. The same goes for French and Latin, which have remained discontinued. Gradually the effect of these cancellations, these business practices, could be to streamline what young people learn and cut vital subject matter out of school curricula.

As president of College Board, Gaston Caperton made an effort to reach out to lower-income students to reap the benefits of standardized tests in line with the organization’s original mission, but he let integral subjects slip through the cracks. As the search begins for his successor, College Board should be mindful of the best interests of its consumers—we, the students. Otherwise, money cannot begin to cover the cost.

Amanda Gutterman is a Columbia College sophomore majoring in English with a French concentration. The Far Side of the Familiar runs alternate Wednesdays.