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Comment by contagiousflow | Hacker News Reader

Out of curiosity, when was the last time you were involved in the school system? Things have changed a lot over decades what time previously spent "teaching the students the actual subjects" or time spent with extracurriculars continues to be eaten away by SAT prep. The downside of a bad score is now a disastrous outcome, and other parents have continued to optimize for the best score.

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Oh, I don't doubt it that parents and students are optimizing for SAT outcomes themselves. You can't expect them not to. But no amount of SAT prepmaxxing can save you if you just genuinely know nothing - and having SAT is a huge upgrade over not having SAT. For one, it's a huge equalizer.

I've seen a few countries that went from "no standardized testing" to "full send standardized testing", and the benefits are too large to ignore. You can improve upon the tests, but removing them is a road to nowhere.

I'm sure the introduction of standardized tests are an improvement upon a current system, but that's not really the point I am making. My point is the ongoing use and optimization of them leads to worse outcomes overall in terms of actual understanding of the material.

> For one, it's a huge equalizer

Could you explain this for me? It's nice that everyone is taking the same test but every piece of data I've seen points to a clear correlation between household income and SAT score, hardly an equalizer.

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