Getting Testy
This is only a test: Yesterday, Harvard became the latest elite college to announce that it would reverse its test-optional policy for student applicants. California Institute of Technology reinstated the test requirement too. This represents a major victory against the anti-test forces.Â
The argument against mandating SAT or ACT scores for student applicants was that making standardized testing optional would help increase diversity in student populations. As The New York Times report on Harvard’s announcement notes, the goal was to encourage “poor and underrepresented students who had potential but did not score well on the tests to apply.”Â
In fact, as Reason‘s Emma Camp has written, the opposite was true: Eliminating standardized test scores from the applications actually hurt underprivileged kids while giving a boost to children from wealthy families. “Tests are simply harder to game than nonacademic factors,” Camp wrote last year. “Wealthy families can hire tutors to write polished admissions essays for their children, ensure they have a battery of extracurricular activities and sports, and make sure they attend schools where skilled guidance counselors know how to write a glowing letter about an applicant.”
The evidence that eliminating tests helps the wealthy and hurts low-income applicants has been growing, and it seems Harvard couldn’t ignore it.Â
Harvard’s announcement of a return to testing requirements cited a study by Opportunity Insights showing that test scores were a useful predictor of success in higher ed, and that they can help admissions officers pick lower-income students who are likely to perform well.Â
Harvard is not the first high-profile school to reverse its test-optional policy. Georgetown, Brown, Yale, Dartmouth, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have all returned to test-mandatory applications. But with Harvard now on board, the case should be closed on this ill-fated experiment. The anti-testers got schooled.Â
Complete and utter defeat for the anti-test crusaders pic.twitter.com/ubfbg2QTxL
— Alec Stapp (@AlecStapp) April 11, 2024
Biden expands firearm background checks: President Joe Biden approved new federal background checks for private gun sales, intending to close what has sometimes been referred to as the “gun show loophole.” It’s the most sweeping expansion of background check requirements since 1993.Â
The gun show loophole was not really a loophole. Rather it was a legal exception for some sellers who were not officially “in the business of selling firearms.” But as Axios reports, the new rules will force “anyone who sells a firearm for profit to register with the federal government.”Â
So: New government registration requirements for gun sales. Does that sound likely to go into effect smoothly and without extensive legal opposition? Yeah, I’m thinking…no.Â
Biden’s rule will almost certainly be challenged in court. Meanwhile, two Republican senators, John Cornyn (R–Texas) and Thom Tillis (R–N.C.), have already indicated they plan to introduce a resolution to overturn Biden’s rule because, they say, it is unconstitutional.Â
It’s impossible to predict how all this w
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