The journal Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice (EMIP) is publishing commentaries on a focus article on College Admission Tests and Social Responsibility (Koljatic, Silva, & Sireci, in press, https://doi.org/10.1111/emip.12425). The authors critique how the standardized testing industry has disengaged from efforts to reduce educational inequities.
Here’s the abstract to my commentary article (also in press, https://doi.org/10.1111/emip.12451), where I argue that Social Responsibility in College Admissions Requires a Reimagining of Standardized Testing.
As college admissions becomes more competitive in the United States and globally, with more applicants competing for limited seats, many programs are transitioning away from standardized testing as an application requirement, in part due to the concern that testing can perpetuate inequities among an increasingly diverse student population. In this article, I argue that we can only address this concern by reimagining standardized testing from the ground up. Following a summary of the recent debate around testing at the University of California (UC), I discuss how my perspective aligns with that of Koljatic et al. (in press), who encourage the testing industry to accept more social responsibility. Building on themes from the focus article and other recent publications, I then propose that, to contribute to educational equity, we must work toward testing that is more transparent and openly accessible than ever before.