WP,pg1: New SAT a Boon for Test-Prep Business: Expensive Coaching Debated

[DeepModem Mom]

New SAT a Boon for Test-Prep Business
Expensive Coaching Debated as Students Prepare for Revised Exam

By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 7, 2005; Page A01


....Despite sharp disagreements among educators about the effectiveness of...coaching systems, the test-preparation industry is booming as students nationwide prepare to take the revised SAT on Saturday. Parents desperate to get their children into selective schools are enrolling them in SAT-preparation courses in record numbers....

***

When more than 300,000 students sit down for the new test, they will be taking an exam that has undergone some of the broadest revisions in its 80-year history. At three hours and 45 minutes, the new SAT is 45 minutes longer than its predecessor and includes a revamped math section with more difficult algebra questions, as well as an entirely new writing section. The maximum possible score has increased from 1600 to 2400.

Many of the changes were made in response to a stinging critique by Richard C. Atkinson when he was president of the University of California. In a February 2001 speech, Atkinson argued that the old SAT was unfair to minorities and a poor indicator of a student's true abilities -- points that had long been raised by less prominent critics. He noted that affluent parents were spending around $100 million on SAT-preparation courses for their children, providing an advantage that poor students could not afford.

In the four years since Atkinson's announcement, the business of preparing students to take the SAT has ballooned into a $310 million-a-year industry, said J. Mark Jackson, senior analyst at Eduventures, an education market research firm. The debate over whether SAT-preparation courses such as those offered by the Princeton Review and Kaplan Inc. (a subsidiary of The Washington Post Co.) do any good has also heated up....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12416-2005Mar6.html

[JDPriestly]

1. Ah! The good old days

when we just walked into a room, totally innocent and ignorant, knowing absolutely nothing, took the test, got our scores and that was it. I can't believe what these kids go through today.