Not to mention the whole cottage industry that's grown up around helping kids prep for the test. When my son was a junior in high school we must have gotten five or six flyers in the mail every week from these places, and they're hideously expensive classes (and I don't think you get a money-back guarantee). When we made the rounds of colleges, one of the things we heard from every single admissions officer was that the high school transcript was way more important in the long run than the SAT scores, which likely means that success in high school, along with a reasonably challenging curriculum, is more predictive of success in college than how one did on a standardized test.

I couldn't agree more. It's the same argument I make against the transition our nation's classrooms are currently making toward "test teaching" instead of more creative teaching.

I don't know what's going to happen in 20 years when creative thinking is missing from the workforce because of the insane amount of importance placed on standardized tests.

Lisa, you're exactly right. Colleges and unversities have said exactly what you said: that high school records are much better predictors of college success than the SAT ever was.

Also, a couple of the articles I linked to talk about the big business of SAT prep, as well as how it's so expensive that underprivileged kids have no chance of taking a class. So we have another gap in opportunity based on socio-economic status. The 'haves' get test preparation, the 'have nots' don't.

From the Business Week article: "Test prep and tutoring services in the U.S. took in an estimated $702 million in 2003, and that's expected to grow to $960 million this year, according to Eduventures."

Essentially, every time the SAT changes its format, the test prep companies rake in extra profits.

What a racket.

Travis, I'm in complete agreement on the standardized testing craze taking over public schools. As with the SAT, it will get worse before it gets better, sadly.