Covering the business of education and training

Each year some two million high schoolers take the SAT in hopes of getting the highest score possible and then gaining entry to one of the 3,000 some colleges in the U.S. that the use those results as part of their admissions process.

But, not everyone is a successful test taker. Even those who do poorly on the test go on to make a difference.

1. The CEO of Educational Testing Service (the guys responsible for administering the SAT) did poorly on the SAT - 1060 of 1600. Now he is responsible for tormenting the nation's high schoolers.

Good students get left behind or denied graduation because of test scores - the CEO responds "That's a very big problem,'' he says. ``There are kids who are successful in school and not on tests.''

2. College Board President and governor of West Virginia from 1988-1996 - "I did terrible on these kinds of tests."

3. U.S. Education Secretary who pushed for more standardized testing behind the No Child Left Behind Act - "I was a really bad test taker."

4. Deputy U.S. Secretary of Education since 2005 is a self-confessed rotten test taker. "Some students don't test well.
 
5. The PhD Daughter of the deputy U.S. Secretary of Education - a cardiac-imaging scientist - "There's definitely a discrepancy between my academic performance and my standardized test scores."

The conclusion - "Some students don't test well," says the under secretary.

Then what? Too bad for those students? Let them find their own way to the top? What about an alternative method of evaluation?

What do you think?