The above quote is the problem in my opinion. In addition, please see the excerpt below from Atkinson's Atwell lecture in February 2001.
"Many parents who can afford the fees enroll their children in SAT preparation courses. Last year alone, an estimated 150,000 students paid over $100 million for coaching provided by the Princeton Review, Stanley Kaplan, and the like.
"Given attempts of some individuals and institutions to gain any advantage, fair or foul, is it any wonder that leaders of minority communities perceive the SAT to be unfair? These concerns are often dismissed as sour grapes, as special "ethnic pleading." The response by defenders of the SAT is, "Don't shoot the messenger." They argue that the lower performance of Blacks and Hispanics reflects the fact that Blacks and Hispanics tend to be clustered in poor schools, offering outdated curricula taught by ill-prepared teachers.
"Minority perceptions about fairness cannot be so easily dismissed. Of course, minorities are concerned about the fact that, on average, their children score lower than white and Asian American students. The real basis of their concern, however, is that they have no way of knowing what the SAT measures and, therefore, have no basis for assessing its fairness or helping their children acquire the skills to do better.
"Most troubling of all, SAT scores can have a profound effect on how students regard themselves. All of us have known students who excelled in high school, students who did everything expected of them and more, suddenly doubt their accomplishments, their abilities, and their basic worth because they scored poorly on the SAT.
"Anyone involved in education should be concerned about how overemphasis on the SAT is distorting educational priorities and practices, how the test is perceived by many as unfair, and how it can have a devastating impact on the self-esteem and aspirations of young students.
"However, while there is widespread agreement that overemphasis on the SAT harms American education, there is no consensus on what to do or where to start. In many ways, we are caught up in the educational equivalent of a nuclear arms race. We know that this overemphasis on test scores hurts all involved, especially students. But we also know that anyone or any institution opting out of the competition does so at considerable risk.
"Change is long overdue."
Correction: "liberal egalitarians" should read "extreme left racists". As the author points out, they WANT to discriminate on the basis of race.
I don't believe this will be the outcome. Essays will be judged in part by the ideas expressed. Proper ideas get better scores (it's always this way). Expectations for language skills will be dropped down to an embarassing level. Or whites will be found to have better scores than blacks, so the written essays will be dropped.
I believe the hard data (long available) is that SAT scores really do correlate with a student's ability to succeed in college. Since SAT scores thus point out inherent differences between the races (Asians do very nicely) it is important to abandon SAT tests. We must adopt some system which will provide us with no meaningful information. Then colleges will be able to make the best possible choices on admitting students.
Gag me.