up to 70 in denver, and the warm air is trying to push east. >> despite what allen said, don't unplug your television set. i'm del walters, check us out online. >> it is a write of passage of teens. the s.a.t. is getting a makeover. grab your pencil and the best title would be a, "inside story."

>> hello, i'm ray suarez and the idea of the s.a.t. is shifting under the feet of the teenagers, only the college bound were encouraged to take it. it was an important sorting tool in the scramble for the seats in the competitive schools but not that important if you are graduating with academic die employee ma and headed to the state university and now the board tining erred with it. a writing section was added and the test scored on a basis of 2400 points rather than 1600. more high schoolers were encouraged to see themselves as college bound and encouraged to take the test and kids advised to take it a number of times, starting younger, while the industry industry grew up prep r for the exam. the s.a.t. is making a change.

if you are going to have a high school student in your life, these changes are headed your way. >> we believe that assessment must be a force for equity and excellence it is time to shake things up. >> under criticism from educators and universities who say that the s.a.t. no longer reflects a student's learning experience, the college board is announcing sweeping change ls. >> admissions officers and counsellors have said they find data from the admissions useful but concerned that the exams are disconnected from the work in high schools and surrounded by the coastly test preparation. >> it is not the first time the board changed the test after complaints from the center of higher education. many colleges dropped test requirements in admissions and

now the college board agrees that the s.a.t. must better reflect the aptitude. as many as a million and a half students take the s.a.t. every year and students taking the test in 2016 finds it is returning to the 1600 score. the essay portion optional and added in 2005. gone will be obscure vocabulary words and the test takers that guess are not going to be penalized. it is becoming more like the rival the act and more students took the act and 13 states administer is act test to high

school juniors and the majority of colleges require an exam for admission and now many of the schools have test options and mutting less emphasis on the testing. many students find that the tests are stressful and spending time and money preparing for the single test. test prep courses rake in as much as 4 and a half billion dollars a year and cater to the wealth families. >> it is time for the college board to say in a clear voice that the culture and the practice of test preparation that now surrounds admission exams drives the perception of inequality and injustice in our country. >> college board announced the beginning of a partnership with

an academy, online learning, they are offering free prep materials online starting next year. >> there always the folks highing the tutors and things and we are levelling it to large, large degree. >> adapted from a world one army test it was administered in 1926 for the first time and finding ways to evolve in order to better match the academic achieves of the students and serve them beyond the college years. >> we are about to begin the verbal portion of the program and looking at the s.a.t. and the college admissions on the program. joining us from new mexico dean of college guidancealaler ker key academy and in the studio,

policy analyst at the foundation policy program and from oregon jim rollins, director of admissions apt university of oregon. what is the s.a.t. supposed to do? >> it is meant to be an admissions tool for students entering colleges and which students are ready to succeed in post secondary institutions and today's test it is not reflecting what is taught in the classroom, it is reflecting a lot of other test taking skills and not knowledge but not necessarily the curriculum in the high school classrooms or the college classrooms and the changes that david and the college board are introducing are intended to right the balance and make the s.a.t. more reflective of what the students are experiencing in 16, 17 year

odes and the college classrooms to come. >> you have a demanding course of study at the academy, and is it unrelate what the kids are learning in a classroom like at your school? >> as the introduction indicated the s.a.t. was meant to be an aptitude test and measuring the intelligence of students and the act was the test based more on the content what the students new. what is announced is aligning it more with the act and becoming more and more align as they have been doing for years and this is larger step. >> jim, you are the end user, what use is the act to a college admissions department? >> the act or s.a.t. each serve a role as one of the several

pieces of information and letting us about the trajectory of students on. we don't want it to tell us what the gpa is already telling us. for many years what is valued about the tests in general is that they give a small insight into a way to measure student's readiness in certain ways that is not depending on the grading or grading culture at the high school of the students is at, it is giving a small thing that is common no matter where the student is, at least in principle. >> from you know about the changes so far in the test, are the results more useful to you now? >> i don't think about the announcement answers the question for us. the next two years as the s.a.t. finishes getting redeveloped and the college board hopefully and

i take them at the word and talking with us on the college side throughout the process, the notion that this might better reflect what is going on with the students once the test is offered we won't be able to reach the decision on whether it is improved what we have the use for in the assessments and what gives us the chance is after the students arrive and going through the process of looking back at what those scores might have been telling us better than the previous test or ways in which it is not adding as much information. so it is a very gradual process where the colleges are doing this over time and realize that based on the wide variety of the students we are serving that each may reach different subt subtleties about how the scores now or in the future reach the university of oregon reaching the decisions or harvard or

others. >> jim, unpack that idea of what the scores tell you just a little more, the last big innovation was adding the writing test and did you move easily, transition to the 2400 scale and did the results of the writing test tell you what you needed to know? >> well, many of the colleges never fully switched over a to the third section of the test. we don't tend to think about the totals as we three about the three scores. it makes many years over time to see how well a 550 on the s.a.t. makt helped us to predict whether they are read y i for our classes and what is score we seesht that with successment when the test changed in '05 we

went through the process and the college board said that a 550 on the math means what it did before. there was a difference in the english sections. but the bottom line is we were all working off of history that took a while and the university of oregon never finished to getting to the point of making robust and decision on how to best introduce the writing sub score into the mix. >> your students are preparing to take the test and make it part of their pitch to colleges to accept them as students, the writing is optional now, how did it change taking test in the past several years and change the act of preparing for the test now that the writing the optional? >> well, the act of preparing is still going to be up in the air. we are not sure as mr. rollins

indicated. and we don't know about the validity of the test and what it is going to do for the students or the admissions professionals. the problem is when the college board makes a change like this again it is throwing everything up in the air and making us wonder where we are. i'm advising the students to hold on, don't rush to really prepare differently for this new s.a.t. that is coming, step back and see what happens, see what the college board is telling us few few they are and in the end i find myself thinking what is the s.a.t. for if we have an act and doing everything that the s.a.t. is trying to do and done it for years and years and the studies are done for it, i think i'm going to try to sell the students to look more at the act. >> we are going to take a short

break and when we come back we talk about enequality. earlier in the program you heard the head of the college board saying that the test was a driver of it rather than a factor the neutralize it. this is "inside story."

>> welcome back to "inside story." i'm ray suarez. on this edition of the program we are going to you might say ashoe. the college board is changing the s.a.t. exam. we are discussing standardized testing, college admission and what it means for the student in your house. it is striking the hear the head of the college board and saying that the test is a driver of inequality and when the test was first developed the theory was that it was going to test a native intelligence and the poor

kid and the rich kid both smart you wouldn't see much in a way of difference and ended up in a different way? >> yes, it was designed to be a measure and really became something that was highly coral lated with the student's income. parents want the best for their kids and doing whatever they can to make sure they are successful and that means purchasing tutoring and prep materials and the low income kids don't have access to that. the s.a.t. is measuring the vocabulary words and tricks and you didn't have access to the materials you are already at a disadvantage and so it was a challenge for the low income students and another barrier on the top of all the other a

barriers they are facing getting into college. kids need post secondary education. >> from what you have seen with the new things built in to help provide test prep for low income kids, is this at least going some way to toward answering those critiques of the current regime? >> i think so. there are details to work out. i'm excited about i would being the free online test prep materials that all students can access. i think that is a huge step in terms of levelling the playing field and giving all students access to great materials and helping them prepare for the test. they are going to be free. you can really get a sense of what is test is going to be like. the lot of the gimmicky things

or the test taking tricks they are trying to change that and taking out the penalty for getting a question wrong, those were some of the things as the students took the test they were focussed on the content and maximizing the score game and those changes are going to make it easier for all students to sort of approach the test focussed on content and not necessarily those test taking strategies. >> jim, when there's a 400 point difference between students from low income and high income backgrounds, you're a state university, a public institution, what does an application tell you beyond coming from a poor neighborhood or not? >> we learn plenty about that on the application and looking at the test scores through the

right lenses and filters and the test itself doesn't xarer bait the inequalities. i tell you for example that with any of my staff that reads the file to consider admissions and the first thing we talk is how there are correlations between the test scores and the family incomes and doesn't point to the problems with the test and more so it is pointing to the inequalities to what leads to the test. the wealthy families are in the schools that offer advanced courses and longer tenured and experienced teachers and the scores coming out of that is just a function of those things than a function of a problem with the test itself.

the test is a moment where we see the inequalities reflected though. >> are some of your kids worry about the advantages being neutralized from these changes? >> yeah, well, but any tool is as good as the people in the end using it, and a professionals are well educated and have the intentions to use it well, but the tool in the end, how much value is it adding to the job they are trying to do, that is predicting how strong that the students will be at the university of oregon campus. i worry for the different populations that the value that the test adds is just not worth the big stress that is put over it and the expense of the preparation and so it starts to reach a point of diminishing returns, i think. >> would you rather see a

college preparatory course of study that doesn't even include these high stakes standardized tests? >> i think that the course of study the curriculum and what we are teaching them at the secondary level is critical. i want to make sure that the people who are using the test, like the university of oregon, take a careful look at what they are doing with the information and how much value it is really adding. and it is just worried that some of the colleges out there are not as careful with the data and the value added to the application process. >> we are taking a short break and when we come back we talk about the future of the tests, bacteria -- both the act and the s.a.t. and the metrics getting into the schools or the

trends of doing without them or leave the option up to the student. this is "inside story."

your global news leader

welcome back to inside story. starting in 2016, the s.a.t. is making the written essay optional, and for some of the math section students will to put away the calculator, and the perfect score, again, will be 1600. on this edition, we are talking about the changes in the sat and more broadly about standardized testing. still with us, dean of college guidance in our washington studio, policy analyst in the new america foundations education policy program, and from eugene oregon jim rollins, director of admissions of the university of oregon, and jim, let me return to you, one thing that has changed about applying is that we have moved from the old three or four

colleges to students commonly applying to 12 and 15 and even more because of the ease of appliances with the common application and applying by computer. has that paradoxically kept the s.a.t. and the a.c.t. in the game because you have to assess so many more applications? i think it has, but i think they are are all subtleties. i wouldn't say nationally it is 12 to 15, certainly among a certain segment of schools that happens. but the bottom line, is even -- might have a little and having watched my own daughter go through that process last year, i can guarantee you those schools requiring a common app are not so easy. but either way, i think your point is a great one, for whatever reasons and whatever motivations the fact that students are applying in greater numbers there are many students in the first

place, at least there have been, it does contribute to the fact we have more competition for these spaces when you are faced with being used any tool to distinguish among those, the test score is one of those things that a college may choose to use. >> would you like to see more schools do away with the use of the act and the sat as a sorting device. >> do ebelieve the data does help us make decisions in some cases and in certain ways. colleges no ed to make the right decision, and i would hate to see them do it for the sensationalism of going test optional. the bottom line is we all have a decision to make about how we are going to put all the information we feel we need in front of us to make a good decision about who is a good fit for our school, and who is ready for that

school. and for some institutions doing that without the scores is something they have chosen to do. and if so they have a response tonight do it very well. just as those of us that continue to require the submission of the scores we have a commitment and an obligation to make sure we use them in and only in the right context as part of the bigger decision. >> let me close by asking both rafael and ann, whether they would like to see continues improvement in the test or a continuation of this trend of moving away from heavy emphasis on them at all. rafael i think this is up to the vim -- how they are using these exams. and if they find these are helpful and help them make a better decision, fine, taking everything else into consideration, but be open to the fact that it may not be worthwhile. all we want to know is that colleges are

thinking about it honestly, and looking at it clearly. i think they are always going to be there because of that expanding poll. it is a matter of trusting the professionals and not the testing agencies. >> ann, would you like to see a continuation of this trend of moving away. >> many statements are adopting for all their public high schools. so we aren't just getting a new s.a.t., but we are getting new tests that students will be taking as no child left behind, so there will be a lot more information, the which of these is most useful for predicting which students will succeed in college, is an open question. and i think we can be seeing changes in how colleges think about their applicant pool, and which can students are

likely to be successful, but we will have to wait a few years until all of the tests are avail and the data is there to exam. >> are there right now a lot of kid that are finishing high school and not getting over that last hurdle because of these tests. >> it's not that students are graduating high school, but they are needing remediation, so there's a gap between our expectations for high school students and between what many colleges expect their incoming freshman to know. i hope these changes will help us get a better sense of where those gaps are. >> thank you all for being with me today. that brings us to the end of this edition of inside story, and remember, sweetness is to candy as well informed is to inside story. thank you for being with us, in washington, i'm ray swarez.

welcome to al jazeera america. i'm del walters these are the stories we are following for you. the crisis in ukraine takes a nurn with a number of russian troops in crimea on the rise. >> we're not going to follow lukewarm so-called leaders anymore. >> the g.o.p. looking to head to the next presidential election. and could there be a silver lining in this long-cold winter? a look inside the ice caves of wisconsin. ♪