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THE NEW MEXICAN Thursday, March 6, 2014
NATION & WORLD
College Board reveals major SAT overhaul Guessing penalty eliminated, essay now optional among changes
College Board President David Coleman attends Wednesday’s event in Austin, Texas, where College Board officials announced updates for the SAT college entrance exam.
By Tamar Lewin
The New York Times
Saying its college admission exams do not focus enough on the important academic skills, the College Board announced on Wednesday a fundamental rethinking of the SAT, ending the long-standing penalty for guessing wrong, cutting obscure vocabulary words and making the essay optional. The president of the College Board, David Coleman, criticized his own test, the SAT, and its main rival, the ACT, saying that both had “become disconnected from the work of our high schools.” In addition, Coleman announced programs to help low-income students, who will now be given fee waivers allowing them to apply to four colleges at no charge. And even before the new exam is introduced in the spring of 2016, the College Board, in partnership with Khan Academy, will offer free online practice problems and instructional videos showing how to solve them. The changes are extensive: The SAT’s rarefied vocabulary challenges will be replaced by words that are
ERIC GAY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
common in college courses, like empirical and synthesis. The math questions, now scattered across many topics, will focus more narrowly on linear equations, functions and proportional thinking. The use of a calculator will no longer be allowed on some of the math sections. The new exam will be available on paper and computer, and the scoring will revert to the old 1,600 scale — from 2,400 — with top scores of 800 on math and 800 on what will now be called “evidence-based reading and writing.” The optional essay, which strong writers may choose to do, will have a separate score. Once the pre-eminent college admissions exam, the SAT has lost
ground to the ACT, which is based more directly on high school curriculums and is now taken by a slightly higher number of students. Last year, 1.8 million students took the ACT and 1.7 million the SAT. The new SAT will not quell all criticism of standardized tests. Critics have long pointed out — and Coleman admits — that high school grades are a better predictor of college success than standardized test scores. More colleges have in recent years become “test optional,” allowing students to forgo the exams and submit their grades, transcripts and a graded paper. For many students, Coleman said, the tests are mysterious and “filled with unproductive anxiety.” And,
he acknowledged, they inspire little respect from classroom teachers: only 20 percent, he said, see the collegeadmission tests as a fair measure of the work their students have done. The suggested changes were wellreceived among many educators, but Coleman’s comments about the ACT drew harsh words from an executive of that company. “David Coleman is not a spokesman for the ACT, and I acknowledge his political gamesmanship, but I don’t appreciate it,” Jon Erickson, president of ACT’s education division, said. “It seems like they’re mostly following what we’ve always done.” Philip Ballinger, the director of undergraduate admissions at the University of Washington, said he admired Coleman’s heartfelt “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” approach to improving the SAT and appreciated the effort to tame the testprep industry. Some changes will make the new SAT more like the ACT, which for the past two years has outpaced the SAT in test takers. But beyond the particulars, Coleman emphasized that the three-hour exam — three hours and 50 minutes with the essay — had been redesigned with an eye toward reinforcing the skills and evidence-based thinking that students should be learning in high school, and moving away from a need for test-
Pope defensive as sex-abuse panel lags Victims’ advocates criticize Vatican for lack of action By Nicole Winfield The Associated Press
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis is coming under increasing criticism that he simply doesn’t get it on sex abuse. Three months after the Vatican announced a commission of experts to study best practices on protecting children, no action has been taken, no members appointed, no statute outlining the commission’s scope approved. Francis hasn’t met with any victims, hasn’t moved to oust a bishop convicted in 2012 of failing to report a suspected abuser, and on Wednesday insisted that the church had been unfairly attacked on abuse, using the defensive rhetoric of the Vatican from a decade ago. Victims’ advocates said his tone was archaic and urged Francis to show the same compassion he offers the sick, the poor and disabled to people who were raped by priests when they were kids. “Under Pope Francis, the Vatican continues to deny its role in creating and maintaining a culture where upholding the reputation of the church is prioritized over the safety of children,” said Maeve Lewis, executive director of the Irish victims’ support group One in Four. To be sure, Francis adores children like a father — it’s on display every Wednesday during his general audience — and he has continued to defrock pedophile priests. But unlike Pope Benedict XVI, he has rarely spoken out about abuse, indicating it clearly has not been a priority in his first year as pope. Instead, he has focused on introducing the world to his merciful vision of the church and reforming the Vatican bureaucracy. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the upheaval of those reforms had delayed getting the commission off the ground. But he said there was no doubt it would, and that it would eventually propose new initiatives to protect children and be a model for the church and society at large. “I’m waiting for it, and I hope with all my heart [and I know that qualified experts have been contacted in an exploratory way to see if they would be available],” Lombardi said in an email. Francis has only spoken out a few times on abuse and his toughest words weren’t even pronounced. Francis apparently scrapped his prepared Dec. 2 speech to bishops from the Netherlands, who have been dealing with revelations
that some 20,000 children were sexually abused in Dutch Catholic institutions over the past 65 years. Instead, Francis spoke to the bishops off-the-cuff. On Jan. 31, Francis did mention his new sex abuse commission in a speech to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles sex abuse cases. In his final words before imparting his blessing, he said children must always be protected and that he wants his new sex abuse study commission to be a model. “For a year we’ve been saying that while Pope Francis is making progress on church finance and governance he’s done nothing — literally nothing — that protects a single child, exposes a single predator or prevents a single cover-up,” said Barbara Dorris of the main U.S. victim’s group SNAP. Francis was asked about protecting children by the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. Francis acknowledged the “profound” wounds abuse leaves and credited Benedict with having turned the church around. Benedict in 2001 took over handling abuse cases because bishops were moving pedophiles around rather than punishing them. He updated the Vatican’s in-house norms and in his final two years as pope defrocked nearly 400 priests himself. But Francis then got defensive: “The Catholic Church is perhaps the only public institution that has moved with transparency and responsibility. No one has done more. And yet the church is the only one that has been attacked.” The former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio has said that while he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, he never dealt with a case of sex abuse, and indeed the scandal has yet to explode in Argentina on the scale that it has elsewhere, including in neighboring Chile. But the online database BishopAccountability.org has cited several cases of Argentine bishops siding with abused clerics and imposing gag orders on victims — practices that were common in the U.S. before American bishops changed their tune amid the explosion of cases in 2002 and resulting avalanche of lawsuits. Buenos Aires native Sebastian Cuattromo, for example, says he approached Bergoglio’s archdioceses in 2002 seeking help to get out of a
taking tricks and strategies. Sometimes, students will be asked not just to select the right answer but to justify it by choosing the quotation from a text that provides the best supporting evidence for their answer. The revised essay, in particular, will shift in that direction. Students now write about their experiences and opinions, with no penalty for incorrect assertions, even egregiously wrong ones. In the future, though, students will receive a source document and be asked to analyze it for its use of evidence, reasoning and persuasive or stylistic technique. Starting in the spring of 2016, changes to the SAT will include these: u Instead of arcane “SAT words” (depreciatory, membranous), the vocabulary definitions on the new exam will be those of words commonly used in college courses, such as synthesis and empirical. u The essay, required since 2005, will be optional. Those who choose to write an essay will be asked to read a passage and analyze the ways its author used evidence, reasoning and elements to build an argument. u The guessing penalty, in which points are deducted for incorrect answers, will be eliminated. u The overall scoring will return to the old 1,600 scales, based on a top score of 800 in reading and math. The essay will have a separate score.
Wash. issues 1st pot license Recreational marijuana sales to begin in June or July By Gene Johnson
The Associated Press
Pope Francis wears an Italian Alpine troop hat he was offered while touring St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican prior to the start of his weekly general audience Wednesday. ALESSANDRA TARANTINO/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
confidentiality agreement he accepted when he settled with a religious order for abuse he suffered as a 13-year-old. He said he wanted the church to know the facts after learning that his abuser had fled to the United States. He said he received no reply, though the abuser was eventually convicted. In an email, Cuattromo said the archdiocese’s dismissive attitude to him and victims in general was evi-
dence of “a clear situation of power which, at least in Argentina and Latin America, the Catholic Church hierarchy continues to enjoy.” Terrence McKiernan of BishopA ccountability.org said it was “breathtaking” that Francis had made the church the victim of the scandal, rather than express sorrow to the thousands of victims or acknowledge the complicity of bishops in covering up the crimes.
OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington state issued its first legal-marijuana business license Wednesday, launching a new phase in the state’s ambitious effort to regulate a market that has been illegal for more than 75 years. Sean Green, who has operated medical marijuana dispensaries in Spokane and the Seattle suburb of Shoreline, proclaimed the document “beautiful” as it was handed to him at a state Liquor Control Board meeting in Olympia. The license will allow him to grow 21,000 square feet of cannabis at his Spokane facility — the first pot that will be grown for sale under the highly taxed system approved by voters in 2012. The possession of pot became legal for adults over 21 soon after the vote, but it’s still illegal to grow or sell it for recreational use until pot shops open in the state later this year. “Cannabis prohibition is over,” Green declared to applause from a room packed with his supporters. The Liquor Control Board said Green got the first license because he was the first applicant to complete the process. The board also received more than 2,200 retail applications, and is expected to hold lotteries in at least some areas before allowing 334 pot shops statewide. Washington’s first pot stores are expected to open in June or July.
Obama offers extension for canceled individual health plans White House hopes to defuse political issue for Dems in election year By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Warding off the specter of election-year health insurance cancellations, the Obama administration Wednesday announced a two-year extension for individual policies that don’t meet requirements of the new health care law. The decision helps stave off a politi-
cal problem for Democrats in tough re-election battles this fall, especially for senators who in 2010 stood with President Barack Obama and voted to pass his health overhaul. The extension was part of a major package of regulations that sets ground rules for 2015, the second year of government-subsidized health insurance markets under Obama’s law — and the first year that larger employers will face a requirement to provide coverage. Hundreds of pages of provisions affecting insurers, employers and consumers were issued by the Treasury Department and the Department of
Health and Human Services. It will likely take days for lawyers and consultants to fully assess the implications. The cancellation last fall of at least 4.7 million individual policies was one of the most damaging issues in the transition to a new insurance system under Obama’s law. The wave of cancellations hit around the time that the new HealthCare.gov website was overwhelmed with technical problems that kept many consumers from signing up for coverage. It contradicted Obama’s promise that you can keep your insurance plan if you like it. The latest extension would be valid
for policies issued up to Oct. 1, 2016. It builds on an earlier reprieve issued by the White House. Other highlights include: u An extra month for the 2015 open enrollment season. It will still start Nov. 15, as originally scheduled, after the congressional midterm elections. But it will extend for an additional month, through February 15 of next year. The administration says the schedule change gives insurers, states and federal agencies more time to prepare. This year’s open enrollment started Oct. 1 and ends Mar. 31. u New maximum out-of-pocket
cost levels for 2015. Annual deductibles and copayments for plans sold on the insurance exchanges can’t exceed $6,600 for individuals or $13,200 for families. While not as high as what some insurance plans charged before the law, cost sharing remains a stretch for many. u An update on an unpopular per-member fee paid by most major employer health plans. The assessment for 2015 will be $44 per enrollee, according to the regulations. Revenues from the fee go to help insurers cushion the cost of covering people with serious medical problems.