Cal State prof warns scrapping SAT in name of 'inclusivity' is leaving students unprepared

A California economics professor is sounding the alarm on the "deficits in learning" she is seeing in the classroom, arguing that the decision to scrap standardized testing in the name of "inclusivity" is actually a disservice to the students it claims to help.

Cal State Long Beach professor Andrea Mays told Fox News Digital that the current cohort of college students, many of whom spent their formative middle school years in online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, are arriving on campus unprepared for basic coursework.

Mays spoke to Fox News Digital about the state's university system's decision to scrap the SAT as a requirement for college admission as playing a large role in that and that it has led to students coming to college unprepared and dropping out at higher rates. 

Mays says the drop rate is up "phenomenally" and that chairs of other departments tell her it's widespread, with 25% of students dropping classes, with math being a key area where students are coming in underprepared. 

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"I teach a class that is offered for non-economics majors," Mays explained. "I could put on an index card exactly what math is required for my class, it's not calculus, and they are struggling with it, they're embarrassed, they're demoralized, they come into my classroom, and they say, or into my office hours, and they say, I never learned this stuff, I don't know how to calculate a percentage change."

"I can show them, but those are the students who are actually coming to me and asking me for help. There are lots of other students who are just too embarrassed even to do that, and who just end up dropping the class."

Mays, who recently penned an opinion piece in the Orange County Register with the headline "Bring back the SAT at CSU - or admit we are failing our own students," says that the explanation she has gotten for the CSU system dropping the SAT is that "we want to be inclusive."

"I am definitely for inclusivity on our campus," Mays said. "We have a very diverse campus here. But I think it's fraud to tell people that what we're doing is so that we can be inclusive when really what we're doing is we're allowing people to enter that we know are really going to have a difficult time of it. They have no idea."

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In recent years, several activist groups have railed against the SAT and standardized testing in general, including the nation's largest teachers union, and Fox News Digital asked Mays if that narrative is behind the CSU decision not to require the SAT. 

"That might be a little bit of the implication there without saying so, I'm not an expert in the recent changes in the SAT, others have done that work looking at whether you can change questions so that groups that don't do well on certain questions, can do better on other types of questions," Mays said. 

"There's definitely room for discussion about what kind of a standard, is it the ACT? Is it the SAT or something? The problem is that high schools are heterogeneous," Mays said. 

"Not all high schools are excellent even if they say they are. And so you'll get students who get As in algebra two, and then they come into my class and they can't calculate a percentage change. They can't find the intersection between two straight lines, both of which are seventh and eighth grade math requirements. So that students are getting passed on from high school into a four-year university is a disservice to them. They get here thinking they're wonderful and finding out that they are at the bottom of the ability distribution for math and English."

Acting Chancellor Steve Relyea stated in 2022 that when the decision to remove the SAT and ACT was made, the goal was to "level the playing field" and provide "greater access." The decision followed a year-long study by the Admission Advisory Council, which found that the tests provided "negligible additional value" in predicting student success compared to high school GPA.

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The system officially moved to "multi-factored admission criteria," focusing on GPA in specific high school courses, extracurriculars, and socio-economic factors.

"Access without readiness is not opportunity," Mays wrote in her article. "It is a disservice. If CSU is serious about student success, affordability, and equity, it must be willing to measure preparedness - and act on what it finds."

Mays added, "Pretending preparation gaps do not exist is not equity."

Mays told Fox News Digital that California's robust and effective community college system is a tool ready to be utilized as an "alternative" for students who are coming out of high school, many who lost years of learning during COVID, and not prepared for college. 

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"Go into the community system and take the lowest level English class you can so that you can write a sentence, you can write a paragraph, you could make an argument," Mays said. "Take a basic math class that will transfer onto a four-year university and learn how to do the basic math that perhaps you didn't learn when you were in middle school online."

The California State University System did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

"There's no reason not to use an SAT as a filter to let students know whether they're prepared for college-level work or not," Mays told Fox News Digital.