The College Board recently disclosed that about 4000 students received incorrect scores from the October sitting of the SAT Reasoning Test.

Oops.

Of course, the incident has generated outrage from students and parents. While I agree that it is completely unfair that students get the wrong grade, I'm a bit cynical. Systematic differences (as in across racial or socioeconomic groups) are routinely written off as sour grapes.

This has been great for the evening news because no news director ever met a hyper-achieving crying student they didn't love. Oh, the shame! Jenny's score is 100 points lower than she deserved! White woman in trouble! (to borrow a line from Scary Movie)

I hope this incident speeds the end of the SAT and other standardized tests as the lone marker of a student's value. Granted, schools differ and this is the only thing we have to compare students. But when the SAT and PSAT determine "merit" scholarships so colleges can effectively earmark financial aid for middle class white kids, I'm troubled.

Let's not even talk about how the SAT is a poor indicator of college success. Let's hold off on confronting the expanding reliance on standardized testing, all the way down to Head Start. Let's just step back and think about the the SAT for what it is: a few hours spent on a Saturday that currently has comprable weight to twelve years of education.