Charles Murray — yes, he of the Bell Curve — has said the time has come to abolish the SAT. His recent article in The American is the focus of a NY Times Blog piece entitled "Death to the SAT." Murray writes:

The evidence has become overwhelming that the SAT no longer serves a democratizing purpose. Worse, events have conspired to make the SAT a negative force in American life. And so I find myself arguing that the SAT should be ended. Not just deemphasized, but no longer administered. Nothing important would be lost by so doing. Much would be gained.

The Times blog piece is a quick summary of the longer piece in The American. It’s a fascinating read, arguing that while the SAT once leveled the playing field, it is now simply a measure of socio-economic status, not of aptitude.

We are living in fascinating — if disturbing educational times, but you have to think that when you have conservatives like Charles Murray and liberal / progressives like Monty Neill lining up on the same side of a growing anti-testing movement, we may be headed for a change in the way we think about education in America.