EDUCATORS QUESTION USEFULNESS OF SAT.

Byline: Terri Hardy Daily News Staff Writer

Top L.A. Unified officials questioned the need for the standardized tests Friday, a day after a University of California Regents task force proposed eliminating SAT scores as admissions criteria.

``They should seriously take a look at eliminating it,'' said Bob Collins, director of instruction for high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. ``No one would complain about a norm-referenced test if the playing field is level, but it isn't.''

Collins said that in addition to language barriers, there is a clear relationship between low family income and low scores on the nationwide Scholastic Assessment Test.

Children in poorer families are often not supported when it comes to test-taking or college attendance. And they often aren't able to take the expensive preparation tests given by private companies that promise to boost scores, he said.

``Disadvantaged kids are at a disadvantage when they take the test,'' Collins said.

LAUSD Superintendent Ruben Zacarias pointed out that 285 four-year colleges and universities across the country no longer use the SAT.

``The SAT may not be necessary,'' Zacarias said. ``But certainly, whatever is decided, we want our students to meet admissions criteria, and that's why we're requiring them to take tougher academic classes.''

But at El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, the SAT elimination proposal by the regent's Latino Eligibility Task Force didn't sit well.

``My family would be upset. I'd be upset. The majority of students here would be upset. El Camino stresses the SAT. It would be a let-down after all the prepping we do,'' Steve Glickman, the 17-year-old student body vice president. Glickman has taken the SAT exam three times to improve his chances to get into a good college.

The UC Latino Eligibility Task Force wants to eliminate the test to boost the number of Latinos that will be eligible to attend the University of California's campuses.

Glickman understands their rationale.

``It's totally culturally biased,'' Glickman said of the standardized test. ``Students who are new to this country are not going to do as well on the verbal sections.''

Glickman's conflicting feelings echo the dilemma now facing educators in high schools and the Board of Regents, which will decide if the SAT should be eliminated.

Since high schools have varying standards for grades, critics of the proposal say it would be unfair to take away a standardized test that allows a comparison of students across the country.

In 1996-97, almost 11,000 juniors and seniors in the LAUSD took the SAT; 43 percent of those were Latino. In the same year, 1,716 enrolled in the UC system - 314 were Latino.

The UC Latino task force found that the SAT was racially biased and not a good indicator of how well a Latino student would do in college, said Raymund Paredes, a member of the task force and associate vice chancellor for academic development at UCLA.

Research suggested that if admissions criteria did not change, there would be a 50 to 70 percent drop in the number of Latinos and African-Americans attending UCLA and UC Berkeley - the system's most selective schools.

``We're not suggesting that we lower entrance requirements, we're suggesting we make them fairer,'' Paredes said.

The study's findings comes as affirmative action comes to an end in undergraduate admissions but was started before voters passed Proposition 209, Paredes said.

The task force, composed of faculty and administrators from the UC system's nine campuses, said that another standardized test, such as the Golden State exam, could be substituted for the SAT.

But in the high schools, students and their college counselors believe that the SATs should be maintained as a gauge between applicants.

At El Camino, where 111 seniors were admitted to UC schools last year, competition for good grades, good universities and a whopping SAT score is intense.

College Counselor Elenna Turner said UC campuses evaluate which students to accept by comparing El Camino students against each other - not with students at other campuses where the curriculum is not as rigorous.

That process means that some students who are not as academically sound are granted UC admission, Turner said.

She remembers one case where a Latina senior, with a 3.4 grade-point average in a host of honors courses and a good SAT score was denied admission into UC Santa Barbara.

``In any other school that girl would have been No. 1 in her class,'' Turner said.

Eliminating the SAT, the gauge of comparison between students at different schools, could make the process more unfair, educators said.

``The SAT is a way of selecting those students who are more prepared,'' said Judy Jackson, college adviser at Sylmar High School.

The College Board, a nonprofit group that sponsors the SAT, claims that grade inflation is a national problem.

As proof, they point to their figures, which show that more students got better grades from 1987 to 1997, but their SAT scores fell during that time.

Educators agree that the problem of grade inflation will need to be addressed if the UC Regents decides to eliminate the SATs.

``I'm sure that members of the Latino task force don't want kids to flunk out because they haven't been prepared,'' said Thomas Lifka, assistant vice chancellor of student academic services at UCLA.

Lifka said making new eligibility requirements will be a complex process. If the SAT is eliminated and the pool of eligible students becomes greater, as the task force envisions, then it will have to be determined how to select from that group.

Janice Gams, a spokeswoman for the College Board, said the test has been accused of racial bias ``for a long time'' but that the problem in fact rested with the student's preparation.

``Academic preparation matched the scores. Mexican-Americans were least prepared on average,'' Gams said.

Michael Trujillo, 18, who graduated last year from Birmingham High School, said the SAT is an essential school experience.

``With adults, it's death and taxes. With students it's homework and SATs,'' he said.