NOTHING GETS TOUTED AS STEP UP FROM SATS.

Byline: CHRIS WEINKOPF

UNIVERSITY of California President Richard Atkinson has taken a novel approach in his attempt to do away with the SAT - he offers nothing in its place.

In most professions, tossing out a long-relied-upon set of standards without first devising a replacement would be considered reckless. In academia, it's what passes for bold thinking.

Atkinson recommends that the UC system stop considering the SAT in its admissions. Instead, the system would rely on the SAT 2 achievement tests until experts contrive a new selection process that's more ``comprehensive'' and ``holistic,'' with tests based on knowledge, not aptitude. The UC system would ditch the SAT on blind faith - trusting that the new system, whenever it's actually implemented, would live up to Atkinson's billing.

In terms of public relations, this plan without a plan is a master stroke. It pits the much-maligned SAT against a hypothetical alternative that no one can fault because no one has actually seen it.

And it conceals what may be the true intent of Atkinson's proposal - an end run around California's ban on racial preferences.

Atkinson is careful not to couch his anti-SAT pitch in racial terms, focusing instead on the issue of fairness. He charges that the SAT is skewed because kids from wealthy families can spend upward of $1,000 for test-prep courses that bolster their scores. Moreover, he warns that SAT-obsession has caused students to place too much emphasis on their test scores instead of their overall learning.

Were the SAT the UC's single criterion for gauging applicants, these complaints would have some merit. But the test accounts for only 15 percent of a student's application. It's used as a check against more subjective measurements, like grades or teacher recommendations. Any tests that might replace the SAT would be sure to suffer from the same defects - with rich kids having access to better schools and tutors.

The alternative is to do away with standards altogether, which just may be where Atkinson is heading.

The SAT has long been a thorn in the side of those who would manipulate the racial composition of college campuses. Because of socioeconomic disadvantage and the woeful state of inner-city schools, African-Americans and Latinos score, on average, significantly lower than whites and Asians on the standardized test.

Under affirmative action, when race could trump other considerations in the admissions process, discrepancies in SAT scores mattered little. As a new study from the Center for Equal Opportunity shows, UC admissions officers simply set lower standards for underrepresented minorities.

That policy served the social engineers well, but was devastating for many minority college students who were accepted to schools for which they were underprepared. Another CEO study found that at UC San Diego, only 41 percent of African-American freshmen entering in 1988 graduated within five years, compared with 71 percent of white students.

Over Atkinson's opposition, the UC regents banned the use of racial and gender preferences in admissions in 1995. The number of African-Americans and Latinos at the UC's elite campuses - Berkeley and UCLA - subsequently declined, although it has remained steady throughout the system at large.

Ever since the end of preferences, the social engineers have been scurrying to find a new way to manipulate campus demographics without running afoul of the law. They have cast blame on the SAT, charging that ``cultural bias'' causes the racially disparate scores.

Atkinson hints that he subscribes to this philosophy, at least in part, when he argues that minority parents ``have no way of knowing what the SAT measures and, therefore, have no basis for assessing its fairness or helping their children acquire the skills to do better.''

The SAT is, to be sure, an imperfect test, and replacing it with one that is less so would be a welcomed change. Replacing it with a scheme for gerrymandering enrollment would be dangerous, and it would put the well- being of social engineers over that of students.

Without a plan on the table, it's impossible to be sure of Atkinson's intentions. But there's good reason to proceed with caution.