Word: conant
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...developed the Army intelligence tests during World War I; the first SAT was an adapted version of that test. Henry Chauncey, the founding president of the Educational Testing Service, and his boss during his previous job as an assistant dean at Harvard in the 1930s and '40s, James Bryant Conant, chose the SAT as an admissions test because Conant saw it as an IQ test. In those days, high school was a relatively new institution in the U.S. There were actually more high schools then than there are now, but they were decentralized and of highly variable quality. Conant wanted...
...Atkinson was addressing a situation that Conant and Chauncey didn't imagine. The SAT, now with millions of takers a year, has become a national fetish. A large portion of the high school student and parent population believes it is the main determinant of admission to a selective college, which in turn is the main determinant of one's eventual socioeconomic status (both propositions that the test's makers heatedly deny). High school students and their parents also believe that scores on the all important test can be raised by spending hundreds, even thousands, of dollars on courses that teach...
...proposed, instead, replacing the SAT with standardized achievement tests that measure students' mastery of specific subjects they have learned in high school. This will preserve the medicinal power of the SAT - its ability to spot a potential future Nobel prizewinner languishing in an obscure high school, which was Conant's main interest - while substantially reducing its harmful side effects...
...President Bush proposed a regime of achievement tests for the elementary and middle school grades all over the country, and president Atkinson proposed a regime of achievement tests for high schools in California. It's all the same idea. Half a century ago, Conant and Chauncey created, in the SAT, national education standards for the most gifted and best educated few. Now Bush and Atkinson are proposing to create national education standards for the many...
...University and played major roles on the national stage. President Leverett freed Harvard from stifling Puritan control. President Eliot transformed the University from a small college to a modern institution and presided over Radcliffe's birth. President Lowell redesigned the liberal undergraduate curriculum and started the House system. President Conant introduced general education curriculum and initiated coeducation with Radcliffe. Beginning with Pusey, Presidents have improved University finances through fundraising and have shaped the College in important ways. Bok began the Core Program and Rudenstine has overseen the transformation of Radcliffe from a College to an Institute for Advanced Study...