"SAT scandal shows tyranny of standardized testing"

In Great Neck, New York, a town in Long Island, twenty students have been arrested for their involvement in an SAT testing scandal.  Samuel Eshaghoff and many others have been arrested on criminal charges for impersonating high school students to take the SAT.  The author of the article, Nicolaus Mills, argues that "if colleges and high schools sit back and regard the Long Island scandal as primarily a security issue to be corrected by better policing, they are failing in their mission. They bear a huge responsibility for the degree to which a high score on a standardized test has become disproportionately important for college admission."  To Mills, this is representative of a greater issue in the college admissions process, and that is that high SAT scores are a student's ticket into their first-choice college.  He argues that "this obsessive focus is exactly the opposite of the generous ideal that in 1934 led Harvard president James Bryant Conant to pioneer the use of the SAT, Scholastic Aptitude Test, for admission to Harvard. Conant's aim was to find worthy students in schools across the country who were not part of the elite private school system from which Harvard traditionally drew most of its students."  Mills believes that admissions offices should try to more effectively balance an applicant's SAT scores with a more complex look at the overall applicant. 
With the number of applicants to undergraduate colleges increasing rapidly, especially at big-name state schools, admissions officers are left with no choice but to rely on SAT scores and GPA.  There are simply too many applicants to assess for them to spend more time on each applicant.  With this recent scandal, I think that we do need to examine the nature of organizations like The College Board, and how much of an influence their tests are having on college admissions.  Should admissions committee's treat the test with less influence, or should they continue to rely on it heavily as a measure of admission for incoming students?  Some schools are now test-optional, and they continue to admit some of the most intelligent students in the nation.  Maybe the SAT will someday be totally gone.

NFL to refs: Be aware of head injuries

In a story on ESPN, referees in the NFL are now being instructed to look for player's concussions on the field.  Recently, San Diego Chargers guard Kris Dielman suffered a concussion in a game versus the Jets, and he had a seizure upon landing back in San Diego.  Dielman clearly looked shaken up on the play, but he stayed in on his own account, so there was no way the officials could have stepped in to remove him from the game.  The NFL has been moving to protect its players, specifically against concussions, and this movement will hopefully help prevent concussions.  However, many people argue that it should be up to the players own judgment to take themselves out of the game.  They should be smart enough to protect their own health.  Nothing bad should come from this movement, because the referees are now only another pair of eyes looking out for the players.  The only way it could be a problem is if a referee uses his own judgement to take a player out of the game, even though the player makes it clear that he does not have a concussion.  There has not been commentary from the players on this issue yet, but I do not know if they are in favor of it or not.  I would think that they would like to have control over taking themselves in or out of a game, concussed or not.  Hopefully this prevents future concussions.

Sean Avery

A fan-favorite at Madison Square Garden is making a comeback, as the Rangers have called up Sean Avery from the Hartford Whale.  Avery has been a fan-favorite because of his playing style.  He does everything possible to annoy the other team, and it seems to work.  The NHL even imposed the "Avery rule"after he interfered with goalie Martin Brodeur during a game by standing in front of him and waving his stick in his face, distracting him, which led to a Rangers goal.  The ESPN "Cross Checks" blog is saying that Avery's return to the Rangers won't be very significant.  Avery's play has deteriorated with his age, but I still think that he'll be a spark plug for the Rangers. The author of ESPN's blog thinks that Avery won't appear in many games for the Rangers, even though tons of fans will be chanting his name.  He's a character, and the fans love him.  John Tortorella, the head coach of the Rangers, does not view Avery as an impact player, even though many of the fans do.  It will be interesting to see how much playing time Sean Avery gets, and if the fans chanting will affect Coach Tortorella's decision to play him.