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While seniors are done with the SAT by winter break, teachers
have to deal with the test every year.
John Ritter, a veteran English teacher at Parkland High School
in Allentown, Pa. said the 25-minute essay section "denigrates
the process of reading, thinking, experiencing, and, above all,
revisiting, that writing represents."
In his opinion, "if colleges and universities wish a true
read, let students write. Give them a writing task, a library,
and some time to research, reflect, and write."
Tracy Beck-Briggs, a teacher at Moravian Academy, a small private
high school in Bethlehem, Pa. echoed Ritter's sentiment.
"We believe that the SAT essay section is absolutely not
the most effective way to assess writers," Beck-Briggs said.
"It fails to account for the hard work of revision and does
not provide the insight a formal graded essay does."
Ritter and Beck-Briggs said their classes now include opportunities
for students to practice this kind of writing.
"Some students can do this kind of task easily. Others have
to be taught or they will not have the opportunities and choices
they should have," Ritter added.
 "Can
teachers still teach authentic writing? Yes. But there is far
less time in which to do it."
At the end of the day, Ritter said he believes that "now
more than ever, we have made education into an unrelenting series
of hoops, no brass rings, just hoops."
But Curtis Sittenfeld, who teaches English at St. Albans School
in Washington, D.C., disagrees. In a New York Times Op-Ed, she
wrote that unlike the verbal analogies that were eliminated, "the
essay will test a skill that really does matter both during and
outside of school."
"As for the notion that such training stifles creativity,
I've read enough writing by both high school students and graduates
to know that stifling creativity might not be such a bad thing.
Ultimately, learning to express yourself clearly will take you
much further than learning to express yourself poetically,"
she said.
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"Beginning
last spring and again this fall, I see more students taking the
ACT than ever before. Then when they see both sets of scores (SAT
and ACT), they choose the highest set to send to college. Regrettably,
some students are spending more time testing than in previous
years," Albarelli observed. 
Likewise,
Lee Coffin, dean of admissions at Tufts University, noted that
college admissions offices are "in a moment of transition."
This [teen] is an immigrant from Mexico, and he works long hours at a local farm milking dairy cows, five hours per milking, twice a day.
