Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | June 24, 2019 | Worcester Business Journal 9 THANK YOU to our Power of the Purse Sponsors! With your help, we are able to support violence prevention programming for girls in our community. SUPPORT SPONSORS Bay State Savings Bank Becker College Cornerstone Bank Country Bank Fallon Health Fidelity Bank Koopman Lumber Lamoureux Pagano & Associates LLB Architects Seven Hills Foundation Webster Five Worcester State University SIGNATURE SPONSOR LEAD SPONSOR For more information, visit www.unitedwaycm.org/donor-groups CORPORATE SPONSORS Avidia Bank Interstate Specialty Products Michael and Carol Sleeper UMass Memorial Health Care MEDIA SPONSOR Worcester Business Journal SIGNAGE SPONSOR FASTSIGNS of Worcester and achieve more with less. It enables colleges to witness the strength of stu- dents in a huge swath of America who would otherwise be overlooked," said David Coleman, the CEO of the College Board, in a public statement. However, Twombly said the ECD is a simple, elegant, and crude proxy for quantifying context. "e ECD is trying to create an objec- tive measure of context," said Palumbo. For WPI, its trained individuals can perform the same task as the ECD and, in Palumbo's opinion, are more effective at it. ough the ECD's goals are admirable to Palumbo, he – like Twombly – said the ECD is trying to quantify an aspect of life unfit for numerical data. e ECD has been criticized for its lack of transparency about the factors going into it and the fact students and high schools are not allowed to see a student's ECD. "Scores that affect students' futures re- quire transparency, validity and fairness. e algorithm and research behind this adversity score have not been published. It is basically a black box," said ACT CEO Marten Roorda, in an email. Where do colleges go from here Schools like Framingham State Uni- versity still requiring standardized test scores in admissions are struggling on how to use the ECD. "At this time, the university is taking a wait-and-see approach to the SAT's new Environmental Context Dash- board," said Jeremy Spencer, Framing- ham State University's dean of enroll- ment management, in an email. "e university recognizes and appreciates varied student backgrounds throughout the enrollment process, and welcomes the opportunity to research how the Environmental Context Dashboard fits into this understanding." For schools that are already test optional, the ECD is redundant. Neither WPI nor Clark plan to use it. "We're getting pretty good environ- mental context from [the school report] alone," said Twombly. At a smaller school like Clark, admissions officers can spend time on every application. However, the ECD could be helpful for larger institutions without the time to read through with more than 20,000 applications a year, Twombly said. Aer years of the College Board claiming the SAT's objective nature, it finally has leaned into the fact the tests don't measure innate qualities, like Clark and WPI already know. "For decades the College Board said the SAT alone is the best unbiased, ob- jective indicator of success and likened it to an equalizer," said Twombly. "e creation of the ECD is the SAT proving the point they have been denying." SAT scores by ethnicity and family income American Indian, Alaska Native Asian, Asian American, Pacific Islander Black or African American Mexican or Mexican American Puerto Rican Other Hispanic, Latino, or Latin American White Other $0-20,000 $20,000-40,000 $40,000-60,000 $60,000-80,000 $80,000-100,000 $100,000-120,000 $120,000-140,000 $140,000-160,000 $160,000-200,000 $200,000+ SAT scores by family income SAT scores by ethnicity 1427 1645 1278 1355 1354 1354 1576 1501 1326 1402 1461 1497 1535 1569 1581 1604 1625 1714 Source: The College Board, 2014 W

• Cover