Standardized testing has been a topic of much debate for several reasons, but one criticism surrounding these tests is the seemingly obvious racial bias that is present in these examinations—particularly the SAT.  

Data shows that the black-white achievement gap in SAT math scores has remained virtually unchanged over the last fifteen years. Between 1996 and 2015, the average gap between the mean black score and the mean white score has been 0.92 standard deviations. In 1996 it was 0.9 standard deviations and in 2015 it was 0.88 standard deviations. The graph below illustrates these findings. 

What this means and goes to show is that over the last fifteen years, about 64% of all testers scored between the average black and average white score. These gaps have a significant impact on life chances, and therefore on the transmission of inequality across generations. As the economist Bhashkar Mazumder has documented, adolescent cognitive outcomes statistically account for most of the race gap in intergenerational social mobility. 

As an effort to reduce this gap, the test makers added a writing component to the test that could be manipulated to lessen racial differences and therefore reduce public criticisms of the test.  

The writers argue that the introduction of the writing component will reduce the racial scoring gap. The reason has to do with the probable biases of the test grader rather than the ability of the test taker. These experts maintain that the people who score the new writing section will be able to detect the race of the writer by the vocabulary and subject matter of the student’s essay. There is then a suspicion in some quarters that the scorers of the test, who are often able to determine the race of the test taker, may be inclined to grade black students easier than other students. Therefore, it is suggested that the examination will be graded on a curve that benefits blacks and Hispanics. It is argued, too, that for political and social reasons scoring on the writing test may be manipulated to narrow the overall gap between whites and blacks and thereby will lessen criticism that the test is biased against minority students. 

However, there are students of the SAT who believe that the new writing component would widen the racial scoring gap even further. They believe that this will happen as only 50% of black students who take the SAT would have taken English composition classes in high school while 67% of white test takers would have taken English classes in high school prior to testing. There is also the view that the new test will worsen the results for blacks on the theory that, for cultural reasons, overall blacks possess materially inferior writing skills compared to those of whites. 

Overall, there is clear evidence that there is a racial gap in standardized testing scores. While efforts have been made to lessen this gap, there is still much that should be considered and different angles/approaches that should be applied in order to accomplish this goal and further look into this issue.