Sen. Darren Bailey meets with supporters at a fundraiser in Swansea | Darren Bailey / Twitter
Sen. Darren Bailey meets with supporters at a fundraiser in Swansea | Darren Bailey / Twitter
Sen. Darren Bailey (R-Louisville) shared his opinion regarding HB 0226, a bill that prohibits public Illinois universities from requiring standardized test scores on admissions applications.
Effective as of Jan. 1, the new law bars public universities in Illinois from requiring standardized test scores as part of admission applications in order to provide more equal opportunities to applicants. The inclusion of standardized test scores will now be optional for applying students who can submit or exclude their scores based on their results, according to the Illinois General Assembly.
"I think it will have a positive effect because it will allow colleges to do their own testing in terms of what they’re looking for in a student," said Bailey.
According to the organization FairTest, more than 1,000 colleges and universities have eliminated ACT or SAT score requirements across the country, frequently citing the reason for their decision is the belief that those tests “favor students from privileged backgrounds,” according to Test Prep Advisor. The National Association for College Admission Counseling conducted its own study and found that schools without a standardized test scores requirement have more “diversity.”
"Standardized tests use this kind of common denominator that is based on the same fact. The biggest thing to me is what kind of job public schools have done, much more so than there being any racist element," said Bailey. "The breakdown of the home and different parts of society definitely are big factors."
One math professor at the University of Illinois wrote an anthology for teachers where she argued that math is racist, stating “mathematics itself operates as Whiteness," according to the National Review.
According to the Illinois State Board of Education, the number of Illinois students in 3rd-11th grade who meet the state's grade-level standards decreased by 18% in the last two years in math and by 17% in English. For Chicago Public School 11th graders, 23% met grade-level standards for reading and only 21% met grade-level standards for math, according to WBEZ Chicago.
"The last two years with the COVID situation, Gov. Pritzker has written in rules where students can’t be held back," Bailey said in response to the statistics from Chicago. "It's another example of students not getting the schooling they should be getting."
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