There is no way for all 3.7 million high school graduates in the US to write a test in the same conditions. But the SAT and ACT are much better w/r/t similar conditions than grades.
> state ran standardized tests
The US is the land of capitalism, so it delegates standardised testing to private for-profit corporations. Many European countries have a nation-wide or state-wide standardised testing system.
> Then there is this idea of the extra tutoring people are paying for outside of the school curriculum basically amounting to something akin to paying for the right to use steroids in sports.
I wouldn’t compare tutoring to steroids. In sports, some athletes can afford to spend more time in the gym and to get a better coach, while some can’t, and that might affect their test results.
> state ran standardized tests
The US is the land of capitalism, so it delegates standardised testing to private for-profit corporations. Many European countries have a nation-wide or state-wide standardised testing system.
> Then there is this idea of the extra tutoring people are paying for outside of the school curriculum basically amounting to something akin to paying for the right to use steroids in sports.
I wouldn’t compare tutoring to steroids. In sports, some athletes can afford to spend more time in the gym and to get a better coach, while some can’t, and that might affect their test results.