On September 20, 2007, The Globe featured an about professors at MIT who exposed the College Board’s inability to assess with any accuracy the writing section of the SAT I. The article does more than describe the test’s weaknesses; it makes yet another case for abandoning the SAT as a tool for evaluating students for college admission.

In 2000 the Board of Trustees completed a Strategic Plan which committed to major improvements in our arts and athletic facilities and to building our endowment. In 2004 the Visual and Performing Arts Center opened, and earlier that year the Board again committed to moving ahead with the construction of an Athletic Center.

When this year’s Commencement speaker, Susan Diamond ’56, compared Beaver to Home Depot, saying that the two shared a “You can do it. We can help.” philosophy, she drew laughter from her audience, myself included.

If arts programs are to thrive in our schools, arts educators need to abandon convoluted rationale for arts programs and support the position outlined by Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland in a recent Boston Globe editorial

That makes sense in that people with more financial resources have access to programs that teach students SAT test-taking strategies. A few years ago, partly in response to this sort of criticism, in their wisdom, the College Board added