Balance (1965 - 1990)
Educational Equality (1981 to 1986)
While the 1970s saw an emphasis on expanding access, the neo-conservatism of the 1980s de-emphasized equity issues and placed more emphasis on educational excellence. Given this national atmosphere, the College Board believed that there needed to be a dual commitment to both equality and excellence or quality in education.
The College Board viewed encouraging minority participation in higher education as not only an issue about equality and justice, but also about maintaining higher education enrollments and a talented labor force. Those heading the Educational Equality project realized that minority students were making up a larger share of the shrinking college-bound population. Assisting these students to succeed in higher education benefited the individual and thereby created a more justice educational system, but it also ensured that this growing population would indeed enroll in colleges and universities. This would keep enrollment figures up and it would ensure that there were enough well-educated people to fill positions in a new economy.
College Board officials were explicit about connecting Educational Equality with both moral justice and the well-being of the nation. The nation's ability to find and develop talent among all people in the United States was seen as "more than a matter of justice; it is a matter of the nation's well-being, possibly even its survival" [George Hanford, Minority Programs and Activities of the College Board: An Updated Report (New York: The College Board, 1982), p. 20].
The first part of the Educational Equality project in 1981 was to define the basic academic competencies needed in preparation for college-level work. Also intended was to explore the subject-matter content to which all college-bound students should be exposed. In these ways, the College Board was once again moving into defining the secondary curriculum for college-bound students. The Board had done this in the past, with its initial college admissions tests and with the Advanced Placement Program begun in the 1950s. Now, the College Board wedded these attempts at curricular control to issues of educational equity.
At a 1981 symposium in St. Louis, the 100 people in attendance generally agreed on the competencies needed for preparation for higher education. The College Board then published these competencies in 1983 in Academic Preparation for College: What Students Need to Know and Be Able to Do, commonly known as The Green Book. Eventually, College Board president George Hanford was able to draw the attention of the nation's business leaders at the National Business Roundtable to these competencies and the ideals behind the Educational Equality project.
The Green Book was successful. By 1990, there were over one-half million copies in circulation. The Green Book was an aid for state and educational authorities in setting academic goals and standards. The College Board, however, insisted that the Green Book and its successors, The Rainbow Series, did not offer prescriptions but just suggestions for academic competencies and curricular objectives.
The second part of the Educational Equality project was to explore subject matter content. Six basic academic subjects each had a book devoted to it. The subjects were English, art, mathematics, science, social studies, and foreign languages. This series of six books became known as The Rainbow Series.
Although the Educational Equality project aimed to address issues of both equality and quality, the resulting products of the projects seemed to serve more the latter rather than the former issue. Unlike other projects, the Educational Equality project did not deal explicitly and directly with practical issues of educational equality.
In 1982, the College Board specified a number of positions it was taking on the issues of access to higher education. The Board stated that:
- It would continue to search for talent
- It would attempt to find better means of identifying talent at the junior high school level
- It would continue to eliminate content bias in its tests
- Tests should be administered in non-hostile environments
- Emphasis should be on developing new measures of human assessment
- It would broaden its Puerto Rican Spanish-language testing to the continent
- It would inform users and test takers that over-reliance on Board tests is bad and could lead to discriminatory practices
- It would continue its fee waiver program for low-income students desiring to take Board tests
- The idea of more federal, state, and local financial aid should be pushed
- More special training should be available for counselors, teachers, and those dealing with students making the transition from secondary to post secondary education
- It would respond favorable to external calls for College Board sponsorship of minority scholarship programs, but would not fund these programs
- It supported need-based financial aid first, then merit aid
