SAT = AP = Common Core... Practice the academic tasks that will be asked of kids in college

In a recent article in the NY Times about the redesign of the SAT, David Coleman says where the SAT is headed:

Since he arrived at the College Board in October, Mr. Coleman has been working on a fundamental redesign of the SAT, which he announced in February. The test, he said, should focus on “things that matter more so that the endless hours students put into practicing for the SAT will be work that’s worth doing.”

Citing the College Board’s Advanced Placement tests as a model, he said he aims to have a test that requires students to demonstrate the skills that good classroom teachers drill them on to reach academic excellence.

Deciding what students should master has been Mr. Coleman’s métier: he was an architect of the Common Core standards — guidelines for what students should learn in each grade — that are being put into place in most states. So it is no surprise that he has clear views on what the SAT should test, although he declines to offer specifics because College Board members need to be consulted on every element of the redesign. Most likely, he said, the outlines — sections on critical reading and math and a 25-minute essay — will remain the same. But Mr. Coleman has made known his discomfort with the essay, which puts no premium on accuracy. Students can get top marks for declaring that the Declaration of Independence was written by Justin Bieber and sparked the French Revolution, as long as the essay is well organized and develops a point of view.

“We should not be encouraging students to make up the facts,” Mr. Coleman said. “We should be asking them to construct an argument supported by their best evidence.”

Over and over, Mr. Coleman returns to the need to prod students into marshaling their evidence. “The heart of the revised SAT will be analyzing evidence,” he said. “The College Board is reaching out to teachers and college faculty to help us design questions that, for example, could ask students to use math to analyze the data in an economics study or the results of a scientific experiment, or analyze the evidence provided within texts in literature, history, geography or natural science.”