COLLEGE-BOUND TEST RESULTS ARE BLURRED

At first glance, the news out of Washington was encouraging. High school graduates turned in their best scores in years on the 1995 Scholastic Assessment Test, known familiarly by college-bound students as the SAT. Math scores averaged their highest marks in two decades.

Apparently all the talk about education reform has done some good, the scores seemed to indicate. Surely this would vindicate the education establishment, which has come under fire for its newfangled schemes to change the way schools assess students' achievement.

Not necessarily.

In 1994, the SAT -- then the Scholastic Aptitude Test -- was changed. The name wasn't all that changed though. The new test emphasizes reading comprehension and math problem-solving over multiple-choice questions and rote memorization. SAT officials claim that the revised test isn't any easier and that scores should be about the same as for the old tests.

If those officials are to be believed, the math scores -- the highest since 1973 -- are attributable to test-takers who have better mastered math in school.

But the new test gives students 15 more minutes to solve problems on each test. Students now are allowed to use calculators. Whether taking the SAT or its cousin, the American College Test, rarely do students complete each section of the exam in the allotted time. It stretches credulity to think the use of time-saving calculators and an additional 15 minutes a section would have no effect on scores.

But Donald M. Stewart, president of The College Board, which administers the SAT, was unaffected. "Education seems to be turning around," he said of the higher scores. "This is the best-prepared class in recent memory." Stewart likely will say the same of next year's crop of SAT-takers. That's because the SAT scoring system will change next year, which is expected to increase marks by up to 100 out of a possible 800 points.

How do you explain such a drastic one-year rise in test scores, if not due to a revised, easier test? That test scores systematically will be raised only bolsters critics' claims that it's all a ploy to improve the image of the nation's school system.

The trend in the past few years has been to inflate grades so more students earn A's and B's -- or to banish grades altogether. The aim is to boost students' self-esteem, which has replaced knowledge as the primary goal of primary and secondary schooling. Now the folks who put together college entrance exams have gotten into the act.

If scores were soaring on the exams, tinkering with the test might be defensible. That the scores are cooked, in an effort to show schools really are doing a better job today, reveals that the education establishment is bent on further mischief.

Instead of defining excellence down while resisting real reforms sprouting up across the nation, it is time schools and education officials own up to the failure of their grand experiment.