As a doctor, while working with patients, I never make a psychiatric diagnosis based on a hunch. I interview the patient and, based upon the clinical criteria, history and objective metrics, make a clinical diagnosis. If a physician ignores hard objective data to follow a popular trend, patients suffer. It is that simple.

Why should public education be any different?

Serving on the William S. Hart Union High School District board, I spend a lot of time looking at academic data and listening to students, parents and teachers across Santa Clarita. Our high schoolers work relentlessly, but California’s decision to eliminate the SAT from University of California admissions has pulled the rug out from under them. Dropping standardized testing wasn’t an act of equity — it was a misstep that traded objective merit for guesswork.

The argument for........

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