The House Armed Services committee will be hearing from secretary of defense chuck hagel and general Martin Dempsey about the military budget for next year. Our cameras will be there. Go to cspan. Org for more details. In washington, the American Conservative Union kicks off its annual conservative Political ActionConference Today with speakers including senators ted cruz, governor chris christie, marco rubio and mike leigh. Go to cspan. Org for more details. E begin washington journal with the headline across many of the nations newspapers. The sat has decided to change its rules. We want to know your experience with the test. Parents and students dial in Scott Jaschick is joining us on the phone, the editor at inside Higher Education. Lets begin with why the sats changing its rules, and what will be the changes yo . Guest sure. So good morning, everybody. One will be changing the writing portion from the Current Situation where students are given a statement of philosophy and they respond to it to instead they will be analyzing a written passage and have to cite evidence in it. Other changes are making the math more specific on just a few suspect subjects, not every possible subject. And eliminating the penalty for wrong answers on multiplechoice and trying to change the aboutlary words to less what people call sat words, which nobody uses, and more about words people actually use. The sat has been criticized over the years as a test of people strategize, and what they are trying to do is make it closer to what goes on in high schools. The sat has also faced stronger competition in recent years. It is to be the dominant admissions test. Now more High School Seniors take the act that the sat. The acd has been seen as closer to the High School Curriculum and the sat is trying to do that as well. Host who has been taking the sat and who do they want to take the sat who do they want more of, what type of student do they want to take the sat in the richer in the future . Guest many colleges require students to take either the sat or the act. This is when you are going to most colleges, although an increasing number of colleges dont require it. Act has historically been strongest in the midwest. The sat is strong is probably in new england. Now both are offered everywhere. There is competition throughout the country for individual students and also for states that use the test as a minute as a way to measure their progress in achieving certain goals. What will these changes mean for how students prepare for the sat . Guest the board hopes it will make us less about being coached. Of thee quite critical test prep industry. What they want it to be is that the best way to prepare is to take rigorous high school courses. The sat has historically been coachable and the concern is that that has given a graded vantage to wealthier students great advantage to wealthier students. Host why give free prep . Guest they are trying to undo that advantage for the wealthy. For many years the College Board denied it was much advantage to test prep. They shifted and admit that it helps and they say that if it helps, they want everyone to be able to get test prep. Says and the prep industry they have been critical of it. What is the industry like and how much money are we talking about . About ae are talking lot of money also suppliers, from small to big, very expensive, less expensive. The reality is that this costs money and if you are a low income kid, he may not have that money and you may rely on a nonprofit group. The industry is not worried about all about this. Business goes up whenever the College Board changes the sat, because people. Et nervous about the changes you can expect your test prep writer to define pretty much no matter what the College Board does. Host how much money does it cost apparent to go to one of these companies to prep their kid guest oh, it can be 100s of ash hundreds of dollars, can be thousands of dollars. Remember it can be hundreds of dollars, it can be thousands of dollars. This ranges from computer programs and classes to intense oneonone tutoring time after time after time. There is some debate about how much the various services provide, there is probably some hosting, but if you have enough money you can hire somebody to work with your kid every day. Host we want our viewers to weigh in with their experience with the sat and react the these rule changes. The lines, we are dividing them by parents and students. Host Scott Jaschick, what types of colleges look at the sat . Guest lots of colleges. Generally the most competitive colleges, and many less competitive colleges dont. But a trend in recent years has been for colleges, even competitive colleges, to go test optional. This is a big concern of the College Board. These colleges let students decide whether or not to submit scores. Many students will look at what the average score is and decide whether to cement based on whether they are above or below to submit based on whether they are above or below. Historically, low income students have done less well than upperincome students. Years,cally, in recent black and latino students on average do not do as well as white and asian students. Going testoptional tends to result in increases in applications from lacking the gene of students. Host what has been black and latino students. Host what has been the reaction from sat folks . Guest the College Board is trying to make the sat more t, so they cannot exactly criticize that but they are saying that they have been that way all along. What is the College Board . What do they do . Guest it is an association of colleges and educators to provide not only the sat program but the advanced placement, ap program, and they do a lot of efforts to encourage more , toents to go to college plan, to save money for college, promoting the idea that education is important. Host and what did they say yesterday about the announcement . Guest well, they made the announcement, they are the sat. Host right, and what did they say, why did they hold his News Conference . Guest they announced more than a year ago that they were planning a revision of the sat, news y specifics were while the specifics were news from the idea that they were doing and u. S. City was something they said they were going to do to they have been losing market share and they have been criticized. Isy maintain that there test the best test out there, but they are acknowledging some of the criticisms. One of the big criticisms of the writing test currently, when you are just using your own feelings or reactions to a statement, facts dont matter. You can sit the much complete nonsense and if it is wellwritten by the rules you can say pretty much complete nonsense and if it is woven by the rules you will get a good score. This bothers a lot of educators and writing instructors and the new president of the College Board. He is acknowledging that that didnt work and they want to do it better. Host when will these rules go into place . Guest 2016. Host why then . Guest it takes a long time from going from the theoretical idea changes to having the changes. The College Board and the sat and everybody in the standardized testing business do a lot of what is called the litigant what is called validity testing to make sure that questions work and yield the desired results, the questions dont confuse people. They dont want people to do poorly because the question isnt well understood. Theres a lot of testing of the test before it is actually used. This is particularly challenging when you are instituting big changes. The first grade is group of students that will be taking this new test . Guest it depends when you take the sat, because many students take the sat a different times. But it would be are you taking the sat in 2016 . If you are a High School Junior or senior right now, you are taking the old sat, or the current sat, i should say. Confusion,ds to the because many students might hear something about changes and it wont actually affect them. Host you said that the College Board is losing market share. What did you mean by that . Guest the act, more students take the act is that the sat. This has been the last 2 years. Before that the sat was dominant. Host what about profitability . Is it profitable, the tests for the College Board . Guest i couldnt tell you exactly how profitable. Yes, very profitable. Basically, the revenue from testing supports all bunch of College Board activities a whole bunch of College Board activities pretty yes, they make a lot of money off of testing, and the College Board is not unique. Everybody in the Testing Industry makes a lot of money off of testing. Scott jaschick, editor of inside Higher Education, thank you for your time. Guest thank you, bye. Host here is a little bit from the College Board president when he made the announcement of these changes yesterday to the new sat test. [video clip] it is time to admit that the become far tooe disconnected from the work of our high schools. Students missing we have been listening to students and the thames, for whom tests are serious and foster anxiety. Theyre skeptical that either the sat or act allows them to show their best work, and too many feel that the prevalence of test prep and expensive coaching reinforces privilege rather than merit. Host that was the College Board president yesterday announcing changes to the sat tests in place in 2016. We are getting your reaction this morning, hearing from parents and students and educators and all others. What is your experience with the test and what do you make of these changes . Marianne is up first in new york. Caller hi. I want to quickly make a few comments. Im an average citizen out here. I went out to get three College Degrees eventually, at my expense with the psat and sat was very experience very discouraging. I came from a home life that was unsettled. I was a fairly intelligent person. At that time in my life, my parents could hardly get the rent money together so i could not take those prep things and everything could i found that the gentleman made some remarks i found it highly anxietywritten, my high school expense, but i want to say to people to hold on. The motivation kept me through. I did not have good grades and i did not have the money that i matriculated and went to night school and i took one of those baskinrobbins service jobs types of things. Everybody can persevere. I hope they make changes. Some people get discouraged by all of this but you got to keep going and if you want to go to college, you will. Host do you remember how you prepared for the test . I guess we will never know. Were getting your thoughts on the new changes to the sat test could we have the lines divided by parents host we will keep taking your phone calls and get your thoughts and you can post them on our social media websites. cspanwj is our tripleheader th that twitter handle their. The crimean lawmaker is saying that a referendum on whether crimea becomes part of russia will be held on march 16. Dennis from the Associated Press this morning, as that is from the Associated Press this might, as talks continue. Routing 2 is taking place in today, as secretary of state john kerry moved from paris to rome. His counterpart in russias going there as well, as well as many others. And this is from an anger speaking newspaper out of ukraine. English speaking newspaper out of ukraine. Host a lot of movement on ukraine as that story continues to unfold up on capitol hill today. The house is going to be voting on that 1 billion aid package to the country. The House Foreign Affairs committee is looking at a resolution that would condemn the violation of ukrainian sovereignty as well as sanctions on russia. A lot of moving parts on ukraine. We will keep you updated as we go along this morning. Gilbert in jamestown, north carolina, and educator. What do you make of these changes to the sat . Caller yes, thanks for taking my call. Yes, i am an educator, and ive been a graduate student. I think that the sat, as was a Scientific American article that referenced the study, the sat is not productive at all for how students are going to succeed. Rofessionally furthermore, in that article in Scientific American, the sat is not even predictive of how well students do in college. I would suggest we do away with the sat completely and base College Admissions on how students do in terms of their gpa and most importantly, what they do in terms of their ,xtracurricular activities beyond getting a 3. 8 or 3. 6 or. Ven a 2. 8 gpa what have they been doing in the community or what have they been doing to help others . In a click mentioned and a cup sure by the board of governors, the ,entleman said that the test you know, is really not viable or relevant. My last comment is that i believe the sat in the past has been very racially biased. If you look at students from , the test has always been geared were based on criteria where the criteria has for students educated in a segregated environment. I think the sat should be done away with. Lets base admissions to higher. Ducation on other criteria if i may, you have been very kind. I think that we should have lsat, mcat,s the and test for progressions like that professions like tests for progressions like cpas because that is base for undergraduate expense. Host what do you teach . Caller i taught at a community college, anatomy and physiology. Host how obesity testing evolve over the years went at how have you seen testing evolve over the years when it comes to the sat and act . Caller i cannot say specifically they tried to make the tests not as racially biased. However, once again, i feel that servests just doesnt students. Cap, sofia is apparent in float is a parent in cap, florida. Caller hi, how are you . I want to thank you for continuing to make an emphasis on the future of our children and their education. One comment i would like to make as an eighthgrade parent, just may, each ofw it the step up for students program, how that program has , oneed my children, both in Columbia University now in his second year him and take all these preparatory exams that were needed. If that was not available to my children at that time, or even it wouldveusly been an unfair chance for my hispanic boys. Definitely is somewhat to a point where we are starting to recognize that yes, there has to be changes made in addition to anything that can be a positive impact on these changes will make a difference in addition to these additional programs that are out there for scholarships for students like my that were able to take these preparatory sats and all these other exams host so, sophia, your boys were able to take some preparatory testing and i got a scholarship . They got us all they got a scholarship . Caller yes, they did, and it was through the step up for students organization, trying to amend these things to quote an eight more and more to coordinate more and more for more possibilities for the children. Erin in oak harbor, washington aaron in oak harbor, washington. What are your thoughts on these changes to the sat . Caller i dont understand why we are doing it. I took the sat in high school some 50 years ago. I got no preparation, no coaching, i went in and took the test cold, did well on it, and it predicted my performance in college. Went on and finish a masters degree and later got a phd. Host what do you attribute that to . You didnt really study for it so that you have a good education, good school in a neighborhood . Caller uh, probably average. There was only one high school in the town i lived in at the time. It was a military community, and therefore it was kind of a more diverse student body than would be normal in many places, because the turnover and the in in the out and the moves. But you could learn as much as you wanted to learn. There was classes i was totally bored and because the teacher was teaching to the bottom third of the class are there were other classes, like mr. Mccartney, for instance, who challenged us all, taught at a level where you really had to work at it to do it. Host all right. So you just dont understand why theyre making the changes . Caller i dont understand why they are making the changes. It seems like some students cant do well on the test, there is something wrong with the test pit is not possible that the students or education are getting bad. Warrington,cator in virginia. What grade do you teach . Caller im actually not in a school but i have worked in colleges and universities before , specifically in admissions, so ive dealt with the sat in one respect or another. Host yeah. What was your experience . Caller i think the changes they are making to the test are hopefully going to be effective, given that they are going to be a little more relevant to its student to what Students Experience in everyday life. Studentsd, if i told as i told students when i was in admissions, i told him that the test is basically 4 hours out of a fun week of 4 years of your life. It will tell you something about what is going on, but as was alluded to before, it has to do with what you do in your everyday classes and how effective you are in the classroom. If the test is going to be made relevant, i think it does have allowed tohould be make the changes to hopefully make it more accessible to more students. It will be a small predictor of what you are able to do but it will hopefully show a better picture of what does exist. Host we are getting your take his money on changes to the sat that will take place in 2016 your tak