SARA by Ray Dass should not be included in students’ grades while No Red Ink (NRI) and Membean are still used.
Last year, Brophy introduced a new resource, SARA by Ray Dass, to prepare students for the SAT and PSAT and to “level the playing field,” said Mr. Walsh.
SARA is a long-term SAT prep course that seeks total course mastery. This differs from traditional SAT prep courses which are within a short time period.
SARA isn’t currently required by Brophy. It is an optional test prep with incentives for students to complete it. This could change as there is a chance that it becomes required. Mr. Walsh said, “There is a chance at the end of this year when we look at internal data and student completion data that we might want to [require] these things [in] English and math classes.”
SARA has been proven to help prepare students for the SAT according to Mr. Seamus Walsh assistant principal for academic affairs. However, it still shouldn’t be included in the grade book on top of NRI and Membean.
Its effectiveness has been proven in the past with 3 years of data according to Mr. Walsh. He said, “I have data both externally and internally that tells me crystal clearly that kids that do invest time doing that are better prepared for the standardized test”.
College Board claims a 90 point SAT score increase with 6-8 hours of studying and a 115 point increase with 20 hours of studying using Offical SAT Practice. SARA on the other hand shows that there was a 66 point increase in 2 years at a partner school from 2020-2022. This data shows that there seems to be no real difference between using SARA and just studying longer.
The goal of adding the required SARA would be an increase in completion which should increase preparedness for the SAT. Mr. Walsh said, “Test prep can be important for access to some schools and to many scholarship opportunities and/or programs within schools.”
Even with the benefits, however, SARA should not be required for grades on top of NRI and Membean.
Namely, SARA could add extra homework which would affect students involved in athletics and/or extracurriculars especially if they enrolled in honors courses. For example, take Kathan Cherukuri ’27. He said, “[SARA] on top of Membean and No Red Ink would be a lot of work, especially for kids that have like extracurricular, sports,[and] they have a lot of homework.” Rather, they should replace NRI and/or Memebean with SARA.
Why would we implement something on top of Membean and NRI, which can already be considered busy work? It would be a counterproductive move because students don’t want to do it and it would pile busy work on people. Also, why should we introduce something to just study for a test.