On balance, SAD 43 Superintendent Jim Hodgkin says the state’s decision to replace the 11th-grade MEA tests with the SAT makes sense.

The plan, which was announced during an August education conference in Lewiston, has been met with some criticism, especially from people who say the Scholastic Aptitude Test is a poor judge of student performance.

No standardized test is perfect, but, as Hodgkin said Monday, the potential good outweighs the bad.

Already more than 75 percent of the state’s juniors take the SAT, which is a single-day test administered on Saturdays. By comparison, the MEAs take several days and draw students away from the classroom.

In addition to cutting down on the number of tests students have to take and the amount of time away from class, using the SATs could add a level of seriousness to the attitude students have when they take standardized tests. For students going onto college, the SATs are a high-stakes right-of-passage. While colleges are relying less on the scores for admissions than in the past, for most students the test matters. That alone could lead to better statewide performance on the assessments.

The purpose of the MEAs is to assess student learning. If the SATs do an adequate job, which Education Commissioner Susan Gendron says they do, then it makes sense to end the duplication for the majority of students.

Further, by mandating that the 23 percent of students who don’t take the SATs do so, the world of college possibility could be opened up to them. And every student will get one shot at the test on the state’s tab.

Helping every student realize that he or she has the potential to advance an education beyond high school is a laudable – and economically essential – goal. It’s good for students, and it’s good for the state.