UC, Others Want Asian Languages on College Tests : Education: Proponents are pressing to expand the list of foreign tongues on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. High school students take the exams to gain college entrance.

The University of California, along with Asian-American educators and activists, are pressing the College Board to add Asian-language examinations to the tests that high school students may take to compete for college entrance.

A student can get a leg up in college admissions by doing well on achievement tests in French, Spanish, German, Italian, Latin or Hebrew proficiency achievement exams, even if the language is his native tongue. But is it fair that no tests in Japanese, Chinese or Korean exist?

Iiye.

Bu.

Anio, say UC officials and Asian-American educators.

In other words, no.

Beyond ethnic equity, they stress that such nationwide tests would encourage high schools to offer more classes in the Asian languages and give more students a reason to enroll. Communicating in Asian languages is increasingly important because of growing economic and cultural ties with the Pacific Rim, they add.

“This is an idea whose time has come,” said Alice Cox, a UC assistant vice president who is head of a task force lobbying the College Board to establish the Asian tests. “We are really trying to expand the opportunities for Asian kids, Asian-American kids and kids not of Asian ethnicity to study Asian languages in schools.”

The College Board, the national organization that sponsors the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and supplemental achievement tests, agrees in theory. But the board, which has an annual budget of $143 million, says it can’t afford the nearly $1 million necessary to develop tests in Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and Korean. So far, the organization has been unable to persuade foundations and corporations to donate the monies.

“I think there is a critical need (for the tests),” said Gretchen W. Rigol, the College Board official who is working on the project. “But we haven’t gotten anybody to open his checkbook.”

She and other College Board officials said their nonprofit organization believes the market for Asian tests would be small. They estimated that nationally about 500 students a year would take a test in Japanese and 300 in Chinese. (They offered no estimate for Korean.)

However, some Asian-American educators say just the opposite and do not understand why the College Board hasn’t cultivated what they assert is a large market. They said demand would be in the thousands for each test and would grow as word spreads.

“Why the College Board didn’t want to put up any of its money is beyond me,” said UCLA education professor Don Nakanishi, who is a member of the UC task force behind the push for the tests.

Many selective colleges and universities require applicants to take the SAT, which tests general English and math skills, and several specialized achievement tests. UC requires the SAT, plus English composition, math and any one of the 12 other achievement tests--such as history, biology or German. In the fierce admissions competition, strong achievement scores sometimes win a candidate acceptance.

Anthony Garcia, president of the Western Assn. of College Admission Counselors, said most colleges would welcome the Asian language tests because of growing ties with Pacific Rim nations. Asked whether a foreign-born student--Latino or Asian or French--should get credit for his native language, Garcia explained that tests of such a student are judged in the context of his background.

Besides, he added, “Simply the fact that the language is spoken at home doesn’t guarantee the student is literate in that language. The achievement tests are sufficiently demanding that the person needs a high degree of literacy in that particular language.”

UC admissions procedures recently were changed, as Asian-Americans wanted, to stress grades and test scores more than in the past and to de-emphasize subjective judgments. Those changes came after several inconclusive investigations into alleged anti-Asian bias in admissions at UC Berkeley.

In related UC reforms, applicants can present high school grades from two years of an Asian language for comparable credit of an achievement test, and some UC campuses now offer their own tests in those tongues. But educators say that relatively few high schools offer Asian languages and fairness demands standardized tests.

Henry Der, executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, a San Francisco group active in admissions matters, said that many Asian-American youngsters take language classes at cultural centers and churches during weekends and evenings--as Jewish students do at part-time Hebrew schools. Those Asian students are penalized by the lack of College Board tests, said Der, who is on the UC task force.

Across the country, 31,357 students who graduated from high school last year took the Spanish achievement test; 23,813, French; 3,540, Latin; 3,345, German, and 473, Hebrew, according to the College Board. In response to much lobbying by Italian-Americans, the Italian test was revived this year after a five-year absence. A Russian test was dropped eight years ago.

College enrollment nationally in Japanese classes more than doubled to 23,500 students between 1977 and 1986, according to the Modern Language Assn. in New York. Nearly 17,000 studied college Chinese, up 72% in the same time period.

High school enrollment, however, remains tiny. California’s Department of Education reports that about 1,600 students took high school Japanese last year and the same for Chinese, compared to 387,300 in Spanish and 118,700 in French.

There is little agreement on what should be the basics in testing Asian languages, College Board officials say; that is reportedly why several foundations turned down the request for funding.

Although other groups, including Poles and Portuguese, are lobbying for tests in their languages, an Asian language, probably Japanese, would be the first added if money is found, Rigol said.

“The ideal, of course,” she explained, “is that we would offer several hundred languages. But that is not the reality of the situation.”