Keynote Speech: "We Know What the Data Says. Now Let's Build What Our Children Deserve."
Good evening.
I want to start with a fact. Not a feeling. Not a theory. A fact.
Black students rank last or second to last on nearly every major standardized test in America. The SAT. The ACT. The NAEP. Year after year, the data says the same thing. For too long, we have allowed policy to respond to that data by changing the test — rather than transforming the preparation.
Tonight, I want to talk about what it will take to change that. For our children. For our communities. For the professionals, business leaders, and parents in this room who have both the power and the responsibility to act.
The Experiment That Taught Us Something Important
In 2020, the University of California eliminated the SAT and ACT from its undergraduate admissions process. The goal was equity. Five years later, the results revealed something we cannot look past.
Remedial math placement among incoming UC freshmen grew from under 1% in 2020 to roughly 12% by 2025. That is a twelvefold increase — occurring alongside near-perfect high school GPAs. More than 1,400 UC STEM faculty signed an open letter calling test-blind admissions a "failed experiment." A 2026 survey found that 83% of UC Berkeley faculty now support reinstating standardized testing. And here is the detail that matters most: the UC Task Force's own 2020 report found that test scores are better predictors of academic outcomes for underrepresented students than for majority students.
The very tool removed in the name of equity was, by the university's own evidence, more useful for equity than for anything else. MIT, Stanford, Harvard, and Yale have all reinstated testing requirements. That is not a coincidence. That is a course correction, and it is one we need to pay attention to.
Removing the measurement did not close the gap. It hid it. And hiding a problem only delays the moment our families discover it — usually at the worst possible time.
The Gap Doesn't End at Graduation
Here is what the conversation too often misses: the preparation gap does not stop at the high school diploma. It does not stop at the college degree. It follows our children into every profession they aspire to enter.
Black test takers average approximately 494 on the MCAT, compared to a national mean near 506 — a gap that shapes access to medical school and limits the pipeline of Black physicians in a country already facing a shortage. GRE data from ETS show Black examinees scoring roughly 200 points below the mean on quantitative reasoning — the threshold for doctoral programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Black students represent approximately 8% of GMAT test takers but remain significantly underrepresented in elite business school enrollments. USMLE research confirms that score cutoffs used in residency selection disproportionately filter out Black applicants — including students who have already earned a medical degree.
These are not testing problems. They are preparation problems. That distinction tells us exactly where to focus our energy.
A Candid Conversation About Our Institutions
This part requires care, and it requires honesty in equal measure.
HBCUs carry a legacy that is extraordinary by any measure. They educated generations of Black leaders, physicians, engineers, and scholars when no other institution would. That legacy is real, and it demands our deepest respect. Real respect means being honest with each other.
Here is the honest truth: across higher education — at HBCUs, at historically white institutions, at state schools and research universities alike — we have not yet built the systems that consistently translate a four-year degree into readiness for the exams that open the door to the professions. A student can graduate with a strong GPA and still score in the bottom quartile on the MCAT or the GRE. That is not a student failure. It is a signal that our systems have more work to do. The data we have is not an indictment. It is a roadmap, and roadmaps are only useful when someone decides to follow them.
Why Tutoring Alone Cannot Get Us There
Tutoring has real value. We are not here to dismiss it. But tutoring, by itself, treats the symptom. It targets a single test, a single class, a single deadline. It does not build the reasoning instincts, the study discipline, and the intellectual ownership a student needs across a career.
A student preparing for the MCAT needs more than content review. They need the scientific reasoning skills that should have been built across four years of biology, chemistry, and mathematics. A student preparing for the LSAT needs more than logic-game practice. They need critical thinking habits sharpened from their first undergraduate writing course. When those foundations were never built, a tutor is not preparation. It is triage. Our students deserve more than triage. They deserve a system built to produce proactive, independent learners who meet every threshold because they were prepared from the beginning.
What Actually Works: Building Competency and Character Together — and Proving It
The evidence is consistent. Preparation gaps close through comprehensive development — and that development cannot wait for college. Cooperative learning that builds critical thinking through shared problem-solving, internships that place students inside professional environments before the stakes are highest, and experiential learning that transforms abstract concepts into practiced, transferable skill must all begin in high school. Not as electives. Not as enrichment extras. As the core, running from ninth grade through every stage of academic and professional life that follows.
Two things must be built at the same time, in the same student. Competency — real academic skill in mathematics, reading, scientific reasoning, and analytical thinking, tested honestly, never assumed from a transcript alone. Character — the discipline, the ownership, the persistence that transforms a passive recipient of instruction into a proactive, self-directed learner.
Neither works alone. Competency without character collapses the moment support is removed. Character without competency is energy without direction. We must build both — from kindergarten through the bar exam, through the board exam, through professional licensure. When we do, we produce students who do not merely survive standardized testing. They command it, at every level of the pipeline, because they were never taught to fear the measurement. They were taught to meet it.
The Call to Action: This Is Our Work Now
I want to close by speaking directly to three groups in this room, because what comes next depends on all three.
To Black parents: Your expectations are the most powerful force in your child's education. Demand more than a grade. Ask whether your child can perform independently, under pressure, without assistance. Ask what their school and future college are doing to prepare them for the exams that determine access to medicine, law, engineering, and business. You have the right to ask that question. Ask it loudly.
To community leaders: The data from UC, from the AAMC, from ETS — this is not academic noise. It is a signal. Carry it into your churches, your civic organizations, your mentorship programs, and your advocacy. Hold every institution — including the ones we love — accountable for closing the preparation gap, not just conferring the degree. That accountability is not an attack on legacy. It is the highest expression of it.
To business leaders: This is where I want to be especially direct, because your role goes far beyond writing a check. The physicians, engineers, attorneys, and executives of tomorrow are sitting in classrooms right now. Some of those classrooms are building them for the professions. Others are handing them credentials that will not hold up at the next threshold. You have the influence to change that.
Invest in the pipeline — not just through scholarships, but through partnerships with institutions committed to rigorous academic preparation. Fund cooperative learning programs that teach Black students to solve complex problems alongside peers, building the collaborative instincts every profession demands. Create and sponsor internship pipelines that place students inside real professional environments — in your firms, your hospitals, your engineering departments — before the stakes are highest. Support experiential learning initiatives that connect classroom theory to practiced, transferable skill, so that by the time a student sits for the MCAT, the bar exam, or the PE exam, the material is not new territory — it is familiar ground. Sit on advisory boards and demand that institutions measure and report how their graduates perform on professional licensure exams. The access you provide through internships and hands-on opportunities is not charity. It is preparation infrastructure, and it is exactly what closes the gap between a credential and a career.
The cost of doing nothing is not abstract. It shows up in the remediation bills UC is paying right now. It shows up in the attrition rates in STEM doctoral programs. It shows up in the pipeline that never delivers the Black engineers, physicians, and executives your industries say they want to see. You can invest now in preparation, or absorb the cost of remediation later. The choice is yours.
Excellence is not built by lowering the bar. It is built by preparing our children — fully, honestly, and from the very beginning — to clear it. On the SAT. On the MCAT. On the LSAT. On the GRE. On the USMLE. On the PE exam. And in every room they walk into for the rest of their lives.
The data has told this story long enough. We know what it says. Now we build the answer — together.
Thank you.
Dr. Clarence Nixon, Jr. is an author, speaker, business executive, educator, and transformational leader dedicated to advancing academic excellence and developing future leaders. His guiding belief remains simple: every student possesses extraordinary potential when provided with the right environment, support, and opportunities to succeed.
