From "Notes From a Subterranean Library in Oregon," a compilation of Ray Peat's newspaper letters and columns, compiled by T3Uncoupled (2023). Originally published 1986.

Ray Peat, "SAT misconceptions", p. 56

The decline in SAT scores, and the tests themselves, are of less importance than the ideological conflicts they reveal. Your recent editorial publicized only one side of the argument. To explain the changes in terms of a new type of student in the high schools, and the response of the schools to this new population, threatens to be used as an argument for elitist educational programs, and for a lower class education for the “poor class of students.” Accounting for the change in scores on the basis of increased numbers of poor students taking the tests doesn’t account for the fact that the sharpest decline occurred among the highest scorers. Several studies have looked for extrinsic causes — cultural or biological — to account for the changes. Related studies were done for the U.S. Navy, to account for the learning problems of their recruits. Some of these studies are pretty convincing scientifically, but they have not been well publicized, because they place the blame on various powerful institutions in our society, rather than on the poor segments of society — who, as the numbers show, are not where the biggest change has occurred.