Recently the College Board chose to make the essay portion of the SAT exam optional. I found myself dumbfounded. Our country's level of education is on the decline.

Why remove the essay? We rank about 14th in world in basic skills and don't appear to be improving at all while countries like Estonia and Poland are passing us by. I looked a bit closer and found that part of the motivation to take it out is a direct result of competition.

Last year, for the first time, the SAT lost ground to ACT Inc., in the number of test takers. A total of 1.66 million students in the high school class of 2013 took the SAT. ACT reported 1.8 million test takers, an 8 percent increase from the previous year.

I know there are many who believe the essay was a joke. Some college admissions officers failed to find that the essay added value to the prediction of writing in college. In fact, Ted O’Neill, who served as dean of admissions at the University of Chicago said "We paid no attention to it."

What do you think?