What will the College Board (which administers the SAT) and the ACT finally do about the freebie loophole they created?
As part of the college application scandal now rocking colleges, parents, students, and testing companies, today’s Wall Street Journal reports that more students use SAT accommodations. I’m quoted in that article.
The important reality we should focus on is not about students or parents — it’s about these huge and wealthy testing companies, the College Board and the SAT, that created this mess. Sixteen years ago, they initiated the predictable pickle we’re now in when they created nonstandard so-called “standardized” tests — for which the public continues to pay dearly with actual dollars and much anxiety.
In 2003, these companies decided to stop notifying colleges and schools when a student took the test in a NON standard way, as with extended time. Such extensions can be 50% or 100% more than test requirements allow. Mind you, it is not illegal provide such notice (called “flagging” ) when needed to maintain the test’s validity. Many other tests continue to do it — as they should! After all, tests are supposed to measure what they purport to measure — in this case, it’s the student’s ability, knowledge, or aptitude under time constraints. Check out my 2003 story about this, “Disabling the SAT.”
A sorry tale indeed.
It was obvious then that this would become a loophole. Here’s what I wrote at the time:
“The rates at which students receive testing accommodations also vary dramatically by zip code, with well-to-do, empowered parents being able to pressure the system into giving their children extra support. ….
…The (College) Board’s decision to end flagging is likely to exacerbate these problems. Now that there is no consequence for taking the SAT with extra time, so-called diagnosis shopping will undoubtedly become even more common among the well heeled, who can afford the private psychologists and the pricey lawyers….”
This freebie loophole has now blown up for all to see.
What to do about it?
Let’s not blame parents. Let’s not blame students. Students who need extra time to demontrate what they know and can do should, of course, have it. That is not the issue. The issue is the notice that test users (colleges, schools, parents and others) are entitled to in order to understand the scores.
In short, let’s finally be honest and put the blame where it belongs — on these companies for no longer providing “standardized tests” that are, in fact, standardized. When we the public spend all that money and exert all that anxiety in taking these tests, we expect to be paying for the real deal — a standardized test that allows fair and valid comparisons of students across the country and even across the world. As I see it, the tests no longer fill that most basic requirement of standardized testing.
I’ve written many times about the options these companies have — these include bringing back flags, ending timing for anyone (thereby creating a different test — let’s be honest about this, too), creating a new test, no longer having these tests, etc., etc.
The public also has options which it has already exercised, as more colleges make these no-longer-standardized tests “optional.”
Let’s see what the College Board and the ACT finally do about the mess they created. The ball is in their court. The world is watching. I trust and hope they will do the right thing and make standardized tests — standardized — again.
