“Support Builds for Making the SAT Untimed for Everyone.”

The provocative title of Greg Toppo’s piece in Education Next. How about untimed SATs for everyone, he posits. https://www.educationnext.org/support-builds-making-sat-untimed-for-everyone-possible-solution-gaming-the-system/

So interesting and so sad to me, as I ‘ve watched this unfortunate saga unfold since even before 2002. The SAT’s extra time story is the story that just won’t go away ever since the College Board made a total mess of if back in 2002/2003. That was when the CB (and shortly thereafter the ACT) stopped notifying readers by flagging (with an asterisk) test scores that were achieved under nonstandard conditions, such as extra time. Before then, these tests were indeed standardized timed tests. If a student received extended time, as was possible for a few — less than 2% of test takers — notice was provided to the readers of the test result reports — such as college admissions officers — that the score was obtained with a nonstandard accommodation; that is, the test was no longer standardized!

2002–3 opened the floodgates. As you’ll read below, Bruce Poch nailed that reality in Toppo’s article. I had predicted it back in 2003, in my own Education Next piece, “Disabling the SAT.” https://www.educationnext.org/disablingthesat/

Indeed, it was obvious for anyone who chose to look — to see!

In essence the CB and ACT invited students with disability labels to seek extra time on these tests — 50% 75% or 100% more time-and the gift was that nobody would know because the CB and ACT would no longer tell them! Standardized and nonstandardized testing would, henceforth, be lumped together in SAT and ACT reports!

We predicted then that this gift would lead to use/misuse of extra time, especially in mostly in wealthy communities. Besides my 2003 story, see Sam Abrams’ 2005 report, cited in Toppo’s piece. And now, it’s gone over the top as we’ve witnessed the criminalized extreme to which some parents have taken this in the “Varsity Blues” scandal.

While the CB’s Zachary Goldberg says that removing the flag was the right thing to do at the time, I disagree. It was the easy way out for this huge and powerful organization that was faced with the threat of a lawsuit at the time. They settled. Buckled. And in so doing, they wiped out validity from their prize product. They no longer kept the tests valid. This settlement confused parents, teachers and students — and still does. Over these almost 20 years, it became the story that they just can’t “disappear,” And tragically, as we all know, it has lead to unfair gaming of the system.

So how to fix it? Now, it appears that the wish among many seems to be to make these tests untimed. Sure, that may solve the gaming problem for now. But I say, careful what you wish for.

Sure, go ahead. Change the test — make it untimed —and while you’re at it, why not let students use their iPhones when taking the test or let them stand on their heads spitting wooden nickels to relax them…when taking it. Whatever. Sure, go ahead. And maybe create a new organization or company to create these tests.

But understand that you are creating and promoting different tests— no longer the SAT or ACT which are timed and standardized. At the very least, be honest about what you are doing. Sure, it may be a “Possible Solution to the Gaming Problem,” as the article’s tagline announces — but at what cost? And will it get us where we need and want to be?

Toppo quotes Ari Trachtenberg, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at BU, as questioning the accommodations practices. Accommodations are not rigorously analyzed or understood. Further, it’s not clear that giving more time to college students actually helps them in life or when they are faced with “high-pressure tech interviews, “ etc., etc., etc. Of course he’s right. As the article points out, the whole field of time-related accommodations is squishy at best.

Bruce Poch, a dean of admissions and executive director of college counseling at Chadwick School, is also quoted. He is spot on when he said the CB handed the keys to this problem to the world back in 2003.

Let’s analyze that a bit more. What I wrote about then and what is still true, is that the key to this mess is the CB’s refusal to tell us why the test is timed. Indeed Ruth Colker, a law professor at Ohio State University who is an advocate for untimed or extended-time SATs, writes that these tests should be untimed “unless they can show that the strict time limits are truly required for validity.” She is totally right, of course, in her focus on the key to this mess which has been here and ignored for almost 20 years!

Since 2002/3, many of us have made these arguments over the years . And yet, the beat goes on. More kids take the SATs and ACTs and these organization rake in more money.

The question to day is: WHY do we let the CB and ACT get away with just trying to maintain “test security” to keep their industry going? It’s maddening! Can’t they be put on the spot finally and answer the question: Why is the SAT timed? WHY? WHY? WHY?

We still don’t know. It’s more than time that the College Board level with the public and tell us.

This was originally posted on Medium