<p>Mills</a> High School's AP test scores invalidated, students cry foul - San Jose Mercury News</p>
<p>There is probably more of a story that has not been revealed.</p>
<p>I really wonder about the uniformity of testing at schools in terms of training the test administrators get and room selection. </p>
<p>My son had an English teacher who warned all the kids not to take their SATs at the local college as the rooms had no clocks and the desks were too small to have the test open with a calculator next to them. </p>
<p>Sure enough, one kid did end up going there and reported that he got real good at holding his calculator in his hand to do his work and not only was there no clock, he forgot his watch so had little idea of how time passed except when the proctor wrote the time change on the board.</p>
<p>I emailed the college board to complain for the kid and never heard anything back. As far as I know, nothing has changed.</p>
<p>I don’t see how a delay in AP scores is disrupting college enrollment, given that you don’t need AP scores or even classes to go to college. I highly doubt the claims of college acceptance revocation. The only thing it may disrupt is earning college credit for the AP classes that the students took, which was never guaranteed anyway. I don’t think the students should be planning to graduate a semester early and basing their financial affordability on that anyway because all kinds of things can happen in college.</p>
<p>The students don’t seem to understand…nobody is punishing them. It’s about fairness and one school possibly having an unfair advantage. The fact that the AP scores’ cancellation affects them personally is not going to sway ETS - of <em>course</em> it affects them personally, but that doesn’t mean that they should get their scores uncanceled if their school was following improper guidelines. Their petition may not gain any traction because none of the reasons they are laying forward are valid reasons for uncanceling their scores if there were improprieties in the administration. If they were making the argument that other schools who have similar procedures did not get their scores canceled, or that the infractions were minor and didn’t affect the administration of the test, then they might get somewhere. But to be honest right now they sound like they’re whining.</p>
<p>Instead of blaming ETS they should be taking it up with their administrators and test proctors, who clearly didn’t follow testing guidelines.</p>
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<p>The impact is likely biggest for those who have graduated high school and are registering for college courses at a college where the registration system enforces prerequisites. Delays in getting AP scores may prevent the student from registering for a suitable course when placement depends on AP scores.</p>
<p>These students and families should be complaining to their school administrators, and demanding answers. Of course, it’s 50:50 that they are, and the journalist simply missed it.</p>
<p>Why did it take ETS two months to figure this out?<br>
If the kids had been notified sooner, it would’ve been less disruptive to re-test.</p>
<p>Two months doesn’t seem like an awfully long time to me. But why not keep the focus where it belongs? If the school administration didn’t follow the rules, then they’re the ones at fault. Why blame the organization that’s trying to maintain the integrity of the tests?</p>
<p>It probably took ETS two months to publicly notify the school that there was a problem because they were working backwards from scored tests that show evidence of cheating.</p>
<p>Here is an updated news article from this morning which is fairly accurate [School?s</a> AP scores invalidated: Mills High community challenging College Board decision](<a href=“http://www.smdailyjournal.com/articles/lnews/2013-07-20/schools-ap-scores-invalidated-mills-high-community-challenging-college-board-decision/1772106.html]School?s”>http://www.smdailyjournal.com/articles/lnews/2013-07-20/schools-ap-scores-invalidated-mills-high-community-challenging-college-board-decision/1772106.html) . Basically, one person wrote a letter of complaint about the seating irregularities at his test. All AP exams held at the school (except foreign languages) were cancelled without interviewing proctors or investigating other exam seating procedures. </p>
<p>Students are blaming administrators, who are entirely at fault. </p>
<p>A retest has been scheduled for August. The majority of students are taking more than one test and most have no study materials available. My son will be taking his two tests (and he still has his binders with all tests, handouts and study materials he used during the year for both classes. Just no books). My daughter will not be taking her three AP exams that were invalidated (her AP Spanish test is still valid).</p>
<p>MLM - Is the school refunding the costs of the tests your daughter won’t be retaking or do they pay for the tests anyway? My D’s school does not pay for the tests so I would be upset if the tests were not validated at $89/test.</p>
<p>@ MSNDIS - we will probably find out more about possible refunds on Monday after the meeting. The first letter we received from our school did state that the retest was free, but made no mention of a refund for those not retaking the test.</p>
<p>I just read today’s article and I also wonder why they didn’t schedule the retakes a lot sooner since someone notified them of testing irregularities in May.</p>
<p>Last year, the power went out during my D’s English Language test and that test was invalidated (and stopped when the power went out) and they retook the test I think the following week or the week after that. Even that was very annoying for my D since they had to take it in the library and students were walking in and out of there during the testing period.</p>
<p>I assume a lot of students who will be attending college in the fall have already registered for their fall classes and not having the scores will mess up their fall schedules because they don’t know what tests they can/cannot get credit for because of their AP tests. I assume a lot of them are taking classes they are not going to need once their AP scores are released.</p>
<p>In addition, my D has a full summer schedule and is working to earn money for college and having to make time for 6 AP tests over several days in August would result in her losing, at a minimum, about $300 that she needs for college. She might even have to take off more time to review everything. I definitely understand why the students and parents are upset about this.</p>
<p>MLM - Sending your S good wishes for his tests.</p>
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<p>Were foreign language tests held using different seating procedures?</p>
<p>^^ucb… from the article…</p>
<p>“ETS did validate Mills’ foreign language tests since these were taken separately on computers, Black said. Scores were supposed to be released July 5.”</p>