How do I get to your blog regarding this issue?
This is my only Blog. (maybe using the word Blog is not correct). Yes, all I paid for the arbitration was the $200. We did lose in arbitration. The university where my daughter goes is who I am referring to that we have not heard back from. I sent another request to the U.S. Secretary of Education Betty Devos. I will keep doing so until I get a response. It would greatly help if other parents would get this out to the media, public officials and state representatives. This can be accomplished but it will take multiple efforts. ACT needs to be regulated but the right people are not aware of how extensive this problem is.
This is scary! NY times has a confidential news tip link. Maybe submit evidence to them and they may look into it and publish the findings?
Do you have a link for this site? I will use it. Any lead like this is super helpful! Thank you
Hi Ktrrights. If you go to www.nytimes.com and scroll down about halfway down, on the left column you will see “Got a Confidential News Tip?” and then click on learn more. Hope this helps.
Has anyone sought out an attorney to discuss the possibility of threatening the ACT with a defamation case (libel I guess)?
Also, note that if no scores were allowed to deviate by more than 5 points without being considered invalid, that would represent a statistical improbability. My point is that the ACT needs to allow for the same level of fluctuation that is representative of similar testing. Obviously there are parallels between the SAT and ACT, and a class action lawsuit would force the ACT to provide both evidence of cheating beyond manufactured seating charts and poorly correlated scores from nearby or across the room.
Damages from a lawsuit can include many forms, including general and punitive damages meant to punish the defendant. I’m guessing that attorney fees can also be included in there somewhere.
Thank you. I will send this in. Yes, I have talked to attorneys. Several interested but it would need to be a class action. We need more parents willing. The problem is it becomes a choice of paying legal fees or college tuition. That’s why I. Taking the media approach.
I just have a couple more questions. ktrrights…hopefully you can help answer as well as others on the blog. Have any parents/students actually been notified from the University after losing arbitration that their scores were dropped by ACT? Any paperwork sent? Also, opinions…my decision to arbitrate is due this Wednesday…if I am in the middle of arbitration and my daughter retakes the ACT again in a public setting will those scores still be a part of her scores? For those that have went through arbitration after losing the appeal…what further information could I even provide?
I am not aware of universities sending notifications after a loss in arbitration. Not to say that it has not happened, I am just not aware of any. As for what happens if your student retakes during the arbitration period, I did not specifically ask this as a retake is an option given. I would recommend asking ACT this. Their student handbook states a student can retake the exam a maximum of 12 times. However their review process seems to kill that option all together.
If you get an answer please let me know. The more updated info the better.
If your daughter takes the exam in a public setting during the score review process, ACT may question those scores as well.
Thanks for your input. Seems like this is a lose lose situation. I’m trying to decide whether to arbitrate or what to do. I have to send the letter back in by Wednesday of this week. My daughter retook the test on Saturday but after all of the pressure and the toll this has taken on us I’m not sure her score will even come close to the last one. She has been put on medicine and I feel like I need to be. My husband doesn’t really know about the whole process and just needed opinions on how to get through this. Part of me wants to have them just drop the score and be done with it but that signifies defeat and I’m not there, however, it sounds like I’m defeated in appeal and arbitration anyway. I’m thinking if I don’t appeal and she takes the exam again in a public setting it will at least be 5 more months before I’m notified again. If I arbitrate and have to wait on the decision it will be too late for her to take the test again. That’s why I was hoping I could arbitrate and she could still take the test in a public sitting.
Unless it’s pervasive, it’ll be hard to find an attorney to take this up. It’s not worth pursuing unless as a sizeable class action.
As a follow up to the discussion yesterday I did contact ACT and was told that my daughter can take the ACT in a public setting even if we are going through Arbitration. For now, she still has the higher score and should be reported as such. If we lose in arbitration we can then have ACT send the other scores to the university also.
Does anyone know of a case that won in arbitration? I’m just wondering how one proves that the score review process was unfair.
Does anyone know how the arbitrators are chosen? Also, are you allowed to bring witnesses?
I have never been to an appeal with a testing company, but have participated in litigation on various matters as part of my work. If allowable, I would suggest bringing an expert witness in statistics, and have them explain how the ACT’s practices are faulty. For example, even if there is only a 1% chance, or a .1% chance that somebody’s score would change so much from one testing period to another, or that two test booklets would overlap to a certain extent, when you are administering hundreds of thousands of tests, that mean those unusual events are actually expected to occur. What ACT is doing is just bad science, and it personally offends me (although I have no dog in the race.)
Expert witnesses require money and a lawyer. Expensive process. Cheaper to retake the test. Really not worth litigating unless you can get a class and avoid arbitration.
Does anyone know whether you actually have an opportunity to present in front of the arbitrator? I think you may only have the opportunity to submit information.
Sometimes you can entice an academic (like me) who is so offended by a situation that they will donate their time. The fact that a test company would throw out individual high stakes exams solely on the basis that a particular score is unlikely infuriates me. These testing companies are the gatekeepers for higher education and they are abusing their power and misusing statistics. How can we expect our students to acquire critical thinking skills when all their authority figures – whether it is testing companies or politicians, endorse pseudoscience and faulty logic.
Some citations that may be useful
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED382066.pdf
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED351358.pdf
Also download chapter 3 here: https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315743097
The take home message of all these articles is that if you run an algorithm that examines similarity of responses, seeking to determine if they are congruent at an improbable level, the key question is “what is improbable?”. Of course, with a large enough sample, any improbable event is likely to happen on occasion. As always in statistics, what is improbable depends on prior assumptions. Evaluators need to protect themselves from false positives (making false accusations of cheating) by making certain assumptions. So, if they are just comparing every potential test pair to see if they share too much in common to be by chance, they raise the level of similarity of tests needed to flag anomaly to a very very very high level. That is, a high bar must be passed to determine there is evidence of cheating. However, I don’t think this is what ACT does.
There is another approach. If the test proctor sees a suspicious behavior that indicates potential cheating, such as someone looking at another person’s test sheet, then the evaluator doesn’t need to be nearly as protective when looking for similarity of responses, and students in question are not as isolated from a false accusation.
The issue here is, as I understand ACT procedures, they are using an increase in the ACT score by a single student across testing sessions as a “suspicious behavior”, and therefore running their similarity algorithm without the required protections against a false positive. I personally don’t think it is kosher to say that substantial improvement on a test rises to the same level of suspicion as, let’s say, when two students are seen signalling to each other or showing each other answers.