"An Untimed SAT" - New York Times

Test Preparation
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<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/opinion/29franek.html?hp=&pagewanted=print%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/opinion/29franek.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>March 29, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Time to Think
By MARK FRANEK</p>

<p>Philadelphia</p>

<p>AS high school juniors file into classrooms for their SAT's on Saturday, there will probably be some chatter about how more than 4,000 of last fall's tests were scored too low. What they probably won't be aware of is how many of their fellow students may end up with higher scores because they are allowed more time to take the test. Last year, more than 40,000 of the two million SAT takers were granted special accommodations, mainly because of learning disabilities. This represents a doubling in the past decade and a half.</p>

<p>In a perfect world, accommodations on the SAT would level the playing field for all test-takers with learning disabilities. Is that the case? The College Board, the overseer of the SAT, declines to give figures on the family incomes of students who get extra time.</p>

<p>It would be a good guess, however, that such accommodations are not being awarded fairly across race and socioeconomic lines — it generally takes a lot of time, energy and, in some cases, money to get on the accommodations list in the first place. A student must have his learning disability documented by a psychologist, and then use the accommodations recommended by the psychologist on tests at his own high school.</p>

<p>The trend in requesting extensions troubles many schools and teachers. While they made no mention of requests for accommodations, more than 200 high-school administrators in January submitted a petition to the College Board that criticized the length of the test and asked the board to give students the option of taking each of the test's three sections (writing, math and critical reading) on different days.</p>

<p>But this recommendation would succeed only in making an already unfair situation worse by increasing the overall cost of the test for students. The SAT is not too long — it's too short. The fairest solution would be to make it untimed for everyone.</p>

<p>Extra-time accommodations fall into two categories: time and a half (so the regular 3 hour 45 minute test swells to just over five and a half hours) and double time. But when scores are reported to colleges, there is no indication whether students had the usual amount of time, or more.</p>

<p>This lack of transparency is untenable. If we continue to look to the SAT as a major gatekeeper to the nation's colleges and universities, we need to understand what got us to this point and also have an honest discussion about the potential solutions.</p>

<p>Back in 1999, a California man named Mark Breimhorst sued over the longstanding practice of flagging SAT scores as "obtained under special conditions" when test takers were given extra time. Mr. Breimhorst, who needed accommodations on tests because he has no hands, argued that this practice violated the rights of students with disabilities by potentially identifying them as disabled to admissions officers (the human gatekeepers) and thus forcing disabled test takers to forgo accommodations.</p>

<p>It was an effective argument, and the College Board, after some foot-dragging, agreed to drop the notation in 2002. What has been happening ever since is a little hard to quantify, but it is happening in just about every high school. More students are documenting their learning disabilities and using accommodations in their classes, the prerequisite set by the College Board for using accommodations on the SAT. For the record, I am not against accommodations for students at their own schools. In my 15 years of teaching, when students have asked me for an extension on an assignment for any reasonable reason, I have given them one.</p>

<p>But what my colleagues and I are noticing is that accommodations for the SAT in other areas — using tests with large type, for example — are not increasing nearly as quickly as extended time (the College Board said it couldn't say if this was the case). It is clear to all of us on the inside that what is driving this phenomenon is the pressure cooker known as the SAT.</p>

<p>The solution is simple: keep the test to one day but end the time limits. The College Board can surely reduce the number of overall questions on the test (there are now a whopping 170, mostly multiple choice, plus one essay) and design them so that they go from embarrassingly easy to impossible except for the top percentile of students to answer even without a deadline.</p>

<p>That goal should be to give everyone a chance to tackle every question and eliminate time as a factor — thereby accommodating the learning style of all children, including those with disabilities. The College Board needs to take its test back to the drawing board. The answers to these design challenges and issues of fairness may not be as easy as multiple choice, but they can be found.</p>

<p>Mark Franek is the dean of students at the William Penn Charter School.</p>

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<p>I don't think it will be a good idea to have the SAT untimed as it will not serve the purpose.</p>

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<p>The number of perfect scores would sky rocket</p>

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<p>stupidest argument i've ever heard.</p>

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<p>Eliminate time as a factor? People have been practicing for the SAT without time limitations to get every problem answered correctly. If that happens on the real thing, what's the use of taking the SAT then? And considering that it is an important aspect in college admissions...</p>

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<p>I hate the kids who take hours on tests that take me 20 minutes...the kids will later brag that you only got a 97 when they got 100 etc. This policy would be completely ridiculous, and it would be so unbelievably easy to get a perfect score that it would be pointless. (you could put every possible math equation tested into your calculator, for example, and not miss a single math question given no time limit). The entire point of the CR section is speed-reading comprehension. What a horrible idea</p>

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<p>A rich kid can just hire a psychologist to issue a writ that allows for extra time. It's hardly fair.</p>

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<p>Ahhhh, good idea oasis my uncles a psychologist.</p>

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<p>I kind of saw it as the other way around. Instead of putting no time restrictions, why do they allow some people to not have any time restrictions? I don't think they should give people extra time. The argument - of course - is "some people just can't read as fast." Well that's the point, isn't it? Then again, honestly, I don't have much experience in learning disabilities, so my idea is probably insensitive and whatnot. Which is why I don't make the rules. Anyways.....</p>

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<p>CBA is right in a way though. The SAT is supposed to be an aptitute test of sort, and although this may come off as insensitive, the aptitude of most mentally-challenged people is lower than that of non-mentally-challenged people. Somebody with lower abilities shouldn't necessarily be given more time to compensate, that's not the point.</p>

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<p>I don't that it's possible to entirely eliminate extra time (see: guy with no hands case), but I do think that something has to be done about this problem of exploiting extra time. At my NY private school, it is all too common to see parents of some not so bright kid paying a psychologist to get their kid extra time on the SAT and sadly these kids really are winding up at top schools as a result. I think that the SAT should test reading comprehension on difficult passages, not speed reading, and math skills for tricky problems. I agree with the author that the SAT makers should "design the questions so that they go from embarrassingly easy to impossible except for the top percentile of students to answer even without a deadline" I think I might even agree with the author that the time limit should be removed, but I think that if it is, the amount of time it took the test taker should be recorded and sent with the scores. Anyone with learning disabilities would be allowed to indicate them or not depending on what they choose.</p>

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<p>i agree. i believe that a CB psychologist should have to examine the student-not a private one. that or just do away with extra time for any disability not exceedingly impairing. no hands is justifiable, but what about ADD? PULEEZE, all of us, at one time or another, have ADD.</p>

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<p>sure, it's not fair that some people have disabilities and can't complete the test very well, but then again, is life fair? Should someone who has memory problems be able to use a dictionary during the sentence completions "because they can't remember the words at all"? Will these disabled people get extra time on all their exams in college too? Unless these specific advantages given to disabled students will be allowed in a college setting as well, the SAT will have even less of a predictive ability for students.</p>

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<p>It seems like the author is making a case based on personal suspicions, rather than any actual facts. Well, I've heard a number of anecdotes about how hard it is to get accommodations, even when given disabilities have been documented for years. So where does that leave the argument?</p>

<p>He assumes that most of the requests are for extra time and that these are unsupported. I think this assumes quite a bit. When I've heard of people wanted accommodations, it hasn't just been for extra time. And sometimes the extra time is for people with fine motor issues who have problems filling in the score sheet.</p>

<p>Is there any proof of affluent students buying accommodations they don't need, using them to get higher scores, and using those higher scores to get into top colleges? Maybe this happens, but I've seen a number of articles like this and no one ever cites any proof. Are there parents and students willing to go through the special ed process for a speculative advantage on the SAT or ACT? I would think affluent types would be more likely to spend their money on expensive prep courses or private tutoring. (See, I can speculate too ...) </p>

<p>It has been some years since I researched the subject of accommodations in colleges. What I remember is that public colleges are legally required to do more about this than private colleges (one is subject to IDEA and the other just the ADA is what sticks in my mind). I don't believe either can reject the notion of accommodation altogether, although they need not go as far as public primary and secondary schools. The exception seemed to be the service academies ... I remember someone telling me that the application form for one of them asked outright if the standardized test was taken with accommodations. </p>

<p>Of course, anyone interested in this should do the research themselves because we are talking about what I remember from research some years ago to try to answer someone else's question!</p>

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<p>One thing that the Collegeboard has lost sight of is the goal of the SAT. It was originally meant to test IQ, and MENSA--the super-smart organization--used it as one of the tests to apply for membership. But we also hear it's meant to predict college success, which is not always the same as intelligence. Much, perhaps most, of a person's college success depends on how hard they work.</p>

<p>So, do we want a test that measures innate ability or a coachable test that measures how much a person studied for it?</p>

<p>My idea is to incorporate both, into a more real-world type test.
Here's my idea:
Include time as part of the scoring system. I'm sure the collegeboard could come up with an algorithm that does this. For example, a student that took 6 hours to complete the test but got all the questions right would get a 2000, and a student that took 2 hours to finish the test and got 80% right would get around the same score. Something like that. </p>

<p>I think this way would better reflect the real world, because if your boss wants you to do something, you need to not only do it correctly, but in a certain amount of time. (ie, an engineer designing the safest, strongest, best bridge in the world would get fired if he said it would be a 50 year project)</p>

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<p>
[quote]
My idea is to incorporate both, into a more real-world type test.
Here's my idea:
Include time as part of the scoring system. I'm sure the collegeboard could come up with an algorithm that does this. For example, a student that took 6 hours to complete the test but got all the questions right would get a 2000, and a student that took 2 hours to finish the test and got 80% right would get around the same score. Something like that.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>This sounds like a great idea, but I would just prefer it the current way. It pushes everything to a whole new level, involving how long you should take and developing strategies to maximize your score by saving time. I do understand why it would make sense though</p>

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<p>part of the whole point of the SAT is to see how well students work under pressure. Many questions have a long tedious solution, and also a clever, not so obvious, quick solution. Its a REASONING test, they are seeing if you can find clever ways to booster your score in the limited time frame.</p>

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<p>Billybobbyk, great idea, suggest it to the collegeboard.</p>

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<p>I could cite specific examples of extra time abuse. I absolutely agree that extra time should be eliminated for all learning disabilities. I am very familiar with one peer who, angered by other students who performed better by taking extra time, faked mental illnesses to psychiatrists for a script.</p>

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<p>Isn't the answer for abuse to crack down on it rather than eliminating accommodations? The latter is like saying some kids fake being sick to avoid going to school on a particular day, so we shouldn't allow anyone to claim sickness. Witness sometimes lie in court, so we should not have them. Etc.</p>

<p>Or some kids lie about their ECs and don't write their own essays, so we should eliminate these on college applications. Maybe this is your position, though :)</p>

<p>If you've seen examples, have you reported them to College Board, your school, etc.? This would seem to be the answer.</p>

<p>I don't know what mental illnesses one can have that will give you added time. It would also be hard for a young person to be knowledgeable enough, and good enough of an actor, to fool a psychiatrist. The same research and effort put into test prep would have probably given better test results, too! Again, this person should have been reported.</p>