<p>REd point, your friend writes plenty of harsh criticisms about other living breathing individuals… Why should she be exempt?</p>
<p>Because you say so?</p>
<p>She published her complaint, and you posted it here, and people have responded.</p>
<p>It is what it is.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone is “dissing” Frankel as a person, but “comeon,” the choice of words to describe this incident are over the top. It’s even blog-worthy --as we’ve all felt sad or sorry for things that happen to our kids --but the author has too much personally invested in this whole process. I doubt those words came from the kiddo and the kiddo may be unhappy about spending another Saturday taking a standardized test but it really isn’t the end of the world. I don’t know the area of the country, so can’t comment on how difficult it is to get to Coney Island, but I know for my kids, if they even desired to take the SAT, would have to drive themselves an hour to and from the nearest testing center and it sounds like the OPs kid can take public transportation.</p>
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<p>Coney Island is a bit of a trip, even from Brooklyn Heights. I’d allocate at least 40 minutes…if not more on the subway because most lines in Brooklyn run local and there’s lots of delays due to subway construction or other factors. </p>
<p>If you’re coming from the other boroughs, especially the Bronx, Queens, or the mid-upper Manhattan…kids from those areas may need to leave the house as early as 3:30-4 am to get to Brooklyn Heights to catch those 6 am buses from the school. It’s also a great inconvenience if one comes from certain parts of Staten Island…though if the family has a car…that can be greatly mitigated as the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge runs close to Coney Island. However, the toll of that bridge toll coming back to SI can be steep for many.</p>
<p>I don’t blame Frankel for being upset. But, I feel the testing centers need to follow the directives given to them. In the case that I described, where construction was going on in the hs, would it have killed them to stop construction for the 3 hour duration of the test? No one could have anticipated the fire alarm going off, but I’m sure there was noise from the construction as well. The SAT/ACT is a big deal for these kids. Some study and time their study schedules so it coincides with the date of the test. These tests are not free. The professionals in charge need to be professional and recognize the importance of the test for the kids.</p>
<p>Sure they do, but a couple Saturday mornings out of a kid’s lifetime is nothing to moan and wring hands about. I don’t know about yours but mine, if not occupied, would sleep Saturday mornings. Sure testing is a “big deal” but it’s a kid big deal…as a parent I really don’t see it as “big deal” – it’s a important check the box kind of thing they have to do and it could be an inconvenience but really nothing more.</p>
<p>If this were to have happened to my kid at this time of year, who due to sports never got to sleep in on Saturday mornings, she’d have had to miss a conference or state championship meet to make up the test. For an athlete in junior year who wants to be recruited, that is a huge deal. Now people who plan well wouldn’t have left their SAT test to the last minute, but it’s hard enough as it is for athletes who have their major competitions on weekends to fit in the PSAT, 2-3 sittings of the SAT, and 3 SAT II’s. D only managed one SAT sitting.</p>
<p>Yes my 3 is a three season athlete so would not be taking the test right now. People plan for these types of things…including kids. You’ll not convince me that these types of moaning, hand wringing, doom and gloom journalism/blogging about college admissions or whatever aren’t simply feeding into parents who are prone to anxiousness.</p>
<p>In fairness to the affected kids, I think they should have been offered a couple of reasonable courtesies:</p>
<ul>
<li>An option of a couple different test dates, out of respect for their schedules.</li>
<li>A “score choice” type option if their retake score is within range of the original.</li>
</ul>
<p>It is a lot worse than just the 4-feet problem.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/19/nyregion/educational-testing-service-cites-lapses-in-invalidating-sat.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/19/nyregion/educational-testing-service-cites-lapses-in-invalidating-sat.html</a></p>
<p>If this is the way things have been run at Packer for years, then cheating could have been rampant. And a large number of the students taking the test at Packer are Packer students.</p>
<p>I did think the criticisms from the head of Packer against the ETS a bit too defensive.</p>
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<p>It is also possible that a forward-thinking sports league may have scheduled important events to avoid the original SAT test dates known months in advance, but the short notice make-up date lands on one of those important events.</p>
<p>Re: <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/19/nyregion/educational-testing-service-cites-lapses-in-invalidating-sat.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/19/nyregion/educational-testing-service-cites-lapses-in-invalidating-sat.html</a></p>
<p>The New York Times article also mentions that the make-up test was canceled the day before the test.</p>
<p>“Sure they do…”</p>
<p>If they do they need to be competent and make sure they heed the rules. It also can be a big deal for kids AND parents, in particular parents whose kids score in the top 1 - 2 % who are looking at possible full rides and family savings of as high as $200,000. It’s one component, but an important one.</p>
<p>but it looks like the Coney Island test was cancelled. I have to admit, I would be hugely upset by now. My kids have always had pretty crammed weekend schedules and if I had had to free up an additional weekend, which was then cancelled at the last minute, and had to face rescheduling the test yet again, it would be very difficult.</p>
<p>OK, so don’t all of you also think that CB/ ETS is also trying to make an example out of this school to make a point? How many other schools do the exact same thing? I can see a warning, but if the only real issue was students sitting a little too close, I would also be irrirated. Especially if I had a junior taking the test.</p>
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<p>Yes, they have to after the Long Island cheating episode. They need to ensure that testing centers are following the rules. The administrators at the testing centers need to follow the rules. One would hope that future test sites would take the rules seriously and administer the test under the guidelines. Hopefully ETS has auditors also taking care of the messes and heading off future infractions in foreign countries or they will continue to lose credibility. Along with all the other revenue generating things this organization is engaged in, their core business is standardized testing and their credibility rests on the tests being administered universally in a fair comparable manner.</p>
<p>They deserved to be made an example of.</p>
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<p>Packer directly violated the test protocols. Leaving the booklets unattended for 15 minutes is inexcusable. Very, very shoddy. </p>
<p>Once the booklets were left unattended, and the (too few) proctors were inattentive, all the test scores had to be cancelled. THE PARENTS SHOULD BE ANGY AT THE PACKER ADMINISTRATION.</p>
<p>I am surprised at the reactions of some of the posters on this thread. The article was an emotionally charged editorial about a frustrating event. I don’t think it pretended to be anything else. I think most people would be frustrated, even angry, at this turn of events if their child had been involved. Yes, some kids/families might just take it in stride more than others…everyone is different. But I don’t get the reactions that imply that the author is wrong to be upset. That is up to them…and they said in the article that they would, in fact, handle this as another of life’s lessons…but just felt very frustrated. For many of us, just simply being treated in a respectful manner…such as offering an apology for the inconvenience, and perhaps, as someone else mentioned, alternate times for retakes, would go a long way toward making this feel more like just an inconvenience…and FEEL a little less like a nightmare.</p>
<p>To me the real issue is one that has barely been mentioned here, and that is that the ETS auditor was there at the test’s beginning and said nothing to the school about moving the chairs. Sure the school should have obeyed the new regulations (put in place because of the LI SAT cheating scandal several months ago). And if that had been pointed out at the time, then the chairs could have been moved. End of story. I have to wonder at the auditor who let it go until the test was finished and then reported it. That’s just wrong.</p>
<p>I think that’s the point…many of us would not use words like nightmare, evil, apoplectic, torture. It’s an inconvenience, a pain in the you know where, but it’s not a g<em>d d</em>n horrific situation. Hopefully she wasn’t serious or thought sane people would find her rant amusing. Or perhaps she’s someone that flies off the handle when stuff doesn’t go smoothly and she really feels this way. Hopefully her kid(s) know and can put it all in perspective. I’ve never spent so much time analyzing someones blog. Time to go out in the sun and get my Vitamin D.</p>
<p>We had a situation with oldest’s ACT. Proctor gave sections in wrong order. Kids were told that day that they would probably have to retake. It was hard on the kids…mine ended up with bad cold on the retake day.</p>
<p>yes, most of us are saying #firstworldproblems. that’s all.</p>