<p>I really, really dislike the idea of destandardizing a standardized test for any reason, especially the way the ACT and SAT do it. Giving an identical amount of extra time to every single person with a disability is basically saying they’re all the same. This policy ends up raising the scores of borderline cases that would score almost at the mean without the compensation, and worse, lowers the scores of those students with more severe disabilities that affect them more than the compensation. There’s really no fair way of allotting extra time, since you’re essentially picking winners and losers right there.</p>
<p>IMO the only logical way to handle ADHD and other disabilities’ impact on standardized testing is to either remove the remove the standardized testing requirement for those whose academic abilities aren’t reflected by the test OR allow the subjective determination of how much a student’s score was affected by disability to take place in the college admission process, which is already subjective. Putting that subjective, binary determination into the test-taking process, which is designed to be objective, runs against the very ideology upon which the test is based.</p>
<p>And frankly, why do we give extra time (and thus, higher scores) to one group of students that scores lower but not others? If we think it’s fine to adjust scores and make one disadvantaged group score better, why don’t we do the same thing for disadvantaged minorities?</p>