Weekend Question 3: Why Isn’t There More Outrage About the SAT Snafu?
The College Board messed up in scoring the SAT test of about 4,000 high school students by giving them lower scores than they should have received (HT Don Luskin):
The board, the New York-based nonprofit that owns the high-stakes test, said the problem affected less than 1% of the roughly half million students who took the exam that month. The disclosure came just as many schools are making final decisions about which applicants to accept — and as anxious students wait for word.
For individual students, the scoring discrepancies ranged from 10 to about 200 points on the 2,400-point exam, with most of the errors from 10 to 40 points, said Chiara Coletti, a board spokeswoman.
But as an e-mailer to Luskin notes, that’s only half the story:
A very small number of students, not included in the 4,000, received incorrect scores that were too high, she said. Those scores will not be changed.
WHAT? Some “small number” (betcha it’s also about 4,000) of kids are going to get an unfair advantage and get into schools to which other kids should have gained admission. And that doesn’t bother anyone? Just because we don’t know their names (and apparently no one is putting pressure on The College Board to tell us), doesn’t mean that it’s not happening.
The College Board owes the public a lot more information than we’re currently getting, and, strangely, no one seems at all curious about it. Maybe we need a catchy slogan: The College Board lied, thousands cried.
Yup. Should it bother anyone? perhaps, although honestly it’s probably a small effect, all happening at the margin.
Consider, however, what the College Board did: in both cases, they took the step that wouldn’t result in a legally actionable tort.
Comment by Charlie (Colorado) — March 19, 2006 @ 3:27 pm
#1, I thought about that after I went away for an hour or so.
Some of those who should have had their scores lowered would have sued. So to avoid that, and as long as the names of those who got the false boost are never released (my guess is that they are not subject to FOIA), the victims will never know they’ve been victimized (in the sense that many won’t get into the #1 school of their choice, admittedly not a life-ending event — but, another chink in meritocracy).
Something tells this isn’t how The College Board of the 1950s would have handled it.
Comment by TBlumer — March 19, 2006 @ 3:54 pm