SAT Errors Raise New Qualms About Testing

New York Times, March 10
By KAREN W. ARENSONand DIANA B. HENRIQUES

Philip Benoit, a spokesman for Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., said yesterday that at least one applicant whose SAT score was revised upward by more than 100 points, now qualified for the school's merit-based Marshall Scholarship of $12,500.

The SAT errors, which the College Board started to investigate only after two students questioned the scores they received in late December, were not unprecedented.

The scoring errors disclosed this week on thousands of the College Board's SAT tests were made by a company that is one of the largest players in the exploding standardized testing business, handling millions of tests each year.
The mistakes, which the company, Pearson Educational Measurement, acknowledged yesterday, raised fresh questions about the reliability of the kinds of high-stakes tests that increasingly dominate education at all levels. Neither Pearson, which handles state testing across the country, nor the College Board detected the scoring problems until two students came forward with complaints.
"The story here is not that they made a mistake in the scanning and scoring but that they seem to have no fail-safe to alert them directly and immediately of a mistake," said Marilee Jones, dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "To depend on test-takers who challenge the scores to learn about system failure is not good."
These were not the first major scoring problems that Pearson has experienced. The company agreed in 2002 to settle a large lawsuit over errors in scoring 8,000 tests in Minnesota that prevented several hundred high school seniors from graduating. It also has made significant scoring errors in Washington and Virginia.
After those problems, company officials had assured clients that they had vastly improved their quality control. But the new problems on the October SAT turned out to be the most significant scoring errors that the College Board had experienced.
Full text of article here.

Colleges scramble amid SAT glitch

''Unless you spend a lot of time in a high school, you can't appreciate how crazed students can get about this stuff," Kelly said. ''To learn very, very late in the game that there might be an error is just going to exacerbate that."

Error lowers test scores of 4,000 hopefuls
By Marcella Bombardieri and Tracy Jan,
Globe Staff March 9, 2006
College admissions officers in Massachusetts and elsewhere yesterday scrambled to deal with the applications of thousands of students whose SAT scores were too low because of a technical glitch, one of the biggest mistakes ever made on the high-stakes exam.
Many universities, including the most selective schools, do not finalize admissions decisions until the end of the month, but are well along in the process. Officials at some schools, including the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, said they had already mailed out some acceptances and rejections. They will reexamine the applications of students who were affected by the College Board's mistake to see if the outcome would have been different.
Another worry, high school counselors say, is that students might have given up on applying to certain highly competitive schools because of the faulty scores, and now they have missed the deadline to apply.
Officials at The College Board, which administers the test, said technical glitches led to errors in roughly 4,000 students' October 2005 tests, resulting in some students not getting credit for some of their correct answers. The company, which is still investigating what happened, relies on computers at a facility in Austin, Texas, to scan students' answers from test sheets. The errors were reported yesterday in The New York Times.
read the comeplete article here.

Study: Reading key to college success

"In the United States, reading is largely treated as an elementary school subject, with diminishing focus in later grades. But with each alarming report on college readiness, adolescent literacy is gaining attention."

By Ben Feller, AP Education Writer March 1, 2006
WASHINGTON --The ability to handle complex reading is the major factor separating high school students who are ready for college reading from those who are not, according to a new report.
The study by ACT, a nonprofit company that tests students, found that most states contribute to the lack of college preparedness by not requiring complex reading comprehension in high school. In fact, ACT found that most states don't have any standards at all for high school reading achievement.
"If you're not asking for it, you're not going to get it," said Cynthia Schmeiser, senior vice president for research and development at ACT, formerly known as American College Testing.
In complex reading passages, organization may be elaborate, messages may be implicit, interactions among ideas or characters may be subtle and the vocabulary is demanding and intricate.
The ACT isolated reading complexity as a critical factor by analyzing the results of the 1.2 million high school seniors in 2005 who took the well-known ACT college entrance test. Based on that test, only 51 percent of students showed they were ready to handle the reading requirements of a typical first-year college course.
The literacy of today's high school graduates has become an enormous concern for colleges and employers.

full text of article available here.

It's official: class matters

A major new study shows that social background determines pupils' success. Does it mean that the government is heading in the wrong direction?
Matthew Taylor reports Tuesday February 28, 2006The Guardian
It is a familiar scene: mum and dad hunched at the kitchen table, poring over Ofsted reports and brochures, trying to fathom which is the best school for their child. But a new report, obtained by Education Guardian, suggests that these well-meaning parents, and thousands like them, are looking in the wrong place. Instead of trying to decode inspectors' reports or work out whether academies are better than voluntary-aided schools or trusts superior to community comprehensives, they need look no further than the average earnings among parents.
A study by academics at University College London (UCL) and Kings College London has given statistical backbone to the view that the overwhelming factor in how well children do is not what type of school they attend- but social class. It appears to show what has often been said but never proved: that the current league tables measure not the best, but the most middle-class schools; and that even the government's "value-added" tables fail to take account of the most crucial factor in educational outcomes - a pupil's address.
The report, which uses previously unreleased information from the Department for Education and Skills, matches almost 1 million pupils with their individual postcode and exam scores at 11 and 15.
This unprecedented project has revealed that a child's social background is the crucial factor in academic performance, and that a school's success is based not on its teachers, the way it is run, or what type of school it is, but, overwhelmingly, on the class background of its pupils.
"These are very important findings, which should change the way parents, pupils and politicians think about schools," says Richard Webber, professor at UCL. "This is the first time we have been able to measure the precise impact of a child's social background on their educational performance, as well as the importance of a school's intake on its standing in the league tables."
full text can be accessed here.

Counselors' Challenges Growing, but Ranks Aren't

Many counselors say they are facing new, and often more difficult, problems with students than in the past, said Barbara Blackburn, president of the American School Counselor Association. For example, she said, far more students are engaging in such behaviors cutting, choking or burning themselves.

But with the added pressure -- and despite numerous studies showing how successful counseling programs can improve a student's academic and emotional life -- there aren't anywhere near enough counselors for the country's school-age population.

read the entire Washington Post article here.

Looking for Answers: The Use of “Gaze-Away” Strategies by Young Children

The following are highlights of an ASCD brief. To read the brief, visit this page.

The Study
Phelps, F. G., Doherty-Sneddon, G., & Warnock, H. (in press). Helping children think: Gaze aversion and teaching. British Journal of Developmental Psychology.

The Question
Does teaching young children to “gaze away” during cognitive challenges improve their performance?

The Context
Researchers have found that when adults are attempting to answer a challenging question they frequently look away from distractions, which may include the person asking the question or even inanimate objects, such as video cameras and computer screens. Experimental research indicates that individuals who gaze away also tend to answer moderately difficult questions more accurately than they do when asked to remain visually engaged with the questioner. Although adults and older children have developed gazing away as a cognitive strategy, younger children engage in the behavior much less. Indeed, in some interactions, educators and adults interpret gaze aversion as a sign that the child does not know the answer, and they may intervene before the student has had sufficient time to process and answer the question.

The Bottom Line
Young students may benefit from being taught to gaze away from distractions as they attempt to answer questions. Educators should be aware of gazing away as a cognitive processing strategy.

Paid college consultants help kids get in

By Juan-Carlos Rodriguez, Associated Press Writer
March 1, 2006
WASHINGTON --As high school seniors across the country wait anxiously for the responses to their college applications, some can take comfort in knowing they sent out the best money can buy.
Their parents paid hundreds -- sometimes thousands -- of dollars to private consultants who help the students draft admissions essays, rehearse for interviews, prepare for tests and even pick after-school activities in the hopes of bettering their chance of admission.
Andrea DuBrow, 54, of New York City, wanted to give her daughter every edge when she applied to Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. So instead of relying on the advice of the guidance counselors at her daughter's private boarding school, she hired a consultant.
"There's just so much pressure now and so many good applicants," said DuBrow, a vice president for a women's accessory company. "We felt our daughter could benefit from some extra help."
The consultants charge for work traditionally provided free by high school counselors, but with rates averaging $120 an hour to $2,900 for two years of consultation, it is a luxury. One exclusive two-year consulting program rings up at nearly $40,000.
read the full artcile here.