Reply to Claiming a disability on the SAT/ACT - have people been gaming the system?

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Reply to "Claiming a disability on the SAT/ACT - have people been gaming the system?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This debate is scraming for some data.

Based on this article from Education Week (from someone who thinks the SAT should be untimed for all) in 2015-16 the college board received 160,000 requests for accommodations and approved about 80% of them. https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/08/25/have-sat-accommodations-gone-too-far.html

So 128,000 students took the test with accommodations (perhaps slightly less because this isn't adjusted for people who took it 2x). https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/08/25/have-sat-accommodations-gone-too-far.html

1,681,134 students took the SAT that year. https://reports.collegeboard.org/archive/sat-suite-program-results/2016/class-of-2016-results

So, ~ 7% of students received accommodations on the test in 2016.

The CDC estimates that the percentage of the population with reading-related learning disabilities is 10%; the percentage of people under the age of 18 who have ADHD is about 15%, and 2/3 of the number of people with ADJD + at least one other mental, emotional, or behavioral disorder. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/data.html

While the number of students with ADHD may go up or down by year, in general the rate of students receiving accommodations is lower than the percentage in the general student population.

The problem of fake or questionable diagnoses is probably outsized in certain communities (like the DMV), but this is not the crisis or scandal some on this thread think it is. [/quote]

Thanks for putting some stats on this, but I disagree with your conclusion.  "certain communities" have giant percentages of kids with testing accomodations, far out of proportion to any expected natural rate of disabilities.  The college bribery scandal very much shows that parents are willing to game the system in this way, albeit they don't all have $1mil for actual bribes.

[/quote]

I'm the Pp you're responding to, and that's a fair point.

It seems a better, more equitable solution is for College Board and ACT to give extra scrutiny to accommodation requests from students in those regions -- rather than toss out all accommodations?

[/quote]

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