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][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.

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Exactly. As the article puts it "[b]As a school lawyer, I’ve witnessed the growing pressures schools face to provide extended time to more students, especially in affluent communities. Distribution of accommodations for wealthy and poor students is not equitable. Decisions often come down to parents’ advocacy—not intrinsic student attributes. What a flawed gatekeeper the College Board has hired[/b]."[/quote]

The writer's opinion is suspect == to offer the number of students requesting and approved for accommodations without providing the universe of all students who took the test is cherry-picking BS.

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