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]I understand that accommodations should be made, but I do have a question on how they are structured.  How are accommodations, specifically extra time, accurately calibrated to a student's need?  For example, if all the students without accommodations in a class have difficulty finishing an exam on time or with no time to review answers but the students with accommodations have no such problems does that mean the amount of extra time they were given is too much?  What if 50% of the class finishes the exam and 50% does not?  How much extra time should the student receive in that instance?  What ends up being fair to the student needing extra time but unfair to the other students in the class?[/quote]

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That's not how it works.  In most cases, the accommodated students are given a specific set amount of time (like time & a half or 2 hours or 2.5 hours, etc).  For example, at my school they have block scheduling so each of their classes is 90 minutes.  If a teacher feels it is a harder or longer test, they will get the full 90 mins. for the test but if the teacher feels it's an easier test, they'll start the test when class starts and will be given 60 minutes to complete it.  Those with accommodations will get a total of 2 hrs 15 mins to complete the test if it's a longer 90 min. test and only 1.5 hrs. to complete the test if it's a shorter 60 minute test (those are the time + a half kids).  If they have set time, then they get just the set time limit of just 2 hrs or just 2.5 hours.

The kid with accommodations doesn't take the test with the rest of the class.  They usually direct report to the accommodation classroom for their test without ever coming to the normal classroom.  This, of course, is to prevent cheating.  It is also set up like this to avoid the stigma of having to report to class and then leave when the test begins to go to another area to take your test.  To the rest of the class it just appears as if those students are absent.

[b]Sometimes it does happen that a student will not finish the exam and that's just how it is.[/b]  It also happens that many accommodation students don't finish their exams in their allotted time.

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The bolded statement is pretty interesting, because it could be used as an argument for why no accommodations on time should be made at all.

Thanks for the explanation of how the time is calculated, but in your example, let's say the test is the full 90 min test and the kids with 90 mins have trouble finishing it.  If the accommodation students also have trouble finishing it, fine, but what if they don't?  You've given them say 2.5 hours but they really only need an accommodation of 2 hours.  In that case, what would the right thing to do be? What if 50% of the class can't finish the test in 90 mins and the accommodation students do.  Do you know whether they would have been in the 50% that finished or the 50% that didn't finish?  If you have an exam where time is an actual concern, it seems that an improperly calibrated accommodation (and it sounds to me like no attempt is made to determine how much accommodation a student needs beyond a cursory 1.5 or 2x or untimed level) is meaningful.

On a side note, what if the exam is curved because the class, except for the accommodation students, had trouble finishing the exam?  If the accommodation students are all at the high end of the curve, would that make one second guess the amount of time they were given?

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