Are testing accommodations really in place for those who need them?
Testing has become the benchmark for how we assess people against one another in many different scenarios. Most commonly, we see testing as a benchmark to gain admission in educational situations, like colleges and universities. The Scholastic Aptitude Test and the American College Testing exam, colloquially referred to as the SAT and ACT, hold a lot of importance in the college admission process. According to The College Board, as of 2018, more than two million students took the SAT exam, therefore this exam has a wide reach. Through the lens of college admission, these exams are intended to level the playing field of a wide audience to assess all students through a standard exam, rather than differing high school grading scales.
The College Board, the test writing company for the SAT, put in place various testing accommodations because of the understanding that these exams catered specifically to one type of learner. These accommodations included adding extended time, computer use for essays, extra and extended breaks, reading and seeing accommodations, or a four-function calculator. While these accommodations were intended to help make the test a stronger baseline assessment for all students, they are not a perfect solution.
In a piece published in the Taylor & Francis Online Journal, author Ryan Kettler explains how test scores should measure an individual’s achievement according to their knowledge, or a target skill, but instead testing does not work unless a person has the necessary skills to show what they already know. In other words, our education system needs to develop students’ ability to take tests, otherwise known as their access skills, in order to demonstrate their knowledge, and this is not always clear in standardized tests.
In recent years, students who do not necessarily need the accommodations have gained access through financial means. Instead of leveling the playing field as these exams were supposed to do, other social factors have furthered the divide. In their article titled “Need Extra Time on Tests? It Helps to Have Cash” which was published in The New York Times, Dana Goldstein and Jugal K. Patel explores how more students have gained means to testing accommodations based on financial means rather than need.
Students are better able to utilize these accommodations depending on factors like class, wealth, and race, which creates further inequality.
The authors explain that families who are more financially well-off gain access to more accommodations than those in other communities (Goldstein & Patel). They examine the rising rates of test accommodations to expose some known psychologists who grant test accommodations loosely, often when the student does not have a real need for these accessibility measures. The authors describe the experiences of students under extreme pressure who turn to testing accommodations to give them the upper hand, especially when applying to colleges. These advantages cause further inequalities among students based on social categories.
In a piece titled “Helping Students With Disabilities,” The New York Times examined the perspectives around testing through a series of letters from various individuals involved in the education system. One individual named Amanda Szakats who is an adult education teacher in Pleasant Hill, California, explained that
“While some parents undoubtedly cheat the system by getting 504s for their children through dubious assessments, there are many more children (especially low-income children) with undiagnosed disabilities who fall through the cracks and end up dropping out of school. That’s the real story.”
This raises the question of who should have access to accommodations? And how can this system be remediated?
Overall, from my point of view, the fact that certain individuals can “hack” the system so that they can gain access to accommodations that they more than likely do not need makes standardized testing an ineffective way to form a baseline for all students. Even with testing accommodations, this system of assessment benefits those who have financial means and extreme resources, which defeats the purpose of creating a baseline assessment.
The most disheartening part is that many of the students who use the accommodations truly need them. When those who need them are allowed access to the proper accommodations they work to level the playing field to standardize the entrance exams. One approach to fixing this predicament is to make the requirements to get a testing accommodation more stringent. However, with this change, students who do need accommodations could have an even more difficult time getting them.
While it is not a concrete answer, I strongly believe that the only thing we can do to remediate these inequalities in our standardized examination process, but more broadly our education system, is to reimagine how we approach testing. Whether this re-imagination includes creating exams that truly standardize individuals or we do away with standardized exams all together and instead replace them with a more holistic assessment.
In this new era amid the coronavirus we have the perfect opportunity to redesign our standardized exams as students are unable to take in-person exams. As The College Board moves the upcoming AP Tests online and in the process redesigns the exam format, this opens the door for reimagining exams that test actual knowledge rather than one’s ability to effectively take an exam. I personally hope that in this time educators and those who write the exams can engage in conversations that take into account accessibility and accommodation concerns. The University of California schools have announced that they have suspended the SAT/ACT requirement for this upcoming year’s admission due to the difficulty in taking these standardized entrance exams. Is this the first step in the process of reimagining college admissions and can we expect a rippling effect in other aspects of our educational system?
Truly only time will tell, but for now it is critical that we remember how many different types of privileges play into our testing and education system. All involved parties need to consider how they benefit from the existing systems. As we reimagine a new way to assess knowledge, we need to create a universal system for all types of learners that levels the playing field regardless of individual social concerns.
Work Cited
Goldstein, Dana, and Jugal K. Patel. “Need Extra Time on Tests? It Helps to Have Cash.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 30 July 2019,www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/extra-time-504-sat-act.html?auth=login-email&login=email.
“Helping Students With Disabilities.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Aug. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/opinion/letters/students-disabilities-tests.html.
Kettler, Ryan J. “Testing Accommodations: Theory and Research to Inform Practice.”International Journal of Disability, Development and Education: Inclusive Assessment and Accountability: Policy to Evidence-Based Practices, vol. 59, no. 1, Routledge, Mar. 2012, pp. 53–66, doi:10.1080/1034912X.2012.654952.
The College Board. “More Than 2 Million Students in the Class of 2018 Took the SAT, HighestEver.” The College Board, 18 Mar. 2019,www.collegeboard.org/releases/2018/more-than-2-million-students-in-class-of-2018-took-sat-highest-ever.
