Outrageous! More October SAT scoring errors

[macnyc]

<p>

BOSTON - The College Board disclosed Wednesday that 27,000 SAT college entrance exams missed being rechecked following the initial discovery of scoring problems, with the result that another 375 students were given incorrectly low marks.</p>

<p>In a news release, the College Board said that last week it asked Pearson Educational Management, which scores the exam, to confirm all 495,000 October tests had been rescored; that request followed an earlier oversight in which 1,600 exams were overlooked.

</p>

<p>I can’t see how the results of the October SAT are even considered valid anymore. Talk about incompetence on the part of the College Board!</p>

<p><a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060322/ap_on_re_us/sat_scoring_error[/url]”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060322/ap_on_re_us/sat_scoring_error&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[hoedown]

<p>Can’t be considered valid? How so? They’ve all been rechecked by now. While the 400 wrong scores were a big mess, and it was serious oversight to not double-check those 29,000 or so, I don’t see how this would invalidate all 500,000 tests.</p>

<p>Based on what happened when they ran the recheck on the 27,000, it appears there is a second-round correction rate of .14%. I would suspect that a 3rd check would be even lower.</p>

[macnyc]

<p>How do we know that there aren’t more errant answer sheets hiding out in a cardboard box somewhere? And even though the number of scoring errors found to date appear “small,” it’s no small matter to the individuals who were affected.</p>

[hayden]

<p>hoedown, I must be missing something. As I read the news release, the re-scoring of this latest batch of 29,000 tests resulted in discovering that an additional 375 scores were too low. Isn’t this an error rate of 1.38%, rather than .14% ? </p>

<p>If you are looking at the overall scoring error rate, the .14% may be right. But if the latest group of 27,000 produced an error rate 10 times that, it gives me the willies.</p>

[hoedown]

<p>No, hayden, you’re not missing something–I just went too fast and read my calculator wrong.</p>

<p>I think 1.4% – although larger than .14%! – suggests that rescoring is a good thing – which is surely why they do it. That’s why you have it in place. I don’t think, however, that it means that every single on of the 500,000 should be invalidated. </p>

<p>I didn’t mean to imply, mac, that it was small to the people it affected. It wasn’t small to the colleges, either, and it came at a terrible time for everyone. I am questioning why the entire test administration is now invalid, not how upset students with incorrectly-reported scores should feel. </p>

<p>There may be more sheets that weren’t double-checked. All of them? That stretches my credulity. I have to believe that if they really failed to recheck all 500,000, that would have been noticed. The sheer workload change from previous administrations would surely have tipped someone off.</p>