Three Minnesota-based law firms filed a class-action lawsuit last Friday against the College Board and its contractor, Pearson Educational Measurement, due to massive SAT scoring errors.
The lead plaintiff, who is represented by the three firms, is an unidentified high school senior from Dix Hills, N.Y., who received an unfairly low score — one of more than 4,400 students affected by the scoring errors.
One firm, Minneapolis-based Zimmerman Reed, helped settle a suit in 2002 where 8,000 Minnesota students were incorrectly told they failed a portion of the Minnesota Basic Standards test, preventing hundreds from graduating high school.
"After the [2002] lawsuit, Pearson promised to improve their procedures," Zimmerman Reed said in a news release. "But with the latest news, the question arises whether Pearson made those improvements."
The other two Minnesota firms in the current lawsuit, Larson King and McSweeney & Fay, are experienced in this situation, as the firms helped secure the $12 million settlement in 2002.
Pearson's parent company, NCS Pearson Inc., is also based in Minnesota.
The College Board and Pearson declined to comment, as litigation is pending.
Last month, the College Board reported more than 4,400 SAT reasoning tests out of the 495,000 taken in October were incorrectly scored.
The errors were reportedly caused by "abnormally high moisture content" in some of the answer sheets, which later interfered with the scanning.
The firms that raised the case sought class-action status to allow any student who took the test in October — except the 600 students who received incorrect high scores — to join the lawsuit.
Robert Schaeffer, public education director of Fair Test, an organization that works to correct flaws in standardized tests, has experience with the past litigation and predicted the filing of lawsuits in this case.
Schaeffer said he is concerned with the amount of time the College Board took to report the miscalculations and further, with accountability in the testing industry itself.
"Four years ago, for the Graduate Management Admissions Test, about 900 students' tests were [miscalculated], and it took nine months for it to be reported," he said. "There is no external oversight regulating the testing industry, so the public can only find out [about errors] after the company reports it."
Suspicion first arose about SAT scores after two students questioned the scores they received in December; after investigation, the problem proved widespread.
The problem reached the University of Wisconsin March 7, when the College Board notified UW of 42 applicants who it believed were affected. Nineteen had been admitted, eight denied, and 15 had either withdrawn their application or had never applied to the university.
UW education professor Clifton Conrad said he is critical of standardized testing, especially at the collegiate level.
Conrad said that administrators cannot "easily capture" learning outcomes in standardized instruments or measure academic skills with "surgeon-like precision."
Though the scoring problem affected less than one percent of students who took the test in October, Schaeffer agreed with Conrad, saying the incident should cause institutions to question use of the SAT exam.
The College Board has hired Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., a technology-consulting firm, to perform a comprehensive review of SAT scanning procedures and make recommendations.
