Kids with LD: Beware of SAT/ACT Accommodations!
Kids with LD need to beware of SAT/ACT accommodations and scores when taking them for annual school requirements; they may end up in their college applications!
We all know that students with learning disabilities (or differences) receive special accommodations on tests in schools to give them the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of the material when their disabilities interfere. These accommodations can take the form of Braille, reader or signer, calculator, note taker, and text-to-speech conversions. But the most common accommodation is extended time on tests and assignments.
The school usually provides the tests that document the students’ learning disabilities and makes recommendations for specific accommodations for each student. Until now, this has been a standard practice that worked reasonably well because the school was also responsible for implementing the students’ educational plan.
But schools in 23 states have recently started requiring that high school students take either the SAT or ACT – the same tests that students take for college admissions — instead of the old standardized tests (STAR). Their reasoning for this big change is that it helps prepare students to start thinking about college and gives them a heads up about their scores.
So what’s the problem here? Students with learning disabilities are accustomed to taking these standardized tests with their accommodations but many students have found that the College Board and ACT Inc are not granting the same accommodations on the SAT and ACT respectively. To further aggravate this situation, the College Board and ACT Inc provide college-reportable scores to the colleges and records of these scores will be available for colleges to see when the student applies to college during their 12th grade year. This puts the students in a precarious situation because they may have to take the SAT or ACT without accommodations so their scores will be lower or they will report “non-reportable scores” because they took the test with accommodations that either the College Board or ACT Inc did not approve.
Now the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) created the “technical assistance” document last September to ensure access to a fair testing environment. Law suits may ensue as the College Board and ACT Inc may be violating a key tenet in ADA regulations because they may be requiring unnecessary documentation and testing, which leads to accommodation denials that don’t allow the students’ scores to reflect their knowledge and skills.
According to the College Board, they argue that they approve 85% of their accommodation requests; ACT states they approve 92%. Most denials are a result of failing to identify a learning disability, lacking evidence that accommodations are needed, or missing parents’ signatures.
If your child’s accommodations are denied for the SAT or ACT, get a second opinion by using private testing companies. Talk to your IEP team and then the ADA department to lodge complaints. It’s important to be aware of what tests your child will be taking, whether or not accommodations are allowed, and who will see the results.
You don’t want a 10th grade standardized score to end up on your child’s college applications! You are your child’s best advocate!
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