SAT error latest in series of gaffes

The error is likely to renew debate over the flaws of standardized tests.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
For the past five years, Hamilton College in upstate New York has been one of a growing number of colleges not to require the SAT exam. The test causes too much anxiety, Hamilton concluded, and there's a risk of missing bright students who don't test well.
On Tuesday night, Hamilton's faculty voted unanimously to make that policy permanent. By coincidence, the next morning brought a reminder that there's another potential downside to standardized tests -- news arrived that 4,000 SAT exams taken last October had been mis-scored.
"They do a lot of things right," Hamilton dean of admission and financial aid Monica Inzer said of the College Board, which owns the exam. "But it shows how vulnerable we all are when we depend too much on one test."
The error affected fewer than 1 percent of test-takers, and shouldn't affect admissions decisions -- though Inzer noted it's too late for students to apply to schools they might have considered with a higher score.
Standardized test debate
Experts say mistakes are inevitable in any operation on the scale of grading millions of tests. Still, the episode is likely to spark wider discussion about standardized tests -- both college entrance exams and the growing number of high-stakes, state-level exams: Just how much risk of error is tolerable when students' futures are at stake?
Recent years have seen a number of scoring errors on state-level tests and graduate school exams such as the Graduate Management Admission Test. Some were small and caught early; others were significant. In 2003 and 2004, 4,100 people were incorrectly told by the Educational Testing Service they failed a teacher licensing exam. In 2000, more than 8,000 Minnesota high school students were mistakenly told they had failed a state exam, and dozens missed their class graduation ceremonies.
That mistake prompted a previous incarnation of Pearson Educational Management, which also scores the SAT, to pay a $7 million settlement.
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