From 2007: Student Backlash Brews Against Untimed Tests (Wealthy parents gaming the system) [View All]

This is how it works. Rich parents shop around for a doctor to tell them what they want to hear ("Little Brittany or Dylan has a 'learning disability', giving them rights to take un-timed tests, including the SAT") All kinds of nonsense is being used as a learning disability now, from claims of "anxiety" brought on by taking tests to phony claims of ADHD, which in no way resemble a real case of ADHD. All so Jr. can take an untimed standardized test, and up their chances of getting into an elite college.


http://www.nysun.com/new-york/student-backlash-brews-against-untimed-tests/60619/

Student Backlash Brews Against Untimed Tests

The Saturday that Sara Katherine Paxton took the SAT, at a private school on the Upper West Side, the line of nervous 17-year-olds waiting to sign in snaked nearly halfway through the entrance room. Flustered, a proctor put his hands on his desk and stood up.

"If you have extra time, stand to the side," he said. Half the teenagers stepped out of line — and, Miss Paxton said, no one batted an eye.

The practice of giving students with learning disabilities more time to take their tests has become so common at top private schools in New York City and across the country that students say it carries nearly no stigma. For everything from the SAT to weekly math quizzes, they say, a growing number of students will get as much as double the standard time allotment, and no one pays much attention.

Disability rights activists describe the trend as an important victory for students with difficulties such as dyslexia and attention deficit disorder, but a small number of students are waging a battle against the accommodations, a struggle that could intensify when the SAT season begins again this fall. Their target audience: college admissions officers, who they say risk being hoodwinked into admitting students with artificially impeccable transcripts.

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