College Board and NCS Pearson Inc–two big standardized testing organizations–are being held accountable for incorrect scores on SATs taken by over 4000 students back in 2005.
College Board and NCS Pearson agreed to pay $2.85 million ($275 per student) in damages.
In some cases, the reported scores were found to be as much as 450 points too low out of a possible 2400 points.
The College Board became aware of the problem when two students paid to have their tests rescored. Upon inspection, it was discovered that about 1 percent of the nearly 500,000 students who took the SAT test in October of 2005 had received incorrect scores because their answer sheets had become moist, causing them to be misread when scanned. This issue was disclosed in March of 2006.
The College Board administered the tests and contracted with NCS Pearson to score them.
Robert A. Schaeffer, public education director for FairTest, a group that is critical of much standardized testing, called the settlement “an important reminder that standardized tests are fallible and that reported scores can be wrong.”
The $275 payments could go out early next year.
