Local students unscathed in national SAT grading mishap

Sparta - Blame it on the rain. The company that scans the answer sheets for the SAT college entrance exam said last week that wet weather may have damaged 4,000 tests that were given the wrong scores. But a little rain didn’t hurt the hundreds of local high school students who took the high-stakes test in the fall, Sussex County school administrators said. “Thank God it’s pretty quiet here,” said Lenape Valley Regional High School principal Doug DeMarrais. “We haven’t had anybody questioning the scores.” Abnormally high moisture content in some answer sheets caused them to expand so they could not be read properly at a Texas scanning center, said Pearson Educational Measurement. The affected test day, Oct. 8, coincided with a heavy week of rain in the Northeast, where most of the tests came from. As much as 10 inches fell on New Jersey, forcing hundreds to evacuate their homes that weekend. Some 894 students in New Jersey received incorrect test scores, according to the College Board, which administers the SAT. Sussex County students -- with the exception of four seniors from Kittatinny Regional High School - did not encounter any problems. The board began to notify admissions offices, high school counselors and affected students by e-mail messages and letters last week. Stan Ambromavage, the director of guidance counseling at Sparta High School, said he did not receive any notification from the College Board, but made his staff aware of the potential for errors. “I am assuming none of our kids were affected,” he said. “Nobody’s come to me, so I would say we’re clean.” But the board this week disclosed that a batch of 1,600 exams had been overlooked in its attempts to review and correct the mistakes in scoring. The revelation means that colleges are likely to face a second scramble to reassess additional applicants as the admissions season draws to a close. A Pearson spokesman said the answer sheets are carefully packaged, but still could have been affected by high humidity. “When there’s moisture in the paper, it actually grows,” said David Hakensen. That causes the ovals students fill in “to move just slightly, enough so that it will be out of registration for the scanning head to read the answers.” Pearson said that after it became aware of the problem in early February, it re-scanned all 495,000 answer sheets. For individual students, the scoring discrepancies ranged from 10 to about 200 points on the 2,400-point exam, with most of the errors from 10-40 points, said a board spokesperson. “They’re minimizing 20 points,” said Kathleen Monks, Sparta Schools District assistant superintendent for curriculum. “Twenty points can get you into another bracket.” Pearson was working on new software to look for evidence when paper has expanded and in the future would allow answer sheets more time to acclimate. The company has been blamed for problems in scoring state education tests in recent years. Last year, Pearson incorrectly scored online versions of Virginia’s high school exit exam and told 60 students they had failed when they had actually passed. The company offered $5,000 scholarships to five students who were blocked from graduating. A growing number of colleges are opting not to require the SAT. Hamilton College in upstate New York decided this week that the exam causes too much anxiety, which creates a risk of missing bright students who don’t test well. Then the news arrived that 4,000 SATs taken last October had been inaccurately scored. “Waiting for a test score is one of the most stressful experiences a teenager has,” said Monks. “And one is dependent on the other.” The latest episode is likely to spark wider discussion about standardized tests: Just how much risk of error is tolerable when students’ futures are at stake? Pauline Richards, of Club Z In-Home - Tutoring Services in Sparta, said the most recent mishap doesn’t send a welcome message to already anxious test-takers. “You won’t go into the test with a good feeling,” she said. “But you have no choice. You have to take it.”