The College Board is making it easier to get extra time (but who will really benefit)

The College Board has announced that beginning January 1, 2017, students who receive accommodations  in school will automatically receive equivalent accommodations for all College Board exams (PSAT, SAT, SAT II, AP).   According to the  Washington Post:   Early this year, as more states began to adopt the SAT or the ACT as a required test for high school students to take, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division began to look into complaints that the testing organizations were too stingy with accommodations to eligible students,  Education Week reported. In a new statement, David Coleman, president and chief executive  of the College Board, said: â€Å"Educators, students, and families have asked us to simplify our process, and we’ve listened. The school staff knows their students best, and we want to cut down on the time and paperwork needed to submit a testing accommodations request.† While this will obviously  eliminate a major headache for many families, it probably isnt overly cynical to assume that the College Board is making this move  out of self-interest as well.   Which of course brings us to the ACT.   Now, the ACT is notoriously stingy about accommodations. I have had multiple students who were turned down after the initial request. Some appealed successfully; others did not. Even the successful appeals sometimes took months, and the extra time was only granted after a student had taken the ACT multiple times.   In contrast, most of my students who required extra time were able to obtain it for the SAT  easily, the first time the request was made.   So while acquiring accommodations  will undoubtedly become easier, it is questionable just how much of a broad-scale difference the change will make. It could very well make a huge difference, but Id be hesitant to assume as much. Given that the College Board is  determined to wrest every inch of market share possible back from the ACT, it seems reasonable to assume that this announcement is in part a ploy to induce students who are on the fence between the SAT and the ACT, and who require accommodations, to opt for the former.   So the question, now, is whether the ACT will come on board and relax restrictions on extra time as well.    In addition,  the effect of the change on student  equity is questionable as well. In my (anecdotal, non-statistically backed-up experience), the students who receive accommodations in school tend to be those with the savviest, most persistent parents. Not coincidentally, those parents tend to be well-off and well-educated. Some of their children  have genuine learning disabilities and I in no way intend to minimize the struggles of anyone in that category. For them, the College Boards new policy will undoubtedly be  a boon.   That said,  there is another category of students who do not truly have learning disabilities, but who have  been enabled (by technology, by ineffective pedagogy, by an incoherent curriculum, by parents, by tutors, and even by therapists) to the point where their ability to complete work on their own, under standard conditions, is severely compromised. In some cases, mild to moderate difficulties that nevertheless fall within the range of normal are  overblown  and pathologized by well-meaning adults, with the result that the line between a learning disability and the  belief in a learning disability becomes blurred. Its not that the student doesnt genuinely struggle. Its that the student, given a different set of pedagogical approaches and adult attitudes, would not struggle in the same way, or even at all.   I have witnessed this phenomenon many times,  and it  disturbs me more than I can say.  Not only will the  College Boards new policy  do nothing to deter it, but it will most likely encourage it further.   Conversely, the  children of less-educated parents, or those who lack knowledge of how the system  functions  as well as how to work it effectively (and the time work it), are less likely to receive accommodations in the first place. As a result, they are no more likely to receive accommodations under the new system than they are under the old.