A judge has ruled that kids accused of cheating have the legal right to sue the ACT

[alewife]

This link was posted on College Confidential:

https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/news/2019/01/sorry-act-kids-accused-of-cheating-can-now-sue-you-nj-judge-says.html

A judge has sided with a New Jersey teenager accused of cheating on the ACT exams, saying a clause test-takers must sign giving up their rights to sue the testing company is “unconscionable” and “void as against public policy."

It's about time.

[8filltheheart]

6 minutes ago, alewife said:

 

It's about time.

Absolutely.  The accusation of cheating due to score increases has gotten to a ridiculous point.  No one but the ACT believes that studying does not increase ACT scores.

[Reefgazer]

I agree with the judge.   A person who improves her score and is automatically accused of cheating, without other evidence, is not acceptable.  Now if there is additional evidence, that's another story, but a score increase is not enough to suspect cheating, IOMO.

[Lanny]

I have read approximately 8 or 10 articles about these issues, in the past 30 days or so. Except for one or two articles, they were about the girl in Florida who increased her SAT score by 330 points and is trying to get into FSU.  

With regard to the SAT, they say that approximately 2 million students took the exam during 2018.  They say that fewer than 2000 of them have had their scores put on ice for investigation.  Doing the Math in my head, that is approximately 0.1% of the test takers.  An extremely low percentage IMO.   Approximately 99.9% of the test takers do not have their SAT scores questioned by the College Board or ETS.

With regard to the girl in NJ and the ACT I believe the issue is that the students agree to Arbitration when they sign the Terms and Conditions for the ACT exam and that is what the judge the OP referred to is going against. It is not uncommon when signing up for something to be required to agree to Arbitration, if there is a dispute in the future.

 

[8filltheheart]

10 minutes ago, Lanny said:

I have read approximately 8 or 10 articles about these issues, in the past 30 days or so. Except for one or two articles, they were about the girl in Florida who increased her SAT score by 330 points and is trying to get into FSU.  

With regard to the SAT, they say that approximately 2 million students took the exam during 2018.  They say that fewer than 2000 of them have had their scores put on ice for investigation.  Doing the Math in my head, that is approximately 0.1% of the test takers.  An extremely low percentage IMO.   Approximately 99.9% of the test takers do not have their SAT scores questioned by the College Board or ETS.

With regard to the girl in NJ and the ACT I believe the issue is that the students agree to Arbitration when they sign the Terms and Conditions for the ACT exam and that is what the judge the OP referred to is going against. It is not uncommon when signing up for something to be required to agree to Arbitration, if there is a dispute in the future.

 

Lanny, there are a number of parents on CC who have posted about their kids being accused of cheating and having their scores revoked.  Arbitration files have been returned as decided against the student and the seals on the files have never been broken.  Parents have submitted letters from tutors, teachers, etc and not a single one has posted success from arbitration.

[Lanny]

8  that sounds bad.  If the Arbitration  process is not fair to the students involved  that would be horrible.  I don't know what the percentage of students is with ACT, but with the SAT it seems extremely low. However, if one is in the 0.1% who have their SAT scores challenged, not a good position to be in.  I suspect that some of the students involved in these disputes with SAT or ACT have in fact done one or more questionable things and that's what triggered the freezes on their scores. But I also believe that one should have a good shot at fair Arbitration.

[shawthorne44]

If the students had done something questionable, then it would/should have been flagged at the time or maybe immediately after the test in order to not disturb the other test takers.   The fact that the student isn't questioned until the score is generated tells me it is entirely based on a score increase.  
 

[Corraleno]

The accusations of cheating generally depend on a combination of (1) a significant score increase plus (2) "similarities" between the accused student's answers and answers of another student who happened to be sitting nearby. The suspect scores are flagged by an algorithm, not by a human proctor who saw actual evidence of cheating. Even if the similarities in answers were based on copying from a neighbor (which is pretty hard to do if seats are as far apart as they are supposed to be and the proctor is reasonably observant), automatically assuming that the student whose score improved was the cheater, with no other evidence, is ridiculous.

Students are not only being accused of cheating based on nothing more than a statistical algorithm, they are for all intents and purposes being convicted of cheating with zero actual evidence. The "appeal" process is a joke — no one has ever won on appeal, no matter how much evidence was presented. Not only is there no presumption of "innocent until proven guilty," it's not even a matter of "guilty until proven innocent" — because there is literally no way for students to prove their innocence. And as if that isn't egregious enough, the ACT often waits as much as a year after the test was taken to inform the student that their scores are being invalidated. Given that most students take these tests as juniors and seniors, by the time they're informed that their scores were thrown out, it's often too late to retake the tests for admissions and scholarship purposes. 

And at the same time, both the ACT and College Board knowingly ignore the HUGE problems with blatant cheating by international students, because they make a ton of money from international tests and don't want to lose that revenue. 

[Ravin]

I wouldn't hold my breath for that ruling to hold up on appeal, in light of recent Supreme Court rulings that hold up arbitration as acceptable in other contracts of adhesion under the Arbitration Act.

[...................]

I agree with Corralino.  Their test scores are withheld and not released and they then are unable to go to college and apply using the new test score. It affects the student's entire fate and future, with no proof! It is absolutely unethical and unpardonable.  

And on top of that the students aren't informed for such a long time that they don't have a chance to take it again and send the new scores.  Even if the number is very low, the fact that it affects their ENTIRE lives, is the problem.  If a student works extremely hard to bring up the score a vast number of points, I don't think they should be immediately punished and thought of as guilty, especially if half a year goes by between test dates.  

[Corraleno]

39 minutes ago, Ravin said:

I wouldn't hold my breath for that ruling to hold up on appeal, in light of recent Supreme Court rulings that hold up arbitration as acceptable in other contracts of adhesion under the Arbitration Act.

The judge's ruling in this case, though, seems to focus on the idea that the arbitration agreements aren't binding because they've been signed by minors:
"Rogers said teenage students cannot be expected to knowingly and willingly waive their constitutional right to a jury trial without parent input or supervision."

 

[Frances]

5 hours ago, Corraleno said:

The accusations of cheating generally depend on a combination of (1) a significant score increase plus (2) "similarities" between the accused student's answers and answers of another student who happened to be sitting nearby. The suspect scores are flagged by an algorithm, not by a human proctor who saw actual evidence of cheating. Even if the similarities in answers were based on copying from a neighbor (which is pretty hard to do if seats are as far apart as they are supposed to be and the proctor is reasonably observant), automatically assuming that the student whose score improved was the cheater, with no other evidence, is ridiculous.

Students are not only being accused of cheating based on nothing more than a statistical algorithm, they are for all intents and purposes being convicted of cheating with zero actual evidence. The "appeal" process is a joke — no one has ever won on appeal, no matter how much evidence was presented. Not only is there no presumption of "innocent until proven guilty," it's not even a matter of "guilty until proven innocent" — because there is literally no way for students to prove their innocence. And as if that isn't egregious enough, the ACT often waits as much as a year after the test was taken to inform the student that their scores are being invalidated. Given that most students take these tests as juniors and seniors, by the time they're informed that their scores were thrown out, it's often too late to retake the tests for admissions and scholarship purposes. 

And at the same time, both the ACT and College Board knowingly ignore the HUGE problems with blatant cheating by international students, because they make a ton of money from international tests and don't want to lose that revenue. 

And then many of the same international students continue to cheat at college and the schools ignore it because they are also big money makers for American universities.

[lewelma]

1 hour ago, Frances said:

And then many of the same international students continue to cheat at college and the schools ignore it because they are also big money makers for American universities.

Not just America.  Australia has a huge problem with this.

[Lanny]

In one of the news stories I read about the girl in Florida who is trying to get into FSU, I believe for a Sport or for Dance, one of the things the College Board or ETS said they look at is whether or not the test taker had made notes on the test booklet.  If not, that's one of the Red Flags they look for. They look for a combination of "signals", one of which is a large score increase.

My belief/understanding is that if one party writes a contract, it is biased in favor of that party.  That's the way it is if you apply for a Credit Card or just about anything else. They write it and one either signs or does not apply.  In this case it involves a Minor, agreeing to Arbitration, if there is a dispute. If the Judge ruled the Minor can't waive their right to sue in court, that may save him.  His Father (?) is an Attorney, so he has legal counsel available. Most students don't have free legal service available, as he does.

Previous posters in this thread have written that nobody has had one of these cases reversed is to me THE most important issue.  It is difficult/impossible for me to believe that all of the 0.1% of test takers whose test scores have been revoked are innocent.  But, some of them are and there should be a fair opportunity for them to get that rectified, by the College Board or ACT.

As far as them making huge profits from International test takers, that may be true. We live overseas and there is an extra charge for taking those exams overseas. I don't remember how much it was. For one test taker, it is not a  huge amount of money, but if there are tens of thousands of test takers who pay that, then, yes, it's a lot of money.  Although we live overseas, my DD is not an "International" student.

I believe that many Colleges and Universities in the USA are somewhat dependent, financially, on their "International" students, because I believe that most of the "International" students are paying "sticker price" or close to it.

That said, when we went to the School Fair in Bogota, last May, although most of the students there were potentially "International" students (in contrast to my DD with the FAFSA and CSS Profile) they did speak about Aid available to "International" students, etc., and I remember one of them mentioning "Home Schoolers".  If I look on CollegeData at a university, they always show the % of "International" students who are enrolled and often on their web sites, they show how many countries they are from.

 

 

[shawthorne44]

That is funny on the taking notes part.  The prep book I read told me to take notes on the book, and since I often Think With A Pen, I was writing all over that thing.  The proctor tried to stop me saying that "it wasn't allowed."   I told her to pound sand and read the rules.   My certainty made her go away.   But I was the ONLY person in the room writing on my booklet.  

I wonder when that changed on the international students not getting aid?   It wasn't true when I went.  I went to school with a prince of some small African country.   He was gifted a new loaded Mercedes every other year, but he was given financial aid "because his father makes $400 a year".    The financial aid lady told me that.   Yes, she shouldn't have.  

[Lanny]

shawthorne44    I think some colleges and universities do give aid to some of the International students. However, I also believe that many of the International students pay the full rate (sticker price) for OOS,  which is very helpful to the financial situation of the school involved.   

Good that you had read the rules and good othat you had read that Prep book!

[shawthorne44]

I don't think ACT or the College Board truly think that these people cheated, it is about prepping.   The idea that prepping can raise your score 300-400 points completely undercuts them.  But, they can't say "We are invalidating the score because this person prepped for the test, and it worked too well."    They don't like people running around saying "ABC prep raised my score by X amount." so this is their way of quashing that.     

I also reject the idea that they can determine cheating based on analyzing the answers of a high scorer.  If two people both get high scores, then of course most of their answers will match because most of both their answers will match the answer sheet.  You can't go by matching wrong answers either because a well designed test will have wrong answers that would seem correct if an error was made.  
 

 

[MerryAtHope]

6 hours ago, shawthorne44 said:

I don't think ACT or the College Board truly think that these people cheated, it is about prepping.   The idea that prepping can raise your score 300-400 points completely undercuts them.  But, they can't say "We are invalidating the score because this person prepped for the test, and it worked too well."    They don't like people running around saying "ABC prep raised my score by X amount." so this is their way of quashing that.  

 

Maybe--but ACT actually sells test prep materials from their site (it's right there at checkout when you pay for the test) and offers statistics on percentage of students able to raise their scores, getting the same scores, or getting lower scores, after test prep. 

[MerryAtHope]

6 hours ago, shawthorne44 said:

I also reject the idea that they can determine cheating based on analyzing the answers of a high scorer.  If two people both get high scores, then of course most of their answers will match because most of both their answers will match the answer sheet.  You can't go by matching wrong answers either because a well designed test will have wrong answers that would seem correct if an error was made.  

 

Exactly!