AP exam controversy

A rally protesting the cancellation of Advanced Placement scores at Trabuco Hills High School drew scores of chanting, sign-wielding students, parents and teachers to the school on Wednesday.

State Assemblyman Todd Spitzer also showed up. Not only is the school in his district, but Spitzer is a former AP English teacher who well understands the studying that students put in for the exams and believes that they are being treated unfairly by the College Board and the Educational Testing Service, which administers the tests.

The exams test college-level work in 22 subjects that can earn students credit and advanced placement at most colleges and universities.

"I taught at Roosevelt High School in East L.A., 10th-grade English and a 12th-grade AP class," Spitzer, a Republican from Orange, said before the rally. "When you take an AP course you're teaching students specifically to take the exam. I went to UCLA in 1978, and kids were coming into college already sophomores on paper because they earned enough AP credit. For some families it's clearly a financial question, because they weren't counting on paying for the extra units, the housing, etc."

A legal battle is looming over the ETS' decision to cancel the scores of 385 Trabuco Hills students after an on-site investigation found that the Mission Viejo school violated numerous testing protocols, including the use of inattentive proctors, cellphone use by students and unauthorized restroom breaks.

A July 11 ETS report details specific infractions during the May exams. In the AP statistics exam, for example, there were too few proctors for the 52 test takers, students were seated facing one another, cellphones were used, there was student contact with a test taker in an earlier time zone, and students were authorized to work after time was called.

Ten students were found guilty of cheating on AP microeconomics, macroeconomics and statistics exams by using their cellphones to send text messages. The 375 other students will be able to retake the exams beginning Aug. 6-12. Review sessions will also be offered, and students will be able to check out textbooks from the library.

The timing of the reexaminations will allow the tests to be scored and sent to colleges before fall classes begin, ETS spokesman Jason Baran said.

Nonetheless, students and parents, who have formed a group called Justice for 375 Trabuco Scholars, have retained an attorney and said they will sue to restore the AP scores.

"The ETS is acting as both test administrator, evaluator and now court of law," Spitzer said. "We feel because this is such an egregious miscarriage of justice ... we want them to have to come take the stand under oath and have to defend this decision."

-- Carla Hall

Comments

[Adam]

I feel bad for all the students, BUT, their anger needs to be directed toward their school. I am willing, absolutely willing, to bet that more students cheated than were caught given the lax supervision. I have been an AP teacher for over ten years. I know that students will do whatever they can to get ahead, and if their are no consequences, they will keep pushing the envelope. I believe that the College Board is absolutely making the correct call here.