BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 915
Page 1
Date of Hearing: June 11, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Joan Buchanan, Chair
SB 915 (Hill) - As Amended: April 21, 2014
SENATE VOTE : 35-0
SUBJECT : Standardized testing: inadequate or improper test
conditions
SUMMARY : Imposes specified requirements on test agencies when
they learn of a complaint or notice of inadequate or improper
test conditions in the administration of the Advanced Placement
(AP) test. Specifically, this bill :
1) Requires the test agency to immediately initiate an
investigation upon learning of a complaint or a notice of
inadequate or improper test conditions relating to an
administration of the AP test.
2) Requires the school in charge of the test site to
cooperate with the test agency's investigation by providing
information requested by the test agency within seven
calendar days.
3) Requires the school in charge of the test site to
provide all affected test subjects with at least five
business days' prior notice of an opportunity to retest, if
the test agency determines that the inadequate or improper
test conditions will prevent it from reporting valid test
scores.
4) Requires the retest to be administered within 30
calendar days of the completion of the investigation.
5) Requires test proctors of an administration of an AP
test to create a seating chart, including the seat location
of each test subject, for each AP test administered at the
site.
6) Requires the test agency to provide a seating chart
template for use by each test site.
7) Requires the school in charge of the test site to retain
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and preserve each chart created for at least two years
after the administration of the AP test to which that chart
applies.
8) Requires the school in charge of the test site to submit
the seating charts to the test agency upon request to
assist with an investigation of a complaint or notice of
inadequate or improper test conditions.
FISCAL EFFECT : This bill is keyed nonfiscal.
COMMENTS : The AP tests are developed and published by the
College Entrance Examination Board (College Board) and
administered by the Educational Testing Services (ETS), which is
also responsible for test security. Under the College Board's
AP program, high school pupils may enroll in college-level
courses in a variety of academic subject areas. Pupils who
score well enough on an AP test may qualify for college credit.
The exam is administered in May.
Schools administering an AP test must comply with detailed test
administration and security requirements, which include the
requirements that pupils taking the test be seated at least five
feet from each other and be facing the same direction. Pupils
are specifically prohibited from being seated at round tables,
and the AP Coordinator's Manual states that "failure to follow
seating requirements could result in cancellation of exam
scores."
In May 2013, 21 different AP tests were administered at Mills
High School in the San Mateo Union High School District. After
completing an investigation of a student's complaint, the ETS
determined that the school violated testing protocols by having
the pupils sit at round tables. Consequently, the scores for
286 pupils who took one or more of 11 tests (for a total of 641
scores) were cancelled and the College Board notified the
affected pupils that they could retake the exams free of charge.
Although ETS initiated its investigation three days after
receiving the complaint, it encountered several delays due to
the district's inability to provide documentation of all of the
seating arrangements. Accordingly, the College Board's decision
to cancel the test scores was not announced until July 8. At
that time, many pupils and their parents felt that the scores
from a re-administration of the test would not be received in
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time for college admission and placement purposes.
Subsequently, the district and a parent group sued the ETS and
College Board for a preliminary injunction that sought the
reinstatement of the cancelled test scores. They argued, in
part, that despite the improper seating arrangements, there is
no evidence that cheating actually occurred. In her order
denying the preliminary injunction, the judge pointed out the
following:
The AP Coordinator's Manual specifically prohibits
seating test takers at round tables .
The Manual warns in boldface type that "Failure to
follow seating requirements could result in cancellation of
exam scores."
Students are warned that "When the College Board
determines that your testing experience did not meet the
College Board's standards for administering exams-even
through no fault of your own-the College Board reserves the
right to cancel your AP Exam score."
"Improper seating" is listed as a testing irregularity
that could lead to cancellation of scores.
Test takers signify their agreement to the policies and
procedures by so noting on their answer sheets.
This bill addresses the issues raised by this case by
establishing timelines within which both the test agency and the
school district must act in response to allegations of improper
testing procedures. In addition, this bill requires that
seating arrangements be documented, using a seating chart
template provided by the test agency, and requires the documents
be retained for at least two years. According to the author's
office, only a small number of pupils were actually seated at
round tables, and the rest were seated correctly. However, the
inability of the district to show which pupils were sitting
where resulted in the cancellation of a larger number of scores.
While this bill provides for an immediate investigation upon
learning of an allegation of improper testing procedures, it
does not quite close the loop by requiring a timely notification
to pupils of their right to retake the test in time to meet
college admissions deadlines. Accordingly, staff recommends
that the bill be amended to require a test agency, when it has
completed its investigation, to immediately notify the school in
charge of the test site and require the school to notify the
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affected test subjects within two business days. In addition,
it is highly unlikely that a complaint would be made more than
one year after the administration of a test. Therefore, staff
recommends that the length of time a school in charge of test
site be required to retain seating charts be reduced from two
years to one year. This will reduce the administrative burden
to schools while still ensuring the charts will be retained long
enough to be used in the event of an investigation.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California School Boards Association
Opposition
None received
Analysis Prepared by : Rick Pratt / ED. / (916) 319-2087