Testing group reveals why it voided AP exams of about 400 students at O.C. high school
As a south Orange County high school made plans Wednesday for a mass retesting, the nonprofit group that administers the Advanced Placement exams offered a disturbing picture of the proctoring environment in May that led it to void the tests of nearly 400 students.
Students at Trabuco Hills High School were allowed to talk, consult study aids, send text messages to friends and leave the room in groups during the exam, the Educational Testing Service said.
Meanwhile, an attorney representing many of the students sued ETS on Wednesday, arguing that the Princeton, N.J.-based nonprofit failed to conduct even the most cursory investigation before voiding the students' exams.
An attorney representing ETS conceded that it was impossible to know whether students took advantage of the poor proctoring at the high school to cheat, but said it would be unfair to other AP test takers throughout the nation to allow their scores to stand.
"ETS is a testing service, not a law enforcement agency," ETS attorney Bruce M. Berman wrote in a letter sent Monday to the attorney representing the students. "Thus, it is not required to prove that test takers cheated as a prerequisite to canceling scores. . . . . Individual attestations of innocence are irrelevant."
Students whose tests were voided said the test organization's position defied common sense and assumed every student was guilty.
"I do have a conscience," said Helen Pastores, 18, who had four scores voided and will retake three of the exams in August before she starts her freshman year at USC. "Even though we were put in that environment doesn't mean everyone cheated."
AP exams test college-level work in 22 subject areas that can earn students credit at most colleges and universities, potentially saving them thousands of dollars in tuition, or freeing up their schedules for electives or a second major.
But in early May, one of the largest AP test scandals in a decade unfolded at Trabuco Hills High in Mission Viejo. ETS has strict rules about test-taking protocol, but at Trabuco, as 385 students sat for various subject exams, there were insufficient proctors in classrooms and inadequate monitoring of students, who were allowed to sit close together and face each other. Some proctors were seen reading or sleeping and some left the rooms, according to students.
Ten students later admitted cheating on statistics and economics exams by using their cellphones to send text messages. Use of electronic devices is not allowed during the tests.
