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"Gertrude and Claudius" by John Updike
In his 19th novel, Updike spins a tale of feverish and furtive sex and death in a masterly prequel to "Hamlet."
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[02/09/00]

Dear Mr. Blue
Faithful for now
Does my crush on another woman mean there's something wrong with my marriage?
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"S.: A Novel About the Balkans" by Slavenka Drakulic
A fierce novel brings home the horrors of the Bosnian war -- rape, torture and the sexual slavery of Muslim women.
By Brigitte Frase
[02/08/00]

Bogus bride
The University of Arizona Press passed off "I Married Wyatt Earp" as a historical document. It's not.
By Andrew Richard Albanese
[02/08/00]

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A beautiful but heavy-handed new novel by the author of "Henry and Clara" evokes a post-Civil War Washington of scheming politicians and love-struck astronomers.
By Christopher Shea
[02/07/00]

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Richard Atkinson, president of the University of California Board of Regents, thinks so: "I would like to replace the SAT with the high school exit exam," he said in response to a Jan. 9 Los Angeles Times report on a growing trend of white, male high school students from affluent families being given "extra time to complete the SAT because of a claimed learning disability."

The article, headlined "New Test-Taking Skill: Working the System," told of how savvy parents find a psychologist willing to make a diagnosis based on small or nonexistent quirks in their child's testing habits.

The University of California is reviewing how it handles scores from learning-disabled students. The College Board, which administers the SAT, says its test isn't the problem, since any standardized test can be abused.

"I didn't really believe this before I started consulting for the College Board," says San Francisco educational psychologist Jane McClure, who has reviewed some of the phony diagnoses. "But there really are some psychologists who will take differences that are within the normal range and call them a learning disability."

The Times found a high concentration of "learning disabled" accommodations in wealthy neighborhoods, especially among prep-school students, and a much lower concentration in poor neighborhoods. An accommodation usually means 90 extra minutes for the test (four and a half instead of the usual three hours). The total number of accommodations has risen by 50 percent since 1994. Most accommodations are for valid disabilities, such as dyslexia or attention deficit disorder, but McClure says that recognizing a dishonest diagnosis can be tricky.

"When those reports go to school people who don't have expertise in this area," McClure says, "it's hard for them to tell whether it's legitimate." Any "disabled" diagnosis from a medical doctor carries weight with high schools, testing organizations and colleges, she adds, because no one wants to get sued for assuming a student isn't disabled. A visit to an educational psychologist, legitimate or not, can cost more than $2,000.

On Jan. 19, the University of California president's office announced that its admissions people would review how they read learning-disabled scores (which are flagged with an "N" for nonstandard administration) and reconsider the College Board's criteria for "disability." Throughout the country, only 1.9 percent of students gain extended time, and only a fraction of the diagnoses are found to be dishonest, so the problem is small. But since the end of statewide affirmative action in 1997, the University of California has been pressured by minorities to prove that its admissions process is fair.

"We need to find out now if our admissions officers even [notice] nonstandard test scores," says Carla Ferri, director of admissions for the UC system. "I didn't think that they even looked at the piece of information," meaning the "N" beside the number. Extended-time scores, in other words, may have slid by without a second glance.

Admissions counselors at Harvard and Stanford also say an "N" next to an SAT score would probably go unobserved in the applications-process blizzard. According to Margot Carroll, Harvard's senior admissions officer, "We probably wouldn't notice, just because tests are only one of the things that we look at. And the other parts of the application, such as teacher recommendations and grades, are so important."

Jean Lippman, Stanford University's senior associate director of admissions, adds, "I think admissions folks always fear that kind of trendy behavior popping up" -- like unexplained "N's" next to a test score -- "but we're not seeing it."

The Times counted 47,000 nonstandard tests, out of 2.5 million total, and estimated that only a small fraction -- "hundreds or perhaps thousands" -- were administered to disingenuously disabled kids. The clue lies in the percentages: While the nationwide fraction of nonstandard tests is only 1.9 percent, the number jumps to nearly 10 percent in some New England prep schools and wealthy districts in California.

"This really pisses me off," says Paul Kanarek, who owns a Princeton Review test-preparation franchise in Southern California. "My fear is that the pressure will build, and kids who are legitimately disadvantaged won't be given the time of day by universities."

Kanarek, a sworn enemy of the Educational Testing Service, says he runs prep classes to undermine the idea that the SAT measures "natural" aptitude. Wealthy families in Orange County pay him to teach their kids tricks to improve their scores, but he also offers free courses for the underprivileged. Kanarek has a single refrain about the test: "Please just acknowledge the fact that the SAT responds well when you throw resources at it. And if one group has them and another one doesn't, it's not fair."

Next page | Parents aren't the only ones who can work a test.