Monday, April 10, 2006

It was only a matter of time 

An unidentified high school senior in Dix Hills, N.Y., whose SAT was scored low incorrectly is suing the College Board and a testing company it hired to scan the tests and manage essay scoring.

The lawsuit, which was filed Friday in Minnesota, is the first since the College Board notified 4,411 students last month that their scores from the October test were too low. The suit seeks class-action status for the students, asking for unspecified damages and an order that the 600 tests that were incorrectly scored too high also be adjusted.
Source. Given the deterrence effect a low score has on where students send their applications, I'm betting the unspecified damages will end up being substantial. Pearson has badly handled the fallout of their error -- which, for all we know, might have been a freak event -- and if I'm the College Board, I buy out their contract at once.

If you don't get out ahead of your mistakes, they will devour you. See the meat industry (Tyson Chicken) and its buyouts after meat gets tainted with something. That's the model Pearson didn't learn from.

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