Emily Sortor  |  May 22, 2020

Category: Education

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Students say that the AP test website offered to students during the coronavirus outbreak was faulty and negatively affected their results.

The National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest) has joined four students and their families in filing a class action lawsuit saying that the at-home AP test website used by high schoolers during the coronavirus pandemic was riddled with bugs, and in some cases these problems will require students to re-take the tests.

FairTest, the students and their parents have filed their claims anonymously against The College Entrance Examination Board (The College Board), the organization that offers the Advanced Placement program, and Educational Testing Service, the makers of Advanced Placement tests.

The students claim that they all had to take their tests on the buggy AP test website and were negatively affected by the College Board’s ineffective and unfair testing platform.

Some of the problems included answers not saving, screens going blank, or only partial answers being uploaded. In addition to technical problems, the system allegedly disadvantages certain students with a lack of access to resources that facilitate them taking the test.

The AP test COVID-19 interruption class action lawsuit explains that in March 2020, schools had to close due to the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to help stop or slow the spread of the coronavirus. This also affected standardized testing, an important element in students’ college applications.

One kind of standardized test that a high school student may need to take is an Advanced Placement test, explain the students, which is the culmination of an Advanced Placement course, a program of study set up by the College Board.

These classes, along with the results that a student earns on their Advanced Placement tests can affect college admissions and can count towards college course credits if the student scores high enough, say the students.

The students note that the College Board reaps significant profits from the AP program, as well as from the tests that students take at the end of their AP classes.

According to the students, this profitability motivated the College Board to move their AP tests online, so that students could take them while complying with stay-at-home orders and other coronavirus regulations.

However, multiple critics including school counselors, families of students, and advocates shared with the College Board the inequities and possible unfairness of this strategy. These critics reportedly stressed that moving the AP tests online would disadvantage students who did not have access to a computer, reliable internet, a quiet workspace, or other resources.

Unlike past years, AP test exams were taken online in light of the coronavirus pandemic.Despite these concerns, the College Board allegedly began offering testing online, say the students.

The College Board AP testing class action lawsuit explains that the College Board admitted that the online testing they had developed had issues, but did not make an effort to change policies to make the testing more fair. 

It was not until the College Board experienced a “measurable failure rate” in uploading exams after three days of at-home testing that the College Board would attempt to change its policies.

Allegedly, it was clear before testing began that the at-home testing would be discriminatory, but its inefficacies became even more clear after just one day of testing.

According to the students, anywhere between five and 20 percent of students were unable to submit their test responses through the at-home testing platform, though the failure rate has reportedly been as high as 30 parent. 

The AP test class action lawsuit states that the College Board has not offered remedies to the problems. Instead, students who had experienced the problem of having their answers not scored or incompletely logged were merely told to retake the exam over the summer, say the students.

Unfortunately, even trying to sign up for make-up exams after experiencing technical difficulties came with its own slew of difficulties, report the students.

Despite these failures, the College Board states that the organization intends to move all tests, like the SAT, to an at-home format, signaling further discriminatory and inaccessible testing conditions, say the students. 

Has your education or the education of your loved ones been affected by the coronavirus pandemic? If so, how? Share your experiences in the comments below.

The plaintiffs are represented by Phillip A. Baker and Jennifer L. Stone of Baker Keener & Nahra LLP, and Marci Lerner Miller and Christine N. Hoffman of Miller Advocacy Group. 

The At-Home AP Test Website Class Action Lawsuit is J.P., et al. v. Educational Testing Services, et al., Case No. 2:20-cv-04502, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. 

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3 thoughts onCollege Board Class Action Alleges Faulty At-Home AP Test

  1. M. Cades says:

    Count me in! My son’s AP Physics test was improperly scored due to not receiving correct accommodations for his learning disabilities.

  2. Claudine Albano says:

    Would like to. Be apart of the lawsuit against College Board.

  3. Jennifer Cruze says:

    As the dean of a large high school there have been glitches. AP responded with an alternative submission method using email responses during Week 2 (just this last week). My own daughter is a senior and took 5 AP tests this way. During week one, she took 2 exams and had no problems with uploads; however, last week she had issues uploading her answers for AP Macroeconomics and AP Statistics – despite following all published methodology, the file size was rejected as too large- so she dropped the images into a google doc and then sent it off. Then emailed it, then sent in a “digital issue during testing issue” which could generate a future “retest” but the date for her to be notified will not be available for another 10 days- so, she knows nothing. We and really, she just wished she had confirmation her answers were received. But, that’s not possible. Trevor Packer’s Twitter (VP for AP for College Board) has been historically quite revealing. I feel like the kids have been guinea pigs. I truly hope this method provides a proper measurement to award those deserving students that worked diligently to learn the college-based curriculum to earn earn college credit which could somehow be measured by 1 or 2 free response questions in such a small amount of time.

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