SAT Score SNAFU
The April 10th People Magazine reported that Pearson Education Management miscalculated SAT test scores for 4,400 college applicants. Only after a few students coughed up $50 to have their tests manually graded did the error come to light. Scores were high by as much as 50 points and low by as much as 400! Sheldon Steinbach, general council for the American Council on Education said: "This has played havoc with this year's admission process."The Costs
1. Rework at colleges to reassess rejected students.
2. Student's loss of scholarships and desired college admissions due to low scores.
3. Parental dissatisfaction and family conflict over scores.
Root Cause
Pearson blames the rain which caused test forms to expand causing highly calibrated machines to misread the results. If that's their best guess, then my SAT scores from 1969 are in doubt. Any chance it rained in the past or it might rain in the future during SAT testing?
Wrong Answer: Water is not a root cause. Just like the butterfly ballot, design of the test materials is at fault. The root cause is test forms that expand when subjected to moisture or miscalibrated readres. My guess is that there's some paper formulation that doesn't react significantly to moisture. Or there's some way to align the form so that the mechanical readers aren't confused.
If Florida Power and Light, which does business in arguably the wettest state in the U.S., can find ways to waterproof electrical connections to prevent power outages, then SAT tests can find a way to create better forms or smarter readers.
Mistakes like these are costing our children their future. Isn't it time to get wise about process improvement?
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