Why did I get my hopes up?
You know, when I first saw that the New York Times (subscrip required) was covering the controversial decision made by the College Board not to flag scores from SATs given to disabled test-takers under non-standard conditions, I was so relieved that this issue was being featured. After all, last year Educational Testing Service agreed to stop flagging disabled students' scores on the GMAT and the TOEFL, among others, and this was a very controversial decision from a psychometric viewpoint. However, my joy turned to annoyance as, once again, the NYT gave most of the column space, in an article ostensibly about testing, to quotes from the anti-testing crowd and others critical of the College Board, and included exactly one sentence that got at the heart of this topic, and then only indirectly.
Let's state this as clearly as possible so that there's no room for misinterpretation, shall we? Test administrators flag tests given under non-standard conditions for one reason and one reason only - to warn those interpreting the tests that the predictive validity and reliability of the test cannot be guaranteed. Period. Testing organizations don't flag non-standard test scores in order to be "stigmatizing and discriminatory" (attributed to "advocates for the disabled"). Testing organizations don't flag these scores so that "colleges might discriminate against" these students (attributed to Sid Wolinsky of Disability Rights Advocates). And testing organizations don't flag these scores because they want to make sure they won't "level the playing field for kids with legitimate disabilities" (attibuted to - who else? - FairTest). This is, pardon my language, so much horse puckey, and the reporters who cover these stories have no qualms about passing it on to you.
Does the NYT bother to mention the actual, valid, psychometric reason for flagging non-standard scores? Well, they do have one quote, buried in the middle of the article, by Susan Wertheimer, associate director of admissions at the University of Vermont, who says, "If the idea is that the untimed test results are just as valid as the timed, the results should be the results, period." That's just it - the College Board has no proof that the untimed test scores are as valid as the timed ones. The test developers try to insure that the tests are valid under different conditions, but they don't have enough data to show with confidence that an SAT score of 1300 means the same when given under different timing conditions (usually test-takers with learning disabilities, or ones with AD/HD, are given untimed or time-and-a-half tests). Admissions officers who use non-standard test scores in their admissions decisions may not be making accurate predictions with accommodated scores. That's all the flagging is meant to convey, and that is the only meaning the testing organizations have ever assigned to these test scores. The "flag" is not simply a symbol attached to a score - a letter is sent out accompanying a flagged score that explains the non-standard conditions.
The flagging is meant to convey nothing about the test taker to an admissions officer, only the conditions under which the test was given. Flagging a test score is not the equivalent of putting a stumbling block in front of a disabled college candidate - rather, choosing not to flag non-standard scores is a surreal denial of the fact that an accommodated test was requested in the first place. And removing the flagging does indeed increase the potential for abuse (Overlawyered.com has more on that here), although stringent requirements for the disability documentation should help prevent fraudulent claims.
Seriously, though, who could honestly believe in this day and age that the purpose of flagging the test is to discriminate against disabled test takers, as though the College Board doesn't want those people to go to college? Do disability-rights advocates truly believe that? If the advocates only read the NYT (which couldn't be bothered to present the reason for flagging), or they only listen to people like FairTest, I guess they do. *Sigh* I'll just sit here and contemplate the irony in FairTest, who often claims that standardarized tests are not valid predictors of college work, advocating the use of test scores that very well may be invalid.