Close to Home: Tighten extra time rules on SAT, ACT exams

For over 30 years, I have prepared students for the SAT and ACT college-entrance exams. My work spectrum is broad, from families with extremely low incomes to some of the richest families in the world.

I hate the abuses of the extra-time option. Both the SAT and ACT allow students with disabilities to petition for extra time. It's fair that students with legitimate disabilities should be able to get some extra time to take their tests. The biggest problem with the system is what has been exposed in the college admissions scandal: Wealthy families are paying for doctors to diagnose their children with fake learning disabilities, and these students are unfairly receiving extra time to complete their tests.

At the heart of this problem are unscrupulous parents and unscrupulous doctors who have separate goals that align - the parents want their children to have an advantage over other children when they take the SAT or ACT, and the doctors see an easy way to make a lot of money.

I feel that doctors should be criminally charged if they fudge students' learning disabilities merely so that they can make extra money. If doctors know that they can go to prison or face fines for creating false reports, I think most of them will start playing it straight.

The second issue is even easier to fix. When it comes to how extra time tests are conducted, it seems to be the Wild West: high schools are making their own rules for how SATs and ACTs are administered on their campuses. At some schools, my students have even been allowed to take the test over an entire week, meaning they only take one section per day. Many other students are permitted to take the test over a two-day period. Obviously, this is substantially unfair to the majority of students who take the test in a single sitting.

The solution is obvious. All students allotted extra time should be required to take the SAT or ACT in a single sitting. This may mean that a student spends six to seven hours taking a test instead of the standard timed format, which takes nearly 4½ hours from beginning to end with breaks. I know this is a long day, but it's the only way to ensure fairness.

Twenty years ago, I spoke with a woman who had hired me to teach her daughter. This woman said that her daughter had a learning disability and would be getting extra time to take the SAT. Because I want to know the individual natures of my students so that I can best help them, I asked the woman what the learning disability was. She stared at me blankly. It was clear that there wasn't a learning disability - and that this woman hadn't even bothered to create a proper lie to cover the situation.

If my suggestions are taken, maybe we can avoid situations like this.

David Benjamin Gruenbaum and his wife, Heather, co-own Ahead of the Class, an education company in Santa Rosa. Gruenbaum conducts SAT/ACT classes throughout Sonoma County and online.

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