Any student who applies to college or graduate school knows that the burden to re-test can be costly for students pursuing higher education.
For decades, families have had to navigate a minefield of proof to be granted much-needed accommodations for high stakes exams. The cost may really add up.
We have posted on the Department of Justice’s regulations regarding the ADA at work and at school here.
Although these guidelines clearly stated re-testing for accommodations should not be burdensome and that generally outside testing should be accepted, families have had to fight battles on an individual basis if their particular request for accommodations was denied.
Well, the recent good news is that the Department of Justice has announced at settlement with the Education Testing Service, the company of the Graduate Record Exam and Praxis, a test for teachers and speech language pathologists.
From the report:
“to avoid discrimination on the basis of disability, ETS must:
a. limit its requests for documentation regarding testing accommodations for individuals with disabilities to requests that are “reasonable and limited to the need for the modification, accommodation, or auxiliary aid or service requested”;
b. give “considerable weight to documentation of past modifications, accommodations, or auxiliary aids or services received in similar testing situations, as well as such modifications, accommodations, or related aids and services provided in response to an Individualized Education Program (IEP) provided under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or a plan describing services provided pursuant to section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973”;
c. respond “in a timely manner to requests for modifications, accommodations, or aids to ensure equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities.”
The report noted that the Department of Justice had received many complaints from individuals with disabilities saying the ETS had rejected their requests for accommodations despite years of documentation establishing the need.
One example they shared seemed to describe a gifted student with an ability achievement discrepancy, a common pattern for gifted dyslexics:
“Complainant A.T. received a learning disability diagnosis from a qualified professional as a teenager, and consistently received testing accommodations during high school and through college and graduate school, including extended time for examinations, extra breaks, and a quiet room for test taking. A.T. received those and similar testing accommodations on standardized examinations. A.T. provided documentation of this history of accommodations to ETS, but ETS repeatedly requested that A.T. submit additional documentation establishing that A.T.’s disability was currently causing functional limitations that warranted the requested accommodations by providing documentation within five years of the date of request, which would be costly for A.T.
When A.T. advocated for ETS to follow current federal guidance regarding testing accommodations, ETS’s former Director of the Office of Disability Policy responded, “I question the diagnosis of a learning disability, given the scores from the WISC-III and the WIAT-II when you were a teenager. There is no question that you were functioning in the gifted range (FS IQ 137), but you performed below expectations on only one single subtest of the WISC-III at that time, with little to no impact on your academic achievement skills.” This ETS professional had never met or evaluated A.T. ETS declined to provide A.T. with any testing accommodations.”
To be sure, other higher education testing services like the College Board and ACT will be reflecting on this case; students and their families should be aware that a wide variation may exist among psychologists and their understanding of dyslexia.
The settlement ruling is a great reminder to submit a complaint with the Department of Justice when discrimination occurs; it is the only way to impact testing agencies and large educational institutions.
The DOJ also recently released a letter reminding their students post-secondary institutions like colleges and universities make sure that all of their online materials are fully accessible – so that includes screen readers for those who need them.
In the past, we have heard about difficulties posting in online boards and being required to read and comment on other students’ posts although the sites seem inaccessible and appear to lack text-to speech.
If you’re the student, meet with the teacher and / or someone from the IT department. Common university platforms have them (for example Canvas’ Read Speaker). It may need to be enabled by IT or you may just be shown how to access it.
