Florida Student Drops Case Against SAT Administrators

Just a few short weeks ago, we wrote about a student in Florida who accused the Educational Testing Service (ETS), the organization which administers College Board’s SAT, of racial bias. As our readers may remember, the student’s October SAT score, which was up by over 300 points from her March exam, was being held for review. But ETS asserted the student’s score wasn’t flagged for review based on the significant jump. Rather, they asserted scores can be flagged because a student’s answers match those of a nearby test-taker or because there isn’t math in the margins of the test booklet to arrive at a final answer that requires some steps. And now, just a few weeks later, we’ve got an update on this case.

Florida Student Chooses Not to Proceed with Case Against SAT Administrators

As reports Jason Hanna for “CNN” in a piece entitled “Florida high school student has dropped her fight to validate her SAT score,” “A Florida high school student has abandoned her fight to validate one of her SAT scores, her attorneys say, weeks after she cried foul over test administrators’ decision to investigate it over signs of possible cheating. Kamilah Campbell, a Miami Gardens high school senior, instead is considering another retake of the SAT, her attorneys and the College Board said in a joint statement given to CNN on Thursday. ‘The attention generated by Kamilah’s case has been extremely stressful and emotionally traumatizing for her,’ the statement from Ben Crump Law, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, and the College Board reads.”

We can empathize with this student. It’s tough to take on the makers of the SAT as a high schooler. It’s tough being David, challenging mighty Goliath. And we imagine it was particularly tough for her to take on Goliath all as she applied to colleges, a process that is stressful enough in its own right. And while we’ll likely never know what actually happened in this case, we’re going to choose to believe that this student is telling the truth and didn’t cheat on the October SAT administration. What can we say…we’re always pulling for David.