High school senior sues College Board over incorrectly low SAT score
A high school senior whose SAT exam was scored incorrectly low is suing the makers of the exam and the company that was hired to score the tests.
According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit, filed Friday in Minnesota, is believed to be the first of its kind against the College Board since the organization announced last month that 4,411 students received incorrectly low scores and 600 students received incorrectly high scores from an October sitting of the SAT.
The suit also names Pearson Educational Measurement, the for-profit company that graded the tests. Pearson, which has offices in Minnesota, has attributed the scoring error to unusually high humidity at its grading centers, which caused some answer documents to expand.
Those behind the lawsuit, filed by attorneys for an unidentified student from Dix Hills, N.Y., seek class action status. The lawyers want anyone who took the October test, except those who received a higher score, to join the lawsuit. They also want an order requiring adjustment of inflated scores and a refund of the test fee. Damages sought are unspecified.
Nearly 500,000 students took the October test, and the error affected less than 1 percent of the results.
Maryland college's unusual choice for homecoming king: a womanAdministrators at a private liberal arts college in Maryland are reviewing its homecoming rules after students made a somewhat unusual choice for homecoming king: a lesbian.
The Associated Press reported that Jennifer Jones of Hood College beat out three men for the honor at the Feb. 18 homecoming dance. Jones said her victory was a plus for the Frederick, Md., college.
But not everyone is happy with Jones' selection.
"She is not a man," said Singleton Newman, a senior and candidate for homecoming queen, in the AP report. "It is a gender issue, and she is a woman."
Santo Provenzano, who was in the running for homecoming king, said Jones' selection hurt the competition. "It discourages guys from wanting to take part in the future," he said, according to the AP.
Hood's student activities director told the AP that all homecoming events will be reviewed and possibly changed based on student input.
This was only the second annual homecoming at Hood, which didn't allow male students to live on campus until 2003. Jones tried to run for homecoming prince last year, but the student committee would not let her on the ballot, even though she had the required number of signatures.
-Stu Woo
