Trouble at Trabuco

A lawsuit by south Orange County students who don’t want to retake their Advanced Placement exams smacks more of whininess than a search for justice. We’re sure there were many students at Trabuco Hills High School who didn’t cheat on their tests, just as we know for certain that some students did. But the circus atmosphere as the school administered AP tests to nearly 400 students means that the Educational Testing Service cannot reasonably determine the validity of the scores.

The ETS, which operates the AP program of college-level classes taught at high schools, describes a chaotic scene of adult irresponsibility at Trabuco Hills that flouted numerous rules of high-stakes testing. Students were seated too close together and were allowed to converse, check out study aids, send text messages and leave the testing rooms in groups. Proctors reportedly left the rooms themselves and were seen talking, reading or even sleeping. Ten students have admitted to cheating.

As the overseer of the SAT and other staples of university admissions exams, the testing service has a responsibility to ensure their integrity, for the sake of both the students who take them and the colleges that consider the resulting scores. The students’ lawyer claims the ETS should have examined the scores for evidence of cheating. But that’s not the key issue. The testing conditions were outside any acceptable boundaries, rendering the tests automatically invalid. It’s not the ETS’ job to prove the students cheated; rather, it must make certain, given the reason for doubt, that they didn’t.

Where the students and their parents have a valid complaint is with Saddleback Valley Unified School District. What discipline is being meted out to the proctors who failed so badly at their duties? How will the district help students prep for the retests?

The students weren’t flunked on the exams as though they were cheaters; they simply have to take them over in August. They don’t lose out on university admissions; the retests are free, and the ETS has put special procedures in place to start grading the tests immediately so that passing scores can be used for college credit. Yes, it wasn’t the students’ fault, and yes, they have to pick up the books again. But the importance of curbing cheating, which has become rampant at high schools, outweighs the inconvenience they will bear. If only their parents had underlined this lesson instead of teaching them that the appropriate response to every unfair event is to go to court.