Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Lawsuit Claims the ACT Sells Students’ Disability Data to Colleges

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday August 15 2018, @12:21AM   Printer-friendly
from the just-getting-to-know-you dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Students are suing a major college admissions test maker for allegedly selling information about their disability statuses with universities, which they say could hurt their chances at getting into schools and impact the rest of their lives.

When students register to take the ACT—a standardized test used for college admissions taken by more than a million high schoolers each year—they answer a barrage of personal questions. As part of this, they are asked to note if they have disabilities that require "special provisions from the educational institution."

The ACT, which is administered by ACT, Inc., is the only real competitor to the College Board's SAT exam. The lawsuit claims that the ACT is selling the data it gleans from those student questionnaires—connected directly to students' individual identities—to colleges, which then use it to make important decisions about admissions and financial aid.

"A lot of students and parents have no idea how these testing agencies, which are gatekeepers to college, are using very sensitive and confidential data in the college admissions process," Jesse Creed, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, told me in a phone call. "[Colleges are] hungry for disability data, because they have limited resources, and it's expensive to educate people with disabilities."

Source: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43pbep/lawsuit-claims-the-act-sells-students-disability-data-to-colleges

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Lawsuit Claims the ACT Sells Students’ Disability Data to Colleges | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 21 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @06:22PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @06:22PM (#721878)

    It's worth noting here that the word "disability" may not refer to what most people immediately think of when they see "disability." Yes, there may be some who are blind (or severely visually-impaired), deaf (or severely impaired), have major dyslexia or other conditions that make learning in a "traditional" classroom difficult.

    As a parent with two children that just got diagnosed with dyslexia, I think that there should be more done to allow dyslexics succeed in a "traditional" classroom. The statistics I got about it had 20% of the population affected by dyslexia to some degree, but the reading programs don't include methods to teach these people. As a result, there was a study that found that over 40% of the prison population was dyslexic, because without the help they need, that can't participate is society well.