The Chronicle: New York Lawmaker Asks State Attorney General to Compel College Board to Release SAT Report
A New York state senator has told the College Board that he will not wait another week to receive an independent report on last fall’s SAT-scoring errors. The legislator asked New York’s attorney general on Friday to help him obtain the document immediately.
One week ago, Sen. Kenneth P. LaValle, a Republican and chairman of the Senate’s Higher Education Committee, subpoenaed the College Board’s president, Gaston Caperton, to produce the report at a hearing scheduled for Friday. The College Board initially refused to comply with the subpoena, arguing that the report was legally privileged information. Late on Thursday, however, lawyers for the College Board informed Senator LaValle that the Manhattan-based nonprofit organization would release the document, but not before July 24.
Senator LaValle balked at the proposal, announcing that he expected to receive the report at the Friday hearing, in Farmingdale, N.Y., which was also attended by three other New York legislators. When the hearing began, Senator LaValle asked if Mr. Caperton was present but heard only silence. Senator LaValle then asked if any representative of the College Board had come to deliver the report, but none had done so. At the time, Mr. Caperton was in Orlando, Fla., attending the College Board’s annual Advanced Placement conference.
After the hearing, Senator LaValle told The Chronicle that he had asked Eliot Spitzer, New York’s attorney general and a Democrat, to review the matter. The legislator said he planned to seek a court order compelling Mr. Caperton to deliver the report this week. Under New York law, a court could also direct a sheriff to bring Mr. Caperton before Senator LaValle’s committee.
The College Board had said it could not produce the report before July 24 because it first needed to obtain permission from third parties — including Pearson Educational Measurement, the company that scores the SAT — that are apparently named in the document. Senator LaValle said that the College Board had offered to give him a redacted copy of the report, but that he refused the offer.
“This makes me suspect that they will amend or vet the report before they give it to us on the 24th,” said Senator LaValle. “What is the College Board hiding?”
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