A legal challenge is being developed regarding the failure of the Educational testing Service to make its computerized tests available to the blind in an accessible way. The challenge focuses on the "effective communication" provision in the Americans with Disabilities Act. This section requires not simply that information be accessible or an alternative format provided but provided in such a way that it is as effective as that provided to others. Computerized tests take significantly less time to complete and the results are sent to schools in a matter of hours rather than weeks with the paper version of the test. The article below tells more. kelly The Chronicle of Higher Education Friday, February 9, 2001 Blind Students Fault ETS for Not Making Computerized Tests More Accessible By ANDREA L. FOSTER In the time it takes Jeremy Johansen, a senior at the University of California at Santa Barbara, to get halfway through the Graduate Record Examination, many of his classmates have finished it and turned it in. That's because Mr. Johansen, who is blind, opted to take the Braille version of the test, while his classmates answer the same exam questions on a computer. He plods through the test with his limited knowledge of Braille, and relies on a reader, whose role is to read the questions and reading material aloud to him. Mr. Johansen decided against taking the computerized version of the exam after he found that the software provided to help him was useless. "The only software they provide is ZoomText, and that has no speech output -- it only has enlargement," he says of the screen magnifier provided by the Educational Testing Service. Mr. Johansen and other members of the National Alliance of Blind Students say they don't understand why E.T.S. doesn't turn to widely available technology to create computerized exams that blind students can take easily. So the alliance plans to pressure E.T.S. to be more accommodating. Last July the group adopted a joint resolution with the American Council for the Blind that calls for an investigation into the testing service's procedures and its plans for serving blind students. The resolution also asks E.T.S. to "implement specific actions that will ensure full and equal access to all E.T.S. testing." Kevin Gonzalez, an E.T.S. spokesman, says the testing service responds to the needs of people with disabilities in many ways. The company provides screen-magnification and color-modification software for the visually impaired, pays for readers or writers, allows a test-taker unlimited or extra time, and provides private rooms for those who request them. If no private room is available, the testing center will be closed for everyone but the person with the disability, he says. The alliance is also urging the civil-rights office of U.S. Department of Education to prohibit the testing service from flagging exams that are given under modified conditions for people with disabilities. E.T.S. announced Wednesday that it would stop the practice on some of its own standardized tests, including the G.R.E. But the policy change does not apply to tests that E.T.S. administers for the College Board, including the SAT. The shift settles a bias lawsuit brought against the testing service in August 1999 by Mark Breimhorst, an aspiring business-school student who has no hands. (See an article from The Chronicle, February 8.) April Shinholster, a graduate student at Western Michigan University who is president of the blind-students alliance, cheered Wednesday's announcement. She says flagged tests may stigmatize disabled people and devalue their scores. The alliance's assertive stance on admissions exams comes as E.T.S. is increasingly replacing traditional paper exams with computer-based tests. With some exceptions, E.T.S. administers only the computerized version of the Graduate Record Examination, the Graduate Management Admission Tests, the Test of English as a Foreign Language, and parts of the Praxis test. The Praxis test evaluates teachers' academic skills, subject knowledge, and classroom performance. Ms. Shinholster says the alliance is in the process of drafting a letter to E.T.S. that fleshes out the alliance's resolution. She says that the group wants to have a cooperative relationship with the testing service. Alliance members say their concerns include the following: While nondisabled students take 30 minutes to an hour to finish an E.T.S. computerized exam, it takes visually impaired students as long as seven hours to complete the paper version. Scores from Graduate Record Examinations completed on paper take several weeks to reach colleges, while those completed on the computer can reach colleges within hours. Students should be able to use a device that converts digital data to a Braille display, which is especially useful for reading-comprehension or verbal-analogy questions. Current test-preparation materials are not helpful to blind students. "A lot of strategies in printed manuals don't totally apply to working with the reader," Mr. Johansen says. Mr. Johansen, who is treasurer of the alliance, also complains that E.T.S. procedures are opaque. "When I started looking into taking the Graduate Record Exam, it was hard to find cohesive information about what I needed to do to set up accommodations and register properly," he says. He adds that he registered last October to take the test but didn't hear back from E.T.S. until the second week of January. He also says he didn't have an opportunity to meet his reader before taking the exam. "We didn't have an understanding about how best to work together, and because of that, time was spent working out logistics instead of taking the test," he says. Mr. Gonzalez of the E.T.S. says his company has been working with the Education Department's civil-rights office to be more responsive to the needs of visually impaired students who choose to take computer-based tests. _________________________________________________________________