FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Stung by the arrest of seven Long Island teenagers accused of cheating on the SAT, the College Board said Tuesday that it was hiring a former F.B.I. director to review its security procedures, and that by the next exams, Nov. 5, it would begin analyzing more test scores for irregularities and increase training for test-center supervisors.
He announced the security measures during a State Senate hearing at Farmingdale State College here in which legislators and school officials repeatedly denounced the College Board and the Educational Testing Service, which administers the SAT test, over what they saw as glaring lapses in security for the high-stakes college-admissions exam.
Nassau County prosecutors filed criminal charges on Sept. 27 against Samuel Eshaghoff, 19, accusing him of being paid to take the SAT for six former and current students at Great Neck North High School. Prosecutors said they expected their inquiry to net more arrests involving at least two more public schools and a private school as early as next week.
The Port Washington district, for instance, requires students to provide two forms of identification for entry to the test, instead of the one required by E.T.S.
Dr. Gordon recalled that a student from nearby Roslyn, who did not have a second form of identification, recently had to get his parents to verify his identity. The mother “chewed my head off,” Dr. Gordon said, but was somewhat mollified after he explained the reason.
Kurt M. Landgraf, president and chief executive of Educational Testing Service, said at the hearing that his company already spent $25 million annually on security, about 10 percent of its overall budget for College Board programs. He said about 3,000 test scores — out of more than two million exams taken — were canceled each year, most after test-center supervisors reported irregularities or because of large jumps from a student’s scores on previous tests.
Raymond Nicosia, the testing company’s director of test security, said that impersonations were a small fraction of those cases, perhaps 150 a year — company officials previously said there were only a few — and that 750 people were generally turned away at test centers because of questionable identification.
“Once we have any inkling that there’s anything improper, we go after them with every means available,” Mr. Landgraf said.
But over more than a decade, testing officials said, about 10 cases — the ones in which money changed hands — have been referred to law enforcement nationwide.
Mr. Kaplan said that since the arrests, he had sent the College Board a proposal for a pilot program in Great Neck that would require students to take the SAT in the district to limit chances of impersonation.
Testing officials said they would consider Mr. Kaplan’s proposal, which also calls for increasing stipends for proctors — they are currently paid $75 for the day — and compensating the school for taking responsibility for the testing security.
Mr. Caperton pointed to the hiring of Mr. Freeh and his management company, which includes former law enforcement officials and security experts, as an indication of how seriously the College Board was taking the issue. (A College Board spokesman would not say how much it was paying him.) “We are deeply disturbed by the cases of test-taker impersonation that have recently been in the headlines and have occasioned this hearing,” Mr. Caperton testified.