Test Policy and the Politics of Opportunity Allocation: The Workplace and the Law

308 Pages·1989·8.42 MB·English

by  Bernard R. Gifford (auth.)

Test Policy and the Politics
of Opportunity Allocation:
The Workplace and the Law
Evaluation in Education and
Human Services
Editors:
George F. Madaus, Boston College, Chestnut
Hill, MA, U.S.A.
Daniel L. Stufflebeam, Western Michigan
University, Kalamazoo, MI, U.S.A.
National Commission on Testing
and Public Policy
Gifford, B.; Test Policy and the Politics of
Opportunity Allocation: The Workplace and
the Law
Gifford, B.; Test Policy and Test Performance:
Education, Language, and Culture
Test Policy and the Politics
of Opportunity Allocation:
The Workplace and the Law
edited by
Bernard R. Gifford
Graduate School of Education
University of California, Berkeley
Kluwer Academic Publishers
Boston Dordrecht London
Distributors lor North Amertca:
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Ubrary 01 Congres. Cataloglng-In-Publlcatlon Data
Test policy and the politics of allocation: the workplace and the law
I [edited] by Bernard R. Gifford.
p. cm. - (Evaluation in education and human services)
"Proceedings prepared under the aegis of the National Commission
on Testing and Public Policy"-Introd.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-94-010-7629-6 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-2502-1
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-2502-1
1. Employment tests-Law and legislation-United States
Congresses. 2. Educational tests and measurements-Law and
legislation-United States-Congresses. 3. Employment tests-United
States-Congresses. 4. Educational tests and measurements-United
States-Congresses. I. Gifford, Bernard R. II. National
Commission on Testing and Public Policy (U.S.) III. Series
KF3457.3.A75T47 1989
344.73'012596-dcI9
[347.30412596] 89-2381
CIP
Copyright © 1989 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1989
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of
the publisher, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 101 Philip Drive, Assinippi Park,
Norwell, Massachusetts 02061.
Contents
List of Contributors vii
Introduction ix
I
GROUNDING TESTING POLICY: THREE PERSPECTIVES
The Allocation of Opportunities and the Politics of
Testing: A Policy Analytic Perspective
Bernard R. Gifford 3
The Mandarin Mentality: Civil Service and University
Admissions Testing in Europe and Asia
Carolyn Webber 33
Testing Companies, Trends, and Policy Issues:
A Current View from the Testing Industry
John J. Fremer 61
IT
TESTING AND THE LAW:
TITLE VII AND THE FEDERAL GUIDELINES
Employment Testing and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Patrick o. Patterson 83
Non-Discriminatory Use of Personnel Tests
Conference Remarks
Donald J. Schwartz 121
The Uniform Guidelines and Subjective Selection Criteria and Procedures
Conference Remarks
Robert Gelerter 127
vi
ill
TESTING AND THE LAW: THE ROLE OF THE COURTS
Testing, Public Policy, and the Courts
Michael A. Rebell 135
Testing in Elementary and Secondary Schools:
Can Misuse Be Avoided?
Norman J. Chachkin 163
IV
TESTING IN THE WORKPLACE:
THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL PERSPECTIVES
Economic Models of Discrimination, Testing, and Public Policy
Robert F. Adams 191
Ability Testing for Job Selection: Are the Economic Claims Justified?
Henry M. Levin 211
Examples of Testing Programs in the Insurance Industry and a
Discussion of Employment Testing Policy Issues
Andrew G. Neiner and William D. Love 233
Test Scores and Evaluation: The Military as Data
John Sibley Butler 265
Los Angeles Testing Policies
Conference Remarks
Raymond C. Fisher 293
Index 299
Contributing Authors
Robert F. Adams, Professor, Board of Studies in Economics, Crown College,
University of California, Santa Cruz
John Sibley Butler, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University
of Texas, Austin
Norman J. Chachkin, Assistant Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and
Educational Fund, Inc., New York
Raymond C. Fisher, Member and Past President, Los Angeles Civil Service
Commission; Attorney at Law, Heller Ehrman, Los Angeles, California
John J. Fremer, Senior Development Leader, Educational Testing Service,
Princeton, New Jersey
Robert Gelerter, Chief, Special Studies and ADP Section, Office of Federal
Contract Compliance Programs, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, D.C.
Bernard R. Gifford, Dean and Chancellor's Professor of Education, Graduate
School of Education, University of California, Berkeley
Henry M. Levin, Director, Center for Educational Research at Stanford;
Professor of Education and Economics, Graduate School of Education, Stanford
University, Stanford, California
William D. Love, Assistant Vice-President, Agent Selection Services,
Life Insurance Marketing and Research Association, Hartford, Connecticut
Andrew G. Neiner, Director, Special Services, Human Resources Division,
Life Office Management Association, Atlanta, Georgia
Patrick o. Patterson, Co-Director, Western Regional Office, NAACP Legal
Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., Los Angeles, California
Michael A. RebeIl, Attorney at Law, Rebell and Katzive, New York
Donald J. Schwartz, Staff Psychologist, Research and Analytic Services,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington, D.C.
Carolyn Webber, Research Associate, Institute of Urban and Regional
Development, University of California, Berkeley
Introduction
Bernard R. Gifford
In the United States, the standardized test has become one of the major
sources of information for reducing uncertainty in the determination of
individual merit and in the allocation of merit-based educational, training, and
employment opportunities. Most major institutions of higher education
require applicants to supplement their records of academic achievements with
scores on standardized tests. Similarly, in the workplace, as a condition of
employment or assignment to training programs, more and more employers
are requiring prospective employees to sit for standardized tests. In short, with
increasing frequency and intensity, individual members of the political
economy are required to transmit to the opportunity marketplace scores on
standardized examinations that purport to be objective measures of their
abilities, talents, and potential. In many instances, these test scores are the
only signals about their skills that job applicants are permitted to send to
prospective employers.
THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TESTING AND PUBLIC POLICY
In view of the importance of these issues to our current national agenda, it was
proposed that the Human Rights and Governance and the Education and
Culture Programs of the Ford Foundation support the establishment of a ''blue
ribbon" National Commission on Testing and Public Policy to investigate some
of the major problems as well as the untapped opportunities created by recent
trends in the use of standardized tests, particularly in the workplace and in
schools. The commission's charter is to conduct a systematic, policy-oriented
analysis of these issues, particularly the role that standardized tests-as
measures of individual merit and as predictors of future classroom and
workplace performance-play in the allocation of educational, training, and
employment opportunities.
The three primary objectives of the National Commission on Testing
and Public Policy are:
1. To conduct a comprehensive survey of the array of policy-relevant
issues and problems resulting from the growing use of standardized paper
and-pencil tests in the allocation of educational, training, and employment
opportunities in the United States today, identifying and explicating a critical
subset of these issues that can reasonably be expected to yield to a thorough,
interdisciplinary policy analysis;
2. To commission and coordinate the work of experts from a variety of
disciplines in the analysis of select issues isolated in the first phase, particularly
x Introduction
those that promise to yield suggestions for eliminating some of the more
problematic aspects of testing; and to issue policy-sensitive recommendations
that might inform and influence future directions in testing research, practice,
and policy; and
3. To prepare and disseminate materials resulting from the first and
second phases, designing them for and directing them to audiences with a
strong interest in the proper use of tests to allocate educational, training, and
employment opportunities. This dissemination objective is particularly
important because to make changes in current test policies and practices
requires effective communication and collaboration within and between
different groups of discipline-based testing experts; non-expert test users;
policymakers in education, training, and employment; and representatives of
interest groups that have traditionally been excluded from technical and policy
debates about the uses and consequences of testing.
In accomplishing these three objectives, the commission will focus on a
set of five main issue areas chosen because they call for consideration both of
the functional role of testing within employment, training, and educational
institutions, and of the social consequences of testing in the society as a whole.
1. The political, social, and economic logics of testing in opportunity
allocation: What kinds of political, social, and economic assumptions,
objectives, and constraints influence test makers and test users in the
construction and administration of tests and in the interpretation and use of
test scores?
2. The role of law and regulation in resolving testing conflicts: What are
the possibilities and limitations of preventing and/or ameliorating testing
conflicts through regulation and litigation?
3. Language, culture, and standardized tests: What is the current state
of testing research and development with respect to a) the improved design of
tests administered to individuals from language minority backgrounds;
b) more informed interpretation of the scores of examinees from language
minority backgrounds on existing standardized tests; and c) increasing
understanding of the differential performance of majority and minority
populations on standardized tests?
4. General versus specific functions and methods of testing and
assessment: What are the problems and opportunities associated with the use
of general ability tests, compared to the advantages and disadvantages of
assessing specific skills in specific contexts using devices such as subject
matter achievement tests, essays, biodata questionnaires, assessment centers,
work samples, and the like?
5. Future directions in testing and assessment: How will factors such as
recent advances in cognitive science, technological developments, and the
growing linguistic and cultural diversity of the population affect the
instruments and the methods by which educators and employers identify
Introduction xi
talent and find the best fit between students and educational opportunities,
and between workers and training and job opportunities?
CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME
This is the first volume in a two-volume set that is the first in a series of works to
appear under the aegis of the National Commission on Testing and Public
Policy. The papers were prepared for presentation at a conference to plan the
commission, which took place at the University of California at Berkeley on
December 11-13, 1986. Experts in a number of fields relevant to testing policy
contributed significantly to the shaping of the commission's aims. Each section
is composed of papers focusing on a particular area of interest; in addition to
the formal papers, several sections contain written versions of informal
remarks presented at the conference.
What do we know about the way people use tests in the real world?
Before we can address unsolved problems, we must review the givens of testing
use and policy. The papers in this volume were commissioned with that
purpose in mind. Each paper provides a background to a set of issues central to
the making of policy regarding standardized test use. Here I will briefly review
the issues and dimensions that emerge in each section, issues and dimensions
that will lay part of the ground work for the findings and recommendations of
the National Commission on Testing and Public Policy. Taken together, the
papers in this volume point to the view that standardized testing and the
interpretation of its results are inextricably linked to political factors.
The first section, "Grounding Testing Policy: Three Perspectives,"
presents three papers which examine some of the basic notions that underlie
current testing policy. Each paper takes a different perspective: a policy
analyst, a historian, and a member of the testing industry highlight what they
consider to be the key beliefs, understandings, and institutional factors that
drive testing policy in the real world.
The second and third sections consider testing policy and its
relationship to regulation and law. "Testing and the Law: Title VII and the
Federal Guidelines" focuses mainly on the way that federal regulations
regarding testing for employee selection have developed out of the purpose
and language of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as interpreted by various
administrations, the judiciary, and the testing profession. These papers
chronicle the development of federal guidelines as testing policy and practice
shaped and changed them. They also describe how government regulation has
shaped and changed testing policy and practice.
The papers in the third section, "Testing and the Law: The Role of the
Courts," examine the role played by the courts in the testing arena. The
positive and negative contributions of the courts in several educational cases