Standardized Tests & Minorities, was Re: lbo-talk-digest V1 #3698

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Mon Dec 4 06:36:53 PST 2000


I forget now where I read this, and my memory is not exact. Recently a very interesting piece of research was carried out -- I think only with black students but perhaps with women too.

They gave the *same* test to two different groups of students. They told *one* group that it was a standardized test but did not give that information to the second group.

The students did *worse* when told it was a standardized test.

Standardized tests by their very nature, regardless of how they are constructed, are vicious, and are used only for vicious purposes. Such tests like the WTO cannot be reformed, they can only be destroyed. There is only one issue that can be legitimately debated using standarized tests -- the issue of the use of standardized tests. One can learn about tests from studying them, but one can learn nothing about the people who are taking them (except the tautology that a given testtaker does well or badly on*that* test).

As far as predicting success in college composition, the number of bathrooms or tvs in the home make equally good predictors.

Carrol



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