Discusses the current practice in the U.S. of standardized testing of teachers as a response to the perceived failures of public schools. Focuses on the position that this practice reduces the already low percentage of minority teachers in the schools. Reviews testing practices in various states and the consequences encountered. (SA)

The Racial Attitudes and Perceptions Survey (RAPS) was developed to obtain information from black and white military personnel, including reports of the frequencies of specific discriminatory behaviors and the tension levels associated with each race. The instrument was evaluated in terms of its construct validity and its reliability. Attitudes…

The evidence is against the single-group validity hypothesis that some tests will be valid for whites but not for blacks and vice versa. The evidence suggests that the differential validity hypothesis that some tests will be more valid for one race than the other will also prove false. (Author/IRT)

Proposition 48 of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which calls for tougher academic standards for students seeking to participate in Division I athletics, discriminates against Black athletes and historically Black colleges and universities. Furthermore, the best athletes are not always the best students; the bill limits the…

The importance of developing culturally specific tests for black children is addressed, along with the overall issue of whether a criterion used to discriminate among groups is valid for the population for which it is used. In addition, a brief historical review illustrates accessibility to full participation of citizens and noncitizens of early…

The Federal Service Entrance Examination (FSEE) is one of the competitive examinations used to screen junior level applicants for managerial, technical, and professional occupations in some 50 U. S. Government agencies. It consists of 95 objective test questions designed to measure the applicant's vocabulary, reading comprehension, knowledge of…

Describes the development and validation of a measure of the stress experienced by African Americans as a result of daily encounters with racism and discrimination. The scale has adequate indexes of internal consistency and fair-to-adequate estimates of test-retest stability. Several other factors also indicated the measure's reliability. (RJM)

This paper presents the purpose, format, topics of seminar sessions, and participant recommendations of a conference on educational testing processes and their relation to blacks. The conference was held to familiarize participants with research data demonstrating the fallacies and inconsistencies inherent in the testing process as it relates to…

Four confusing issues that have delayed progress toward an awareness that testing is not a source of unfairness for minority students are discussed: (1) the assumptions underlying most of our psychometric manipulations are often not acknowledged or understood; (2) the extent of the objectivity of psychometrics is frequently exaggerated; (3) the…

Discusses the testing experience as it affects the black community. Contends that nationally standardized tests have: (1) excluded the black population in establishing their norms; (2) become instruments for reinforcement of negative black images; and, (3) been used inadvertently or otherwise to bar blacks from higher education. (DM)

The Belief Polarity Scale, an index of racial prejudice, was administered to 76 educators of mixed racial background before and after an interracial human relations workshop. Analysis of variance revealed that polarity scores discriminated by race and that change in polarity was a function of pretest dogmatism. (Author/BW)

Respondents Harley and Sellers, both Negroes, whose applications to become police officers in the District of Columbia had been rejected, claimed that the Department's recruiting procedures, including a written test of verbal skill, were racially discriminatory. The District Court ruled that there was no intentional discrimination; but the Court…

Discusses two cases in which Black schoolchildren challenged the validity and cultural fairness of standardized, individually administered intelligence tests; Larry P. versus Riles and PASE versus Hannon. Describes the diametrically opposed outcomes of the decisions, highlights important similarities, and critically analyzes each court's reasoning…

Testing in the United States has had a checkered history since tests were developed and used at the beginning of this century. In the earlier part of the century, test results were used to justify the exclusion of immigrants from parts of Europe. More recently, they have come under attack as restricting the access of blacks to jobs and education.…