The implementation of any competency testing program must take into consideration the due process clause and the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Examples of the violation of the due process clause would be to implement a testing program without adequate notice or to cover material not taught. Instructional validity must be…

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has had a competency-based vocational instructor approval process for more than two and one-half decades. Perhaps the most important element in this process has been the vocational competency testing. Although some say that Massachusetts is out of step, others feel that Massachusetts has a well-established testing…

Schools frequently use test scores to divide students into groups, i.e., to classify them. In attempting to challenge such procedures, lawyers can draw on a developed body of case law on testing in education, employment, and other areas. Discusses those cases. (JF)

Three important issues related to the testing debate, particularly in the context of college and professional school admissions, are reviewed and evaluated. (Author/AL)

Discusses written and unwritten tests of teachers and such issues as due process, equal protection, and test validity. (IRT)

Reviews legal arguments used to challenge traditional testing programs in prior litigation and indicates how these arguments might be applied in a performance-assessment application. Examines discrimination challenges to performance assessments in employment contexts. Suggests ways to deal with the psychometric issues most likely to be encountered…

This article rebuts comments by G. R. Anrig (1987) on the Settlement Agreement that resolved the racial discrimination suit brought by the Golden Rule Insurance Company against the Educational Testing Service (ETS) and the Illinois Department of Insurance. (TJH)

Discusses how legal issues impinge upon teacher competency testing, describing key legal provisions (antitrust protection, due process, equal protection, substantial adverse impact, and business necessity), and examining each one's impact on testing and teacher certification. Recommendations to help teacher educators ensure legal, credible, and…

Reviews a federal court ruling in Florida stating that minimum competency tests must be fair--that is, they must cover material that has actually been taught. Unfair tests used to determine eligibility for graduation violate the equal protection and due process clauses of the Constitution. (Author/WD)

At the 1977 Educational Testing Service (ETS) Invitational Conference, the ETS Measurement Award was presented to Anne Anastasi. In view of the convergence of measurement and the law, the conference focused on six related issues. Barbara Lerner explored the screening procedures of American professional and graduate schools in "Equal…

Educators find themselves in the position of being ordered to classify pupils for remedial and compensatory programs at the same time that some of their classifying practices are being challenged both in educational research and in court. School classifications are largely the function of testing. The task for educators is to understand the state…

Papers are presented that were prepared as part of a study group of the International Council for Educational Development on criteria and procedures for admission to higher education and the relationship between higher education and the law. In "Access to Higher Education and the Law," Larry G. Simon analyzes the role of law and especially the…

Traditionally, local school boards have had the power to assign students to classes and to set standards for promotion and graduation; with this authority has gone the discretion to decide what role pupil testing will play in the local schools. Courts have been reluctant to interfere with school board decisions on methodology, of which they…

Legal issues of minimum competency testing derive from federal and state constitutional, statutory, and regulatory provisions, and from common law. Constitutional provisions for equal protection, due process, and freedom of belief and privacy, are primarily federal; education provisions are state mandated. Only four court cases have directly…