Comments on: Why wouldn’t an exam culture favor discriminated-against minorities?

By: Bob Hamilton

Bob Hamilton — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:16:48 +0000

An ‘exam-culture’ may help minorities but in today’s political climate a ‘victim culture’ works a lot better. Look at universities. The left wing faculty will do anything to circumvent any racial discrimination laws like California’s Prop 209 to admit someone whose skin color is the right shade. Asians are the ones who suffer most from this crude racism but it assuages the faculty members’ liberal guilt in some weird way.

By: Jim Howard

Jim Howard — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:35:09 +0000

New Haven spend into the six figures to have their test designed by experts to be bias free, something prior court decisions have required in cases like this.

By: gwern

gwern — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:28:31 +0000

I haven’t seen anything from the actual test myself; but Steve Sailor links to what is apparently a representative basic firefighter exam: http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/04/obama-administration-is-playing-with.html

reha gur: don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Of course an exam is not going to be 100% predictive of performance; nor would the more practical exams administered in the ‘examination centers’ which are more common. Nothing will be 100% predictive except the actual circumstance.

But that doesn’t mean we have to be all wooly-headed and say oh no, these exam scores are meaningless because maybe the 100% guy will freeze up and the dunce who failed will have his heart in the right place. And maybe one day the high school dropout at your local McDonald’s will revolutionize particle physics.

(And actually, I wonder if the exam might not be a bad reflection of what they have to do; if I understand this, these weren’t the guys putting on the suits and leading the vanguard into the flames, but the leadership – the guys who show up and start ordering everyone around. In that sort of role, would freezing up be such an issue?)

By: Dan Lyke

Dan Lyke — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:59:10 +0000

My impression is that the questions are sealed allegedly because releasing them would invalidate the test by giving future test takers a leg up. Of course it could just mean that future test takers would know to look up which sheet controls what sail on the yacht.

To reha’s question, I’m a computer geek and in my field it sure seems like the ability to graduate from college and actual competence are, at best, only roughly correlated. In some cases I think the correlation is negative. I’ve also worked in a highly physical field, as a professional whitewater guide, and I’ve seen some big heavy boats finessed by small people with excellent technique. It’s super hard to come up with an actual objective measure of competence, and given that government jobs are rife with the opportunity for nepotism and abuse I don’t have an alternative to testing.

By: Mark Hurst

Mark Hurst — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:03:08 +0000

As I understand it, the Supreme Court ruling wasn’t so much on the fairness of the test, or even the fairness of promoting by exams in general. Instead, it had to do with New Haven’s reasons for why they threw out the test – namely, that they feared drawing a discrimination lawsuit if they *kept* the test results. I think it was Kennedy who wrote in the majority ruling something to the effect of “fear of a lawsuit is not sufficient grounds to throw out test results.”

By: reha gur

reha gur — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:18:01 +0000

While I am in general agreement with Ricci v. Stefano, basing employment/promotion only on a written test is a bad idea. There is book knowledge and on-the-job knowledge.

In a fire, who would you want to try to save you? The guy who scored 100 on the qualification exam, but freezes up under pressure or the guy who scored a 50, but is willing to risk his life for you?

There are many variables that go into a hiring/promotion process. Test-taking ability should only be one input into that process.