Abstract

Not Just a Test

The author argues that the use of standardized tests is a poor means of measuring the abilities of African American students. With roots all the way back to the beginning of standardized testing in the early twentieth century, the paradigm is familiar: Based on tests taken early in life, lower-scoring people and groups get less educational attention, or more of a basic-skills education aimed at bringing them to minimal levels of competence, whereas higher-scoring people and groups get a richer education supported by more resources--better-trained teachers, more academically challenging curriculums, better opportunities, etc. The rationale for this "ability paradigm," as I will call it, has always been a kind of meritocratic efficiency: maximizing the return on society's investment by investing the most resources in those who, as indicated by test scores, have the ability needed to benefit from those resources. The use of early-in-life test scores to make educational decisions, such as who gets into enriched reading groups and classes, who graduates from junior high school, who gets into college preparatory tracks in high school, who graduates from high school, etc., consistently channels African-Americans into a lower-grade education that sustains their lower test scores, alienates many of them from their education, contributes importantly to their high dropout rates and puts their lives on a course of restricted opportunity.