Education Department Issues Final Guide on Use of Test Scores
in Admissions Education Department Issues Final Guide on Use of Test Scores
in Admissions
By SARA HEBEL
December 18, 2000
Academe Today
Washington--The U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights on Friday released its fourth and final version of a guidebook on the use of standardized tests in admissions and other student-placement decisions. The 92-page document is largely the same as the previous draft, released in July, which was significantly altered and toned down from the highly contentious original guidelines, released in April 1999. Department officials said Friday that their final product aimed to give colleges and schools, as well as other state and education agencies, technical assistance and practical guidance on how to use high-stakes tests in educationally sound and legally appropriate ways.
The guidebook makes no changes to federal laws. Norma V. Cantœ, the department's assistant secretary for civil rights, said Friday that officials planned to use and promote the document as a "valuable educational tool to prevent misuse or abuse" of standardized tests. "All students deserve high standards and excellent preparation, and testing should help make it possible," Ms. Cantœ said. "We support the fair use of tests." The document urges colleges, schools, and states to weigh whether the standardized tests they use, or plan to use, accurately and reliably measure the skills, knowledge, or abilities they want to evaluate.
The guidelines also say education and state officials should determine whether high-stakes tests have a disparate impact on any particular group of students. The officials then should judge whether those examinations are educationally justifiable and whether there might be equally effective alternatives to using them. "This is not about `don't use tests or do use tests' -- it's about using tests in the right way," said Scott Palmer, the department's deputy assistant secretary for civil rights. Many college officials had viewed the first version of the guidelines as an attempt to discourage them from using standardized tests at all. But the second draft, published last December, was significantly toned down.
Some opponents of affirmative action still criticized that document as an attack on efforts to increase academic standards and to rely more on merit-based admissions criteria, but many higher-education officials backed off from their initial criticisms. On Friday, Education Department officials made a point of arguing that their efforts to promote fair testing did not contradict, and would enhance, movements toward higher standards and better education. "The use of tests is one element toward raising standards and accountability," said Frank S. Holleman III, deputy secretary for education. "This report shows that the goals of promoting higher education standards and ensuring nondiscrimination are complementary goals."
The final guidebook includes mostly minor changes to the previous version. Ms. Cantœ said some sections had been expanded or clarified in response to comments the department received on the most-recent draft. Discussions that were expanded, she said, include those on the use of tests for students for whom English is a second language and for students with disabilities. Department officials also provided more information about legal principles and standards that underlie decisions about how to appropriately use high-stakes tests, she said.
Copyright © 2000 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
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