Getting Testy

A rebellion gathers steam

Which of the following words best completes this sentence: "How the ____ roses flush up in the cheeks." Red? Pretty? Yellow? The answer, according to the intelligence testmakers who devised that question more than a decade ago, is "red." But, observes a provocative new tabloid called Testing Digest, red is right "only if the cheek in question is white."

Although testmakers have generally eliminated such blatant cultural bias from current tests, Testing Digest and an anomalous group of other critics have lately come forward to demand new scrutiny of tests for bias and for the use of ambiguous questions. Probably more important, the critics also seek general reform in society's use of standardized multiple-choice tests to measure intelligence and academic and professional achievement. The movement includes public interest advocates in Savannah, Ga., publishers of the Measuring Cup, a newsletter devoted solely to testing reform; the National P.T.A.; the United States Student Association; Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; and the National Education Association, a union of some 1.8 million teachers and school officials.

Two weeks ago at the NEA headquarters in Washington, the air resounded with attacks on testing. Representatives of reform-minded organizations plus a smattering of professors, school administrators and test experts from 28 states gathered at a meeting organized by a cumbersomely titled group ("Project to DEmystify the Established Standardized Tests"). Some of the delegates even grumbled about the national turn toward required competency tests for promotion of elementary and high school students. P.T.A. Representative Ann Kahn said that due to testing, elementary school curriculums are now concentrating on test scores--to the exclusion of basics like good writing. Ralph Nader told the conferees: "Parents and students are seriously concerned about the enormous unchecked power wielded by the Educational Testing Service, the College Board and other companies. These companies define and measure intelligence in an atmosphere that resembles the secrecy of the CIA."

The meeting was divided about whether objection should be made to tests, to the misuse and overuse of tests, to the values of a test-happy society or to testing as an aid to inadvertent discrimination. But the conferees were clear enough about supporting a federal legislative measure, proposed by New York Congressman Ted Weiss and curiously dubbed truth in testing, that would require national aptitude testing companies to disclose test questions and answers shortly after tests are given. Scheduled for consideration by Congress next year, the measure has drawn heavy opposition from testing organizations, which warn that the costs to students will go up and the number of days on which tests are offered will go down if testmakers must draw up new exams more frequently than they do now.

To Conference Organizer John Weiss, 24, an activist who a year ago hit on testing as an issue in search of a movement, truth in testing is only the first step. Weiss says he hopes tests will be seen in a more balanced perspective and that alternatives will be developed to replace multiple-choice tests if the current rebellion "takes the halo off the whole operation." To Ralph Nader, the main ill to be cured is "the destruction of the self-confidence of millions of students who incorporate into their own psyches the standards of evaluation set by the Educational Testing Service. ETS and the other major testing firms decide who has 'aptitude' and 'intelligence,' decide who has access to educational and professional opportunities. They are regulators of the human mind."

That may be an overstatement, and a criticism of blind reliance upon tests rather than of the testing companies themselves. Most companies have long cautioned against overdependence on scores. They note, correctly, that national exams deserve credit for enhancing educational opportunities, especially in the case of talented students from lackluster schools. Even so, enough general suspicion of computerized testing organizations exists to spark the reform movement. "It used to be a little fringe group," trumpets Harvard Law Graduate Andrew Strenio, adding: "Now it is going mainstream."

Mainstream or not, some of the reaction to the reform movement has been strong. In New York, where a statewide truth-in-testing bill similar to that proposed by Weiss is scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, all but eight of 26 testing groups expect to halt testing instead of disclosing the questions on their exams. Included are the new Medical College Admissions Test, Dental Admission Test, Nursing School Aptitude Examination, and the Veterinary Aptitude Test. The Scholastic Aptitude Test for college applicants will continue to be offered in New York, but four times a year, rather than eight.

Some of the groups test only a handful of applicants in New York. They argue that spending an estimated $25,000 to prepare a new test each time 300 people take the exam would require a cost to the student of $80 or more. Insisting that "there is a definite limit to the number of high quality questions that can be generated," the Association of American Medical Colleges, which tests about 5,000 New York medical school applicants annually, has brought suit challenging the constitutionality of New York's law.

Meanwhile, across the continent, a judge has just given a boost to one group of testing reformers. In San Francisco, U.S. District Court Judge Robert F. Peckham last month ruled that California could not use the common Stanford-Binet IQ test to screen pupils for placement in a special program for the "educable mentally retarded." California's EMR program is 25% black, although blacks make up only 10% of the statewide school population. Even under the improbable assumption that black children have 50% more mental retardation than white children, said Peckham, the EMR enrollment pattern had just one chance in 100,000 of occurring without racial bias.

The culprit, he declared, is the culturally biased IQ test. Peckham quoted a similar ruling in which Judge J. Skelly Wright summarized the reformers' point. Said Wright: "Although test publishers and school administrators may exhort against taking test scores at face value, the magic of numbers is strong."

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