Test Policy and the Politics of Opportunity Allocation: The Workplace and the Law

Bernard R. Gifford In the United States, the standardized test has become one of the major sources of information for reducing uncertainty in the determination of individual merit and in the allocation of merit-based educational, training, and employment opportunities. Most major institutions of higher education require applicants to supplement their records of academic achievements with scores on standardized tests. Similarly, in the workplace, as a condition of employment or assignment to training programs, more and more employers are requiring prospective employees to sit for standardized tests. In short, with increasing frequency and intensity, individual members of the political economy are required to transmit to the opportunity marketplace scores on standardized examinations that purport to be objective measures of their and potential. In many instances, these test scores are the abilities, talents, only signals about their skills that job applicants are permitted to send to prospective employers. THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TESTING AND PUBLIC POLICY In view of the importance of these issues to our current national agenda, it was proposed that the Human Rights and Governance and the Education and Culture Programs of the Ford Foundation support the establishment of a ''blue ribbon" National Commission on Testing and Public Policy to investigate some of the major problems as well as the untapped opportunities created by recent trends in the use of standardized tests, particularly in the workplace and in schools.

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I Grounding Testing Policy: Three Perspectives.- The Allocation of Opportunities and the Politics of Testing: A Policy Analytic Perspective.- The Mandarin Mentality: Civil Service and University Admissions Testing in Europe and Asia.- Testing Companies, Trends, and Policy Issues: A Current View from the Testing Industry.- II Testing and the Law: Title VII and the Federal Guidelines.- Employment Testing and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.- Non-Discriminatory Use of Personnel Tests Conference Remarks.- The Uniform Guidelines and Subjective Selection Criteria and Procedures Conference Remarks.- III Testing and the Law: The Role of the Courts.- Testing, Public Policy, and the Courts.- Testing in Elementary and Secondary Schools: Can Misuse Be Avoided?.- IV Testing in the Workplace: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives.- Economic Models of Discrimination, Testing, and Public Policy.- Ability Testing for Job Selection: Are the Economic Claims Justified?.- Examples of Testing Programs in the Insurance Industry and a Discussion of Employment Testing Policy Issues.- Test Scores and Evaluation: The Military as Data.- Los Angeles Testing Policies Conference Remarks.