Chicago Police May Scrap Entrance Exam. Why? Not enough minorities pass.

[francois]

So what if tests are biased? Overcome the bias. Work harder.

Presumably the work they're taking the test for is going to be biased also. So the bias actually has a valid purpose.

Why should we bend backwards so they can remain inflexible?



Edit: Also, I'm pretty sure newer IQ tests are designed to remove culture bias. But even if there is bias, then supposedly the bias is going to hurt everyone who's not a white man. So why do East Asian men do so much better than white men? Since it's axiomatic that racial groups, whose genetics have drifted apart from one another, have exactly the same average intelligence, the culture bias isn't that bad. Or it must be that the white culture bias helps East Asians. Wait, what?

 

[iceaura]

Minorities should be treated just like everyone else.

It's kind of strange that you would simply assume the Chicago police recruit exam treats blacks like everyone else, or that the Chicago police recruiting bureaucracy in general treats blacks like everyone else.

Why would you have so much blind faith in a government agency of such a famously racist and corrupt government, in the face of so much contrary evidence both historical and statistical?

 

[visceral_instinct]

So what if tests are biased? Overcome the bias. Work harder.

Presumably the work they're taking the test for is going to be biased also. So the bias actually has a valid purpose.

Why should we bend backwards so they can remain inflexible?
?

I understand your emphasis on realism - that they will be working in a biased world so they will need to overcome bias from the start - but such an approach shits all over the purpose of a test, which is to measure your ability, not whether you are black, white, male, female etc.

 

[madanthonywayne]

It's kind of strange that you would simply assume the Chicago police recruit exam treats blacks like everyone else, or that the Chicago police recruiting bureaucracy in general treats blacks like everyone else.

Tests aren't biased, people are biased. I'm sure I've occasionally been discriminated against due to having a Hispanic last name, but I've never been discriminated against by a scantron.

You fill in the correct dot, you get the question correct regardless of your race. If the test is somehow biased, study harder.

 

[quadraphonics]

Sure. IQ tests are biased. The Bar exam is biased. The SAT and ACT are biased. The MCAT, the LSAT, every test is biased.

Not every test, although all of the ones you list are certainly known to be biased. The IQ test, in particular, has a decades-long history of court cases recognizing this fact, and so barring its usage for class placement of minorities, etc. Any serious adult interested in this topic knows this.

For someone that's determined to assert that these tests are fair, I'm not hearing much in the way of supporting argument or evidence from you. Instead we get flip dismissals of anyone who disagrees, and silly rhetoric about Scantrons discriminating against people. Do you have any basis for your position, or are you arguing from sheer bigotry?

Do you imagine that your childish posturing and hectoring attitude are impressing anyone?

It's you who's being disingenuous.

How so? I say exactly what I mean, don't I? You can certainly take issue with my reasoning, or question my sources, but I don't see how I'm misleading anyone, let alone intentionally.

 

[francois]

I understand your emphasis on realism - that they will be working in a biased world so they will need to overcome bias from the start - but such an approach shits all over the purpose of a test, which is to measure your ability, not whether you are black, white, male, female etc.

Who's to say that your "ability," which is being tested, shouldn't be within a cultural context? Indeed, how could it not be in a cultural context of some sort?

 

[visceral_instinct]

Who's to say that your "ability," which is being tested, shouldn't be within a cultural context? Indeed, how could it not be in a cultural context of some sort?

That's a fair point, and people should be able to operate well in that context (and deal with the discrimination that may come with it without going under), but on the other hand, what's the use of a test where, say, a black person and a white person can score the same, but someone chooses to mark the black person lower because they're black?

 

[madanthonywayne]

That's a fair point, and people should be able to operate well in that context (and deal with the discrimination that may come with it without going under), but on the other hand, what's the use of a test where, say, a black person and a white person can score the same, but someone chooses to mark the black person lower because they're black?

That is not what being alleged here at all. The claim here is that the poor performance of minorities on the IQ test, SAT, ACT, MCAT, LSAT, OAT, Bar exam, (throw in any other academic test you can think of) and various employment exams is due to bias. I suppose the difference in graduation rates and GPA is also due to bias. It's alway bias that's to blame, never the effort or ability of the test takers. To even consider that possibility is racist.

 

[quadraphonics]

Who's to say that your "ability," which is being tested, shouldn't be within a cultural context? Indeed, how could it not be in a cultural context of some sort?

And this is exactly why all these biased tests - SAT, IQ, etc. - are still used, even though they exhibit well-known cultural bias: they work as good predictors of future performance in specific environments (i.e., college) where the exact same cultural bias is in effect.

If you want to know how someone will perform in an environment that is biased, by all means give them a test containing relevant bias. But if you want to know how "intelligent" or "capable" they are, then cultural bias is unacceptable. And if the cultural bias of the work/school environment is in the first place sustained by screening people out via a biased test... well, let's just say that the argument for the "business utility" of such a biased test is missing the point rather badly.

Which gets to the heart of the issue: is the plan here to force minorities to adapt to a biased society (or, failing that, leave them for dead), or to force society to be less biased?

I'll let you conclude which of those programs is the racist one for yourself.

It's alway bias that's to blame, never the effort or ability of the test takers. To even consider that possibility is racist.

The racism is in the exclusive assignment of disparate outcomes to effort and ability. I.e., the refusal to consider bias as even a partial cause, particularly in the face of repeated presentations of evidence to the contrary.

At a larger level, though, it is indeed racist to presume that differences in effort or ability are not themselves products of cultural bias in the first place - not bias on tests, but in society as a whole. We're talking about groups that have been systematically oppressed for many generations here; we'd expect that legacy of bias to harm their performance even on fair tests. Throw in an unfair test, and you get the sort of extreme racial disparities observed in the upper ranks of the Chicago PD.

 

[francois]

That's a fair point, and people should be able to operate well in that context (and deal with the discrimination that may come with it without going under), but on the other hand, what's the use of a test where, say, a black person and a white person can score the same, but someone chooses to mark the black person lower because they're black?

Like madanthony said, nobody is saying anybody should be treated with preference according to race. Everyone should be treated the same, regardless of race. I think everyone here can agree with that (well, at least the sane ones). Preferential treatment isn't even what's being discussed.

And this is exactly why all these biased tests - SAT, IQ, etc. - are still used, even though they exhibit well-known cultural bias: they work as good predictors of future performance in specific environments (i.e., college) where the exact same cultural bias is in effect.

Whoa, dude. Just whoa. It isn't possible that you could be further from the truth here. IQ correlates powerfully with one's ability to be successful in general. It might as well be called the "good factor." It correlates with health, sperm quality, job productivity (the more mentally demanding the job, the more important it is), the IQ of the spouse, body symmetry (smart people are better looking), IQ of the kids, education, brain size, problem solving ability, reaction speed, inclination to being law-abiding--just about everything.

If you want to know how someone will perform in an environment that is biased, by all means give them a test containing relevant bias. But if you want to know how "intelligent" or "capable" they are, then cultural bias is unacceptable. And if the cultural bias of the work/school environment is in the first place sustained by screening people out via a biased test... well, let's just say that the argument for the "business utility" of such a biased test is missing the point rather badly.

That's life. Everybody is forced to conform. Minorities should not be exceptional... and... how, actually, is it that we've determined that BIAS that's causing them to stink at the test in the first place? Or is it simply a case where we don't know why they can't pass the test, and so, by default it is bias. Kind of like creationists who say, "Aha! You cannot explain how the flagellum of organism x evolved! It's irreducibly complex. Therefore, GOD did it." Therefore, BIAS did it. The reasoning stinks.

 

[visceral_instinct]

Sorry - I wasn't clear about the word bias, I confused it with deliberate discrimination..

 

[francois]

How could one make a test that's not culturally biased (I'm not talking about IQ tests here)? You can't. And furthermore, what the heck are we talking about when we're talking about bias in test questions? Let's use examples, just so we know what we're talking about. Do we somehow incorporate basketball into the test questions and remove anything that could be considered white from the questions? How do we remove white bias? It's in our vocabulary.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this whole "unfair cultural bias" thing is a load of crap. Again, Asians, who still largely retain their culture when they migrate, apparently aren't affected by white culture bias.

 

[quadraphonics]

Preferential treatment isn't even what's being discussed.

Preferential treatment is exactly what is being discussed. A biased test is not equal treatment any more than segregated bathrooms are equal treatment.

IQ correlates powerfully with one's ability to be successful in general.

Successful inside the confines of a specific culture, with specific biases reflected by the IQ test.

It correlates with health, sperm quality, job productivity, the IQ of the spouse, body symmetry, IQ of the kids, education, brain size, problem solving ability, reaction speed, inclination to being law-abiding--just about everything.

Just about everything you list there - spouse IQ, job productivity, education, problem solving ability, inclination to being law-abiding - directly exhibits the same cultural biases as the IQ test, so that's not telling us much.

As far as the other factors go (health, sperm quality, body symmetry, brain size, reaction speed): sure. Nobody disputes part of what IQ tests measure are genuine attributes. That doesn't imply the test isn't biased. Moreover, we'd expect all of those physical attributes to be depressed in minorities to begin with, owing to generations of oppression. Which is to say that, to the extent that minorities do perform more poorly on unbiased tests, that is direct evidence of the continuing effects of their historical mistreatment. To get to a place where you can point to poor minority achievement on tests as anything other than racism in action, you have to establish both that the test was unbiased, and that the people taking the test weren't inherently disadvantaged by past racism.

Which is what gives rise to all of the objections here: people are insisting that tests are unbiased, and past/current oppression negligible, without any supporting evidence or argument, and in the face of substantial contrary evidence and argument. If that's not racist bigotry, I'm starting to wonder what is.

That's life. Everybody is forced to conform.

But not everyone gets an equal say in what standards everybody is forced to conform to. Hence the disparate outcomes, and unfairness.

Minorities should not be exceptional

Indeed, they should be granted the same agency as white people to influence the cultural bias of tests, and society at large, so that they are not unduly disadvantaged by them. Which is exactly what is at issue here.

... and... how, actually, is it that we've determined that BIAS that's causing them to stink at the test in the first place?

The lack of any more plausible explanation. Minorities excel in police jobs in the same department that are not subject to this test, so it's difficult to believe they're inherently unqualified to hold the higher positions. In positions subject to the test, a vast racial disparity is observed, that does not occur in departments that use different criteria for promotion. Hence, there are substantial grounds for presuming that the test is biased. At the minimum, the burden is on any advocates of the test in question to justify it. And we have seen none of that, so far.

 

[quadraphonics]

How could one make a test that's not culturally biased (I'm not talking about IQ tests here)? You can't.

You can, although it's difficult for the reasons you cite (subconsciously embedded in the culture).

The short answer is that it takes a lot of research and testing. Things that don't occur to test authors as biased often end up being problematic, for unexpected reasons.

Some background info an illustrative examples here:

http://wilderdom.com/personality/intelligenceCulturalBias.html

Note that it's a simple matter to construct tests that urban black high-school drop-outs can consistently pass, but that will rank suburban white college graduates as severely mentally retarded.

Do we somehow incorporate basketball into the test questions

If you want to avoid being called a racist, this is the sort of rhetoric you should self-censor.

Again, Asians, who still largely retain their culture when they migrate, apparently aren't affected by white culture bias.

Yes they are. That's why they score so highly. I.e., the Asians that immigrate here are upper-middle-class technology and medical specialists, and so match the inherent bias of our testing processes even more tightly than white America as a whole. Our visa process essentially pre-screens Asian immigrants for correlation with these sorts of tests.

Apply those same tests to a complete Asian population (i.e., one not heavily dominated by upper-middle-class engineers and doctors and their children), and you'll see the bias in action. The lack of general English proficiency alone will have the Asians scoring in the "retarded" range. Likewise, apply it to the subset of white America that would correspond to Asian immigrants in the US (i.e., upper-middle-class doctors and engineers and their children) and you'll get a similar bump in performance relative to the US as a whole.

 

[francois]

Yes they are. That's why they score so highly. I.e., the Asians that immigrate here are upper-middle-class technology and medical specialists, and so match the inherent bias of our testing processes even more tightly than white America as a whole. Our visa process essentially pre-screens Asian immigrants for correlation with these sorts of tests.

Apply those same tests to a complete Asian population (i.e., one not heavily dominated by upper-middle-class engineers and doctors and their children), and you'll see the bias in action. The lack of general English proficiency alone will have the Asians scoring in the "retarded" range. Likewise, apply it to the subset of white America that would correspond to Asian immigrants in the US (i.e., upper-middle-class doctors and engineers and their children) and you'll get a similar bump in performance relative to the US as a whole.

This is priceless...

Edit: but why are they so good at "acting white" in their own countries, as opposed to the people in the US?

 

[quadraphonics]

Edit: but why are they so good at "acting white" in their own countries, as opposed to the people in the US?

? The Asian test-takers in question are Asian-Americans, in the US. Unless you're comparing Asian IQ tests to US IQ tests, in which case the cultural biases are different and your argument about Asians doing well despite white cultural bias would not apply.

And they aren't any better at it than the people in the US, as a population. If you pre-screened white Americans in the same way as our visa system pre-screens Asian immigrants (i.e., eliminating everyone except upper-middle-class technical and medical professionals), you'd see similar results. If anything, the American group would do even better than the Asians.

 

[francois]

We were talking about Asians from other countries and why they do so well. You were saying that the "white bias," whatever that is, is why Asians do so well on IQ tests. They obviously see the value of educating themselves and "acting white"--and they do it in their own countries. It's got to be hard to overcome all that "white bias" in their own country, either that, or not hard at all if the effect of bias is eliminated when one educates himself and doing well on IQ tests has everything to do with being intelligent and knowledgeable.

 

[superstring01]

? The Asian test-takers in question are Asian-Americans, in the US. Unless you're comparing Asian IQ tests to US IQ tests, in which case the cultural biases are different and your argument about Asians doing well despite white cultural bias would not apply.

And they aren't any better at it than the people in the US, as a population. If you pre-screened white Americans in the same way as our visa system pre-screens Asian immigrants (i.e., eliminating everyone except upper-middle-class technical and medical professionals), you'd see similar results. If anything, the American group would do even better than the Asians.

Is there really such a standard for Asian immigrants? There are oodles of Indians and Chinese in Cleveland and the numbers grow every year. Most come over quite poor. I'm quite in favor of this. Both have cultural obsessions with self improvement. Realistically, the USA needs to balance the high numbers of worthless citizens with motivated Indians and Chinese. The wealthy classes aren't reproducing. Somebody has to pay the bills.

~String

 

[iceaura]

Is there really such a standard for Asian immigrants? There are oodles of Indians and Chinese in Cleveland and the numbers grow every year. Most come over quite poor. I'm quite in favor of this. Both have cultural obsessions with self improvement.

You answer your own question.

Unless you think Indians and Chinese in general are obsessed with self-improvement and hard work. In which case the state of the economies in India and China over the past two hundred years is a bit of a mystery, eh?

 

[francois]

Man! Quadrophonics, did you even look at that link you sent me?

First thing that it said is that producing a culturally unbiased test is very HARD. Well, okay.

Then it suggests to fix this, to eliminate words! WTF. I'm not making this up!

One attempt was to eliminate language and design tests with demonstrations and pictures.

Then it says another approach is to use "culture fair" tests. Examples of these are not contextless or unbiased and are, frankly, horrendously racist. Of course, the guy who wrote the questions was black, so it's clearly not racist. Here are some examples of a "culturally fair" test according to your link.

A "handkerchief head" is:

(a) a cool cat, (b) a porter, (c) an Uncle Tom, (d) a hoddi, (e) a preacher.

Which word is most out of place here?

(a) splib, (b) blood, (c) gray, (d) spook, (e) black.

A "gas head" is a person who has a:

(a) fast-moving car, (b) stable of "lace," (c) "process," (d) habit of stealing cars, (e) long jail record for arson.

"Bo Diddley" is a:

(a) game for children, (b) down-home cheap wine, (c) down-home singer, (d) new dance, (e) Moejoe call.

"Hully Gully" came from:

(a) East Oakland, (b) Fillmore, (c) Watts, (d) Harlem, (e) Motor City.

And you dare to bring the word "racist" in the thread when I suggest that black people enjoy having a game of b-ball from time to time.