Why improve when you can sue? Maybe Johnny can't read cuz teacher has teh dumb.

The BBQ Pit
141

[QUOTE=Dushichka]
Another example of cultural bias occurred some years ago on, I believe, the SATs.

The passage in question had students identify what a regatta was.

How many non-upper class students are going to know what a regatta is? I asked some of the college students in the classes I TA’ed. Maybe 1 out of 20 knew what a regatta was. It’s a question geared to upper-class, mainly white, students, and it’s not a fair question, IMO.

I’ll try to find a cite for this later–gotta head to work.
[/QUOTE]

Didn’t the old “Eleven Plus” exam in English state schools (which decided if one went to a grammar or secondary modern school) include questions about classics and the roles of different household servants? That’s clearly biased against working class children. Also won’t boys on the threshold of grammar or secondary modern school sent to grammar while girls in the same positon sent to seconday modern?

142

[QUOTE=Zoe]
If they were to win their lawsuit, what kind of messages would that send to African-American students all over the state?

  1. “You don’t have to know about the stock market; that’s a white thing. Maybe you’ll never have enough money to invest in the stock market.”

  2. “You don’t have to know anything about “ancient” literature. Never mind what your teacher tells you to read. You can’t be expected to know that. Only white people take those dull courses.”

  3. “Standards should be lowered for African-Americans because…well, because.”

There is no need to lower standards..

Higher standards for teachers will produce more learned students which will, in turn, produce better teachers. It has to start somewhere. Let it be here.
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Stands and applauds.

HEAR, HEAR!!!

Well stated, Zoe.

143

[QUOTE=Manda JO]
All these theoretical ideas about how something might be biased are irrelevant to how they actually determine bias.

You have a question. Call it question 5. Overall, 90% of the people who scored in the top 25% of the test takers got question 5 correct. However, only 75% of the top 25% of test takers who are also the member of some group (and it can be white males or black females or whatever) got question 5 correct. And we are taking about tens or hundreds of thousands of test takers, so it’s unlikely a sampling error. No one can see any reason why that question might be biased. Do you think that question should be thrown out?
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The way I understood the cites provided, the thing is, only a bias can be proven, not necessarily its cause. (to simplify).

Also, I haven’t seen too many posters here clarify that the OP was about two teachers, NOT students. I can accept that there may be unintentional racial/cultural/class bias in tests. But by the time a person has gotten out in the world, and has gone to college, ready to enter the professional workforce, I have very little sympathy for this kind of whining.

Okay, so a vocabulary word, or a few vocabulary words are unknown. So? What person knows every word and its meaning? That’s the whole POINT of tests, what a person knows and can retain. More importantly, how it relates to their particular field. And for crying out loud, these are TEACHERS! Or wannabe teachers. Shouldn’t they be up to the task? Across the board? Not just “well, we can teach well enough for X group”?

It’s not as if rich white men are all getting perfect scores on SATs and professional certificate type tests, while the rest of we poor saps are doomed to work at McDonald’s. If you (collective you) want to work in a particular field, then it is on YOU to provide the know-how to pass the requirements for that particular field. The whiny teachers in the OP aren’t helpless children anymore. Who doesn’t have the sense to look into what’s required for their job and then to make sure they have done everything it takes to pass those requirements?

(Well, other than people who want to have things handed to them on a silver platter I guess.)

On the tests in class rooms, or for SATs point? I don’t know, I’d have to see a lot more hard proof that enough questions on crucial tests are in fact specifically biased against a group based upon their race, class or culture rather than on factors that are at this point unknown.