Guidelines on Standardized Tests and Civil Rights Get Reworked

In an attempt to mollify critics, the U.S. Department of Education has revised draft guidelines on how schools and colleges can use standardized tests without violating the civil rights of minority students, who often score lower on such tests than whites.

An earlier version, circulated last May, drew a barrage of complaints from conservatives and education lobbyists who said that it undermined--rather than bolstered--the legitimacy of using standardized tests to measure student achievement or aptitude.

The stated goal of the guidelines, which are advisory, not binding on schools or colleges, seemed straightforward: Explain a complex and sometimes contradictory set of civil rights rulings in one helpful booklet that would show educators how to use standardized tests without getting sued.

But lobbyists and education lawyers complained that the earlier version would do the opposite. They feared it would provide a guidebook on suing school districts or college admissions offices.

“When we heard that some people were construing it as a road map to litigation, we took a long, hard look at it,” said Arthur L. Coleman, the Education Department’s deputy assistant secretary for civil rights.

After six months of revisions, the guidebook has swelled to five times its former size. Now chock-full of legal citations, the reworded document reads more like a helpful synthesis of court rulings and educational principles than an advocate’s guidebook.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education, which represents 1,800 colleges and universities. “We’re far more comfortable with it than we were six months ago.”

The guidelines explain that tests must be “educationally justified,” if using them to determine who advances a grade in school, graduates from high school or gets admitted to college has a “disparate impact” on students from different ethnic groups or races. In other words, if black or Latino students persistently score worse on a test than whites, school officials must be able to cite an educational reason for the questions that are used.

The guidelines will undergo two more revisions before being officially issued in May.

Much of the debate over the guidelines has focused on how they would affect the SAT, which is used widely by colleges and universities as a criterion for admission.

But Coleman said the driving force behind the Education Department’s guidelines is the proliferation of high-stakes tests in elementary, middle and high schools.

Six states now rely on tests as a condition of grade promotion and the department estimates that 26 states will use standardized tests as a condition of high school graduation by 2003. California hopes to begin phasing in its high school exit exam next fall.

Already, though, Texas officials have been sued over their high school graduation test by opponents who say that African American and Latino students are failing in disproportionate numbers.

The Education Department continues to champion programs to elevate school standards, Coleman said, including the use of tests to set benchmarks on students’ progress.

“At the same time,” he said, “it’s critically important that educators and policymakers understand the fundamentals: using tests in appropriate ways that will comply with federal nondiscrimination laws.”