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A group of firefighters in New Haven Connecticut are suing the department, claiming that a law designed to prevent discrimination is discriminating against them because they are white. The city has thrown out the results of a promotion test because, they argue, no African-Americans would be promoted. The firefighters argue that the idea that no African-American promotions means no promotions for anyone is in itself discriminatory, particularly since one of the men denied promotion is Hispanic and therefore a minority. If you were the judge who had to hear this case, how would you decide the issue? Please, lets try and have a civil discussion.
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All promotion boards are conducted by a Blind Board.
A Blind Board is composed of Fires and Civics leaders from a neighboring community.
All promotions are given based on a point scale. There are no extra points for race, ethnicity or gender. No demographic data is presented, no names, no addresses, etc.
A promotion packet includes test scores, notations of merit (awards or honors, for example), etc.
Promotions are limited by the point scale and the number of allowable promotions for a time period.
EDIT:
Just read the news article. Here's an important quote:
"The promotion exams were closely focused on firefighting methods, knowledge and skills. The first part had 200 multiple-choice questions and counted for 60 percent of the final score. Candidates returned another day to take an oral exam in which they described responses to various scenarios, which counted for 40 percent...But after the results came back, the city says it found evidence that the tests were potentially flawed. Sources of bias included that the written section measured memorization rather than actual skills needed for the jobs; giving too much weight to the written section; and lack of testing for leadership in emergency conditions, according to a brief filed by officers of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology."
And what any of that (quoted matter) has to do with race is beyond me. There is no bias--for questions based on memorization of a topic, either the test respondent knows the answers or they don't.
EDIT:
Just read the news article. Here's an important quote:"The promotion exams were closely focused on firefighting methods, knowledge and skills. The first part had 200 multiple-choice questions and counted for 60 percent of the final score. Candidates returned another day to take an oral exam in which they described responses to various scenarios, which counted for 40 percent...But after the results came back, the city says it found evidence that the tests were potentially flawed. Sources of bias included that the written section measured memorization rather than actual skills needed for the jobs; giving too much weight to the written section; and lack of testing for leadership in emergency conditions, according to a brief filed by officers of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology."
And what any of that (quoted matter) has to do with race is beyond me. There is no bias--for questions based on memorization of a topic, either the test respondent knows the answers or they don't.
Correlation between education and performance on written tests has been reported to go to both directions: having better education helps performance in tests, even if that education was not related to the field tested.
If some race groups have proportionally worse education and the schools they attend are of lower quality (as I suspect is a case with African-Americans, though also with some other minority groups), they perform worse on written tests regardless of their actual hands-on knowledge and experience.|
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Correlation between education and performance on written tests has been reported to go to both directions: having better education helps performance in tests, even if that education was not related to the field tested.
If some race groups have proportionally worse education and the schools they attend are of lower quality (as I suspect is a case with African-Americans, though also with some other minority groups), they perform worse on written tests regardless of their actual hands-on knowledge and experience.
Based on that, it's all about educational regionalization or Eruditionis Loca Insufficientia.
Applicant A graduated from a 2nd tier high school, while applicant B graduated from a 4th tier high school.
In order to ensure both applicants now have an equal chance of success, applicant B will be given 10 bonus points on top of the applicant's actual achieved score.
Alternatively, for every one correct answer given by applicant A, applicant B will be credited with two correct answers...
EDIT:
Just read the news article. Here's an important quote:"The promotion exams were closely focused on firefighting methods, knowledge and skills. The first part had 200 multiple-choice questions and counted for 60 percent of the final score. Candidates returned another day to take an oral exam in which they described responses to various scenarios, which counted for 40 percent...But after the results came back, the city says it found evidence that the tests were potentially flawed. Sources of bias included that the written section measured memorization rather than actual skills needed for the jobs; giving too much weight to the written section; and lack of testing for leadership in emergency conditions, according to a brief filed by officers of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology."
And what any of that (quoted matter) has to do with race is beyond me. There is no bias--for questions based on memorization of a topic, either the test respondent knows the answers or they don't.
I think what they meant by :
"Sources of bias included that the written section measured memorization rather than actual skills needed for the jobs; giving too much weight to the written section"
Is that the results of a multiple choice test do not necessarily reflect real world performance in a crisis situation. (I could probably Ace the multiple choice test if I studied, but I could never run a fire crew. I tend to fold up in an emergency.) Evaluating real life performance is very difficult. Another problem is that at a certain point promotions lead to administrative jobs rather than field jobs. Good field officers may not make the best desk jockeys.
Thunderdome! Two me... err... somebodies enter, one individual leaves!
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The one flaw in the article is that it doesn't tell you what specific material was covered in the written portion of the test. If it was policies and procedures that a company officer would need to know, then I could see a very strong argument being made for the validity of that portion of the test. If it was just a bunch of random firefighting trivia, like what size hoses does the department use, then I could see an argument for throwing it out.
As for the case over all, I recognize that traditionally African-Americans are under represented in this department, according to the article. I could support the department if their policy was to go out and actively recruit qualified African-American applicants. However, the policy of holding the tests and hope that qualified candidates apply, then denying promotions to qualified applicants simply because they have the wrong skin color seems to indicate that the department is engaged in racial profiling and is discriminating against the white firefighters.
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What I got out of the article is that test scores failed to qualify any African-American candidates for promotion, so it was decided that no-one would be promoted.
The whole thing at the end about 60% of the test being multiple-choice, memorization-based questions, and 40% leadership discussion questions--that's ex post facto and irrelevant to the original issue: test scores failed to qualify any African-American candidates for promotion, so it was decided that no-one would be promoted.
EDIT:
On a second reading, the article doesn't actually say what I thought it said. In fact, the article presents a lot of information in a misleading manner. The plaintiffs are alleging the issue as I mentioned it above. All that it's reported the city officials said is that no minorities would have been promoted, and that, essentially, after they got the scores back they realized it may not be a very good test.
The one flaw in the article is that it doesn't tell you what specific material was covered in the written portion of the test. If it was policies and procedures that a company officer would need to know, then I could see a very strong argument being made for the validity of that portion of the test. If it was just a bunch of random firefighting trivia, like what size hoses does the department use, then I could see an argument for throwing it out.
Putting weight on written tests for desk jobs does make sense as that is a big part of what those people do.
Putting weight on written tests for field jobs is a problem, as that does not represent the type of work examined, regardless of actual skills people perform differently in written tests and unfortunately that performance correlates with education which correlates with economic class and ethnicity.Oral tests do have a bias too, and they should be used mainly when they are representative...eg. people in team leader positions should perform well in oral tests.
Unfortunately multiple choice written test is fast, cheap and easy method of ranking people and that's why they are so popular...
Let me see if I understand this correctly. There is a question whether the test presented an unfair advantage to white firefighters?
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Putting weight on written tests for desk jobs does make sense as that is a big part of what those people do.
Putting weight on written tests for field jobs is a problem, as that does not represent the type of work examined, regardless of actual skills people perform differently in written tests and unfortunately that performance correlates with education which correlates with economic class and ethnicity.Oral tests do have a bias too, and they should be used mainly when they are representative...eg. people in team leader positions should perform well in oral tests.
Unfortunately multiple choice written test is fast, cheap and easy method of ranking people and that's why they are so popular...
Which could be valid except . . .
The city had no issues with the test until a particular set of results indicatied no personnel of a specific race would not be promoted.
Further, regardless of any other indicators of a specific failure in the test, that was used to both determine that the test was flawed, and to deny promotion to everyone who took the test.
That most of all is what makes the city's decision discriminatory. It was not that they found the test was flawed for everyone, but that they found the test was flawed because it did not return a desired ratio of successful scores based solely on race.
On that basis, you could look to the number of people of a specific race in a sport like basketball and determine that the test (scouting and tryouts) are a priori flawed and racially biased because it does not return a number of successes (contracts offered) proportional to the racial distribution of the country as a whole.
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Which could be valid except . . .
The city had no issues with the test until a particular set of results indicatied no personnel of a specific race would not be promoted.
Further, regardless of any other indicators of a specific failure in the test, that was used to both determine that the test was flawed, and to deny promotion to everyone who took the test.
That most of all is what makes the city's decision discriminatory. It was not that they found the test was flawed for everyone, but that they found the test was flawed because it did not return a desired ratio of successful scores based solely on race.
On that basis, you could look to the number of people of a specific race in a sport like basketball and determine that the test (scouting and tryouts) are a priori flawed and racially biased because it does not return a number of successes (contracts offered) proportional to the racial distribution of the country as a whole.
This is what I thought, too, Sam. On a second reading, though, I'm unclear what the city actually said. It seems they (local government) said two separate things. First--there's an issue with the test. Second, they answered a question--yes, the results of the last test would have allowed no promotions of minorities. Am I reading too much in to the article?
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This is what I thought, too, Sam. On a second reading, though, I'm unclear what the city actually said. It seems they (local government) said two separate things. First--there's an issue with the test. Second, they answered a question--yes, the results of the last test would have allowed no promotions of minorities. Am I reading too much in to the article?Which could be valid except . . .
The city had no issues with the test until a particular set of results indicatied no personnel of a specific race would not be promoted.
Further, regardless of any other indicators of a specific failure in the test, that was used to both determine that the test was flawed, and to deny promotion to everyone who took the test.
That most of all is what makes the city's decision discriminatory. It was not that they found the test was flawed for everyone, but that they found the test was flawed because it did not return a desired ratio of successful scores based solely on race.
On that basis, you could look to the number of people of a specific race in a sport like basketball and determine that the test (scouting and tryouts) are a priori flawed and racially biased because it does not return a number of successes (contracts offered) proportional to the racial distribution of the country as a whole.
I would like to know if this is a new test, or an old test that, this one time, didn't get a desirable result. If it's an old test, then presumably some black guys and gals passed the damned thing at some point. In which case I say, you're not always going to have qualified individuals in the exact ratio you'd like them in. Real life doesn't break down into convenient ratios, there are fluctuations based on all kinds of factors. Maybe next year, with a new group of test takers, this test could have produced different results, as maybe next year some actually qualified people may take it, of all stripes and varieties.
I wish they'd tell us how many whites and hispanics also failed the test, frankly.
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This is what I thought, too, Sam. On a second reading, though, I'm unclear what the city actually said. It seems they (local government) said two separate things. First--there's an issue with the test. Second, they answered a question--yes, the results of the last test would have allowed no promotions of minorities. Am I reading too much in to the article?
Between the article and other reports on the matter (I picked this up a few days ago), what the city did is say the results of the test indicate no blacks would be promoted, therefore the test is flawed and all the results will be thrown out.
Naturally the city now denies that as part of their response to the lawsuit. They have to, otherwise it would be a default judgement against them.
That most of all is what makes the city's decision discriminatory.
The end of the world must be nigh 'cause I am with Cthulito on this one.