5 ms·

Another "advantage" of the inverse cutoff is that it reduces the racial disparity in test-based hiring.

by fiatmoney 12y ago

Someone1234 12y ago
That statement is predicated on the assumption that one race is smarter than another, which is unlikely to be true.
- msandford 12y ago
  Or the statement could be predicated on the notion that certain ethnic groups have traditionally written the tests for "intelligence" and thus, have biased them for what that particular ethnic group considers intelligence. There's a lot of research about how the SAT discriminates against minorities because white people historically wrote the test and that gives whites an edge, intentional or not. https://www.google.com/search?q=sat+discriminates+against+minorities https://www.google.com/search?q=sat+discriminates+against+mi...
- callahad 12y ago
  There is a persistent scholastic "achievement gap" between races in the US, which jives with fiatmoney's comment: a sufficiently unscrupulous (racist!) employer could use standardized testing as a proxy for racial discrimination. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achievement_gap_in_the_United_States#Evidence_of_the_racial_achievement_gap:_National_Assessment_of_Educational_Progress_.28United_States.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achievement_gap_in_the_United_... (FWIW, I recently heard the term "opportunity gap" as an alternative to "achievement gap," and I quite like it: it puts the burden on society to improve education, rather than blaming students for "failing" to surmount inequity.)
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    "acheivement gap" is a factual description of the outcome being described, "opportunity gap" (when used in the same context) is a (reasonable) hypothesis about the (or, used in a weaker sense, a contributing) cause of that outcome.
- fiatmoney 12y ago
  The key phrase in there is "test-based". http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/SAT-Percentile-Ranks-By-Gender-Ethnicity-2013.pdf http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/S...

Another "advantage" of the inverse cutoff is that it reduces the racial disparity in test-based hiring.

Someone1234 12y ago

That statement is predicated on the assumption that one race is smarter than another, which is unlikely to be true.

msandford 12y ago
Or the statement could be predicated on the notion that certain ethnic groups have traditionally written the tests for "intelligence" and thus, have biased them for what that particular ethnic group considers intelligence. There's a lot of research about how the SAT discriminates against minorities because white people historically wrote the test and that gives whites an edge, intentional or not. https://www.google.com/search?q=sat+discriminates+against+minorities https://www.google.com/search?q=sat+discriminates+against+mi...
callahad 12y ago
There is a persistent scholastic "achievement gap" between races in the US, which jives with fiatmoney's comment: a sufficiently unscrupulous (racist!) employer could use standardized testing as a proxy for racial discrimination. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achievement_gap_in_the_United_States#Evidence_of_the_racial_achievement_gap:_National_Assessment_of_Educational_Progress_.28United_States.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achievement_gap_in_the_United_... (FWIW, I recently heard the term "opportunity gap" as an alternative to "achievement gap," and I quite like it: it puts the burden on society to improve education, rather than blaming students for "failing" to surmount inequity.)
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  "acheivement gap" is a factual description of the outcome being described, "opportunity gap" (when used in the same context) is a (reasonable) hypothesis about the (or, used in a weaker sense, a contributing) cause of that outcome.
fiatmoney 12y ago
The key phrase in there is "test-based". http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/SAT-Percentile-Ranks-By-Gender-Ethnicity-2013.pdf http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/S...