Reason Idiocracy Will Become A Reality in Our Lifetimes No. 45123

Today I found this great story on the website Fark.com about the desire for Black firefighters to have the system of testing for promotions changed. According to the article, the claimants believe multiple choice testing to be disadvantageous to blacks, basing this on other studies showing Blacks tend to do worse on "high stakes" tests due to an inferior education. According to the attorney for the suing firefighters:

“This is systemic discrimination,” said the firefighters’ attorney, Dennis Thompson. “Selection rates for African-Americans are abysmally smaller than for white candidates.”

Two problems with this case come to mind. The first problem is that it is taking one result, lower test scores academically and assuming this to be the case for this specific case. I would venture to say that a multiple choice test to be a firefighter contains questions about, oh fighting fires. To compare results on this to say the SAT are disingenuous because the scope of the results are different. On the SAT there is a definite cultural bias towards upper class whites, if there were not the vocabulay section would not be emphasizing five hundred words working class people would never use such as crepuscular and obstreperous. Having not seen the fire fighters test I cannot say for certain whether they are asking questions about Chester Worthington III's resplendent day at the regatta, but I am going to go out on a limb here and think the answer's no.

The second problem is there is no defnition of what an abysmal rate of passage means. According to the article roughty one sixth of the fire fighters are Black (700/4200). That means in proportion to their population, sixteen percent should be in the higher ranks asuming there is relative parity in promotion. With affirmative action, the percentage is probably higher so let's say that a quarter of the passages are accomplished by Blacks, the argument could stil be made that the respresentation is too low because 75% of those passing are not black. It's a statistical slippery slope, because the population is small regardless of results, so the case can always be made no matter how the test goes. Further, I am going to go on a limb here and say that most fire fighters are not academically inclined, and I mean that in no disrepect, so the test probably is tailored entirely to be skills based. I don't know what how one can complain about the results on a test over how to operate machinery, basic management, and occupational skills.

Finally, I am troubled by the basic premise of the argument-that Blacks are less capable of being fire chiefs than Whites. By changing the use of a test because of performance, the Fire Department will be giving in to that statement. They will be doing so not because the test has not worked, but because one segment of society claims it is too hard. A better solution might be for all individuals trying to get promoted, whether Black or White or Gay Eskimos, to study and try to find out why they have struggled on the test. I am going out on a limb here and assuming there are Black fire chiefs who can help out up and coming Black firefighters to move up because they already know how to advance in the system.

In conclusion, this case creates one more example of trying to move the goalposts closer and closer as a society. Whether we stop handing out letter grades, promoting failing students, and lowering standards, the results are the same:a societal loss as incompetent people move up and crowd out the market for talent. It is little wonder our students perform at the same level as such powerhouses of science and industry as Slovakia and Azerbaijan.



The future if this continues.