Why do we track the race of students taking standardized tests?, Philip Greenspun asks:
Yesterday’s New York Times article has an article entitled “Blacks Less Likely to Take A.P. Exam.” The article has two points. Blacks are less likely than other high school graduates to take the Advanced Placement tests. Blacks who take the test are much less likely to pass than non-black students (8 percent of those taking the exams checked the “I am black” box; only 4 percent of those passing the exams had checked the “I am black” box).Does the utility of this information justify its collection? We’re not willing to do anything drastic to change the way that our schools are run. We will still have unionized teachers, teachers who jobs are guaranteed (tenured) after a few years, and all but the richest kids forced to attend their local public school. If schools are failing black students, we’re apparently more comfortable with that than we are in confronting the teachers and administrators who benefit from the status quo.
Medical doctors say that “Never order a test unless you know what you’re going to do with the result.” What are we going to do with this result? Fire teachers if most of their students fail the A.P. exam? That would violate the union contract and we’re not going to do it. Increase the budget for schools with a lot of black students? Many of these schools already spend close to $25,000 per student per year (much of that is spent on administration rather than classroom instruction). Absent an economic miracle there is no way that taxes or debt can be increased to enable an increase beyond 25,000 current dollars per student annually.