Quote :

"Under the previous requirements, candidates had to get a 66% on part one of the exam and a 72% on part two. The D.O.J. approved new scoring policy only requires potential police officers to get a 58% and a 63%. That's the equivalent of an ‘F’ and a ‘D’."

http://abc.daytonsnewssource.com/shared/newsroom/top_stories/videos/wkef_vid_6103.shtml

http://www.patriotactionnetwork.com/forum/topics/obama-and-eric-holder-forcing

So Eric Holder and his DOJ have mandated that the scores for passing the Dayton, Ohio civil service exam be lowered. The original standards and test, which was far from difficult, apparently were not passing enough minority recruits, so it therefore must be racist. So Eric Holder steps in and is now making the passing grade even lower. I guess he thinks that minorities are too dumb to pass, and therefore must be treated with kid gloves. Not only is that insulting to the minorities he is trying to help, its also insulting to any police officer who believes in maintaining high standards.

I would like for someone to please try to explain and justify this, especially some of you libs who already feel that most cops are at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to intelligence already. How is lowering the standard for any reason a good idea.

3/15/2011 8:00:27 PM

great, now the bad apples will be even more cruel/evil/retarded/violent/brutal/etc.

3/15/2011 8:03:41 PM

obvs. there's some secret way in which the test is biased against minorities

but lowering the standards still wouldn't help because you'd also have a lot of white folks let in at the lower passing levels

3/15/2011 8:43:03 PM

This is a disappointing move. Sure, there's gonna be some bias on all tests, but there's no way there's enough bias to produce results that are this disparate.

I suspect the problem here was that they didn't study enough. Throw the bad scores out, send them home with study guides, and retest in a month. If that doesn't work, then they're likely illiterate. And, unless you're gonna start a Reading for Cops program, it's probably best to pass on this batch of candidates. Next time, do a better job at attracting better qualified minority candidates.

Or lower the score requirements and give guns to guys that are too lazy to study for a test.

3/15/2011 10:56:34 PM

^^ I'm sure it was biased against minorities. Like -30 points on part 1 and - 25 points on part 2 for checking "Black" or "African American" under the "Race" section.

[Edited on March 15, 2011 at 11:40 PM. Reason : .]

3/15/2011 11:40:26 PM

^no, I mean more like somehow white cultural upbringing prepares white applicants better, in a manner independent of the relevant skills to be tested

3/16/2011 8:34:31 PM

or maybe whites are typically better educated in general than blacks in that area, probably due to SES more than anything else

3/16/2011 9:06:06 PM

Let me get this straight. Some lefties would rather prevent all private citizens from owning/carrying firearms, but would allow idiots who can't past a simple entrance exam, who are (or would be) acting members of the government, to possess and carry, attempt to enforce the law, and use deadly force when they deem necessary?

Interesting tactic.


[Edited on March 16, 2011 at 9:29 PM. Reason : /]

3/16/2011 9:22:24 PM

if i showed you guys a study where simply asking someone to identify their race before a test makes black people perform poorly would you all completely blow it off? cause i don't want to waste my time here.

3/16/2011 9:54:36 PM

of course not... they want MINORITIES who fit that description to be po-po... duh

3/16/2011 9:54:57 PM

To the original post: Goddammit.

This is moving in the wrong direction. We need fewer, more qualified, better paid police officers. They don't need to be wasting time busting up college parties and writing up petty traffic violations. I'd like to see college-educated cops (especially since college is the new highschool, anyway).

3/17/2011 12:00:44 AM

The expense of college isn't really worth what cops are getting paid.

90% of the time for 90% of the cops, it's not hard to be a cop. It's the 10% where they earn their credibility and prestige.

It would require a pretty large systemic change to fix this, and apparently public employees asking for more money is what's ruining America, so it'll be a long time coming.

3/17/2011 12:47:40 AM

Stereotype threat makes them perform poorly? I know it can make people perform worse than they would have, but I don't think that it entirely accounts for a poor performance, especially not in adults. Plus, even if that were the case, then they probably won't make good police anyway. If you're an adult who is so psychologically paralyzed by race that your score on a civil service exam plummets, then you probably shouldn't be carrying a gun and working a job where you'll likely get called the N-word on a biweekly basis. Alright, I'm so stoked about basketball tomorrow that I can't sleep so I'm making a long, unnecessary post (the point is in the last paragraph).

From Wikipedia, here are all the public school districts in Montgomery County, Ohio:
(I've bolded the black school districts--two city/one local. The numbers next to each district represent the white/black percentage in each district.)

Brookville Local School District, Brookville (98, <1)
Centerville City School School District, Centerville (82, 5)
Dayton Public School District, Dayton (19, 69)
Huber Heights City School District, Huber Heights (69, 17)
Jefferson Township Local School District, Dayton (16, 78)
Kettering City School District, Kettering (90, 3)
Mad River Local School District, Riverside (81, 8)
Miamisburg City School District, Miamisburg (86, 6)
New Lebanon Local School District, New Lebanon (98, <1)
Northmont City School District, Clayton (75, 16)
Northridge Local School District, Dayton (96, 0)--1400 kids, and they report no black students
Oakwood City School District, Oakwood (93, <1)
Trotwood-Madison City School District, Trotwood (9, 86)
Valley View Local School District, Germantown (98, <1)
Vandalia-Butler City School District, Vandalia (88, 5)
West Carrollton City School District, West Carrollton (79, 12)

See...some geniuses have decided to isolate the majority of the county's less affluent, African-American students in one school district: Dayton Public School District--it's 69 percent black (state average is 19%) and 24 percent white (state average is 76%). Interesting fact: in 1975, a parent/opponent of busing murdered Dr. Charles Glatt, the man appointed to help create an integrated school system in Dayton, OH--just walked into his office at the federal courthouse and shot him dead. Anyway...currently, 90 percent of the students in Dayton Public School District are "economically disadvantaged" compared to 36 percent for the state. While all the other districts have just a handful of schools, the Dayton Public School District serves 14,000 students and includes 30 schools. Also, despite the Title I funds they deserve and receive, they still only outpace the state in spending by $3,000/year per pupil.

Not that this will come as a shocker, but the test scores in Dayton Public School District are not good. The district received a 3 score overall from GreatSchools.org, and its four major high schools (Belmont, Thurgood Marshall, Dunbar, and Meadowdale) received 1s--Ponitz Career received a 2 and Stivers Arts received a 5. They may have recently changed something about the state tests because most of the test scores actually seem to have gotten worse in the past four years, not better. There's also Jefferson Township Local School District--it's 78 percent black and 98 percent economically disadvantaged--and it has 2 schools, serves 800 students, and also received a 3 ranking from GreatSchools.org with low test scores. And then you got Trotwood-Madison--it's 86 percent black and 66 percent economically disadvantaged--and it has 5 schools, serves 2500 students, and received a 4 ranking with lower test scores.

Of course, this isn't to say black students in Montgomery County, Ohio aren't good test takers. In fact, if you check out the scores in the other districts, you'll find that the few black students they serve often score well on state tests. (Hmmm...I wonder why their scores didn't free fall when they wrote their race down before the test?) Anyway, it doesn't matter because these particular students are going to college to become doctors, attorneys, accountants, journalists, engineers, etc...not city cops.

If you're wondering how Jefferson Township Local District got created, I can't speak on that specifically. But I know that up North, while the majority of people who expanded out of the city into the suburbs were white, there were also incorporated communities that were majority black. In order to keep schools segregated, they simple carve out the black community (not matter how small it is) and make it its own separate district. So you have a giant black city district, a bunch of smaller white suburban districts, a bunch of smaller white county districts, and then a random tiny black district in the middle of all the white districts. And if there aren't enough students in the tiny black district to support building a whole new middle school or high school, they will bus you through the adjacent white districts and into the city to be with the other black students.

And the point: it's silly to call the civil service exam racially biased. It's not the test. It's not a stereotype threat. It's the school system--and the society that created it. We can't purposefully isolate people in poverty with less than desirable schools and then act all confused when they don't score well on the civil service exam (or pretend that grown black people bombed the test because they had to put their race down). Presently, these exams are actually supposed to help reduce bias! They remove the white secret--the mystery as to why you did or did not get a job opportunity. Now, you just refer to the test: you couldn't read a map or do basic math so you miss the chance to make money by carrying a gun and enforcing the law. I know you're not stupid so go study and try again next year.

[Edited on March 17, 2011 at 1:48 AM. Reason : ]

3/17/2011 1:24:53 AM

I don't think this is a symptom of liberalism. I think this is a symptom of a stupid fucking asshat.

3/17/2011 2:39:47 AM

^I agree. The NAACP is pretty darn liberal and even they're opposed to this measure.

3/17/2011 3:49:34 AM

does that one county have all of those school districts? that might be your problem right there, lol.

3/17/2011 1:04:56 PM

^? That's how all of them are!

Also, if anybody bothered reading that pointlessly long post, just know that I was wrong with the second to last paragraph. It looks like they won't bus local to city. But they will argue local to local about who is going to have to take the random historically black neighborhoods.

3/17/2011 2:44:41 PM

Just as an FYI, not all tests are made to be completed on a standard American educational scoring system. There are many situations where they put on large amounts of difficult material (not saying this is one, just putting forth the idea that it's a possibility), and so a good score is 80-90%, instead of 95+%.

In the United States, although we claim that things are on a 100 point scale, no one ever uses the bottom 50%. It is extremely rare to ever find someone outside the top 50% on a graded assignment or test.

3/17/2011 3:02:49 PM

Quote :

"I agree. The NAACP is pretty darn liberal and even they're opposed to this measure."

Im pretty sure the national NAACP supports this measure

3/17/2011 3:50:44 PM

^Cause they're like best friends with Holder. Nobody is happy about this, by the way. They're not like, "Yes, we got them to lower their standards! This is an amazing day for racial equality in America!"

^^Totally! People keep making a big deal about how it's dropping from a D to an F, as if those letters mean something universally, and they totally don't. It's weird!

3/18/2011 1:12:56 AM

^Who cares about the letter?
What matter is that dumbfucks are allowed to fail, but pass this exam. The passing grade should be 80%

3/18/2011 9:13:39 AM

^ misses the point

3/18/2011 8:05:22 PM

Quote :

"Stereotype threat makes them perform poorly? I know it can make people perform worse than they would have, but I don't think that it entirely accounts for a poor performance, especially not in adults. Plus, even if that were the case, then they probably won't make good police anyway. If you're an adult who is so psychologically paralyzed by race that your score on a civil service exam plummets, then you probably shouldn't be carrying a gun and working a job where you'll likely get called the N-word on a biweekly basis."

see:
Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson. "Stereotype Threat and Intellectual Test Performance of African Americans." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1995, Vol. 69. No.5, 797-811
which i can't find for free, but can be found through the ncsu library

Quote :

"Abstract: Stereotype threat is being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one's group. Studies 1 and 2 varied the stereotype vulnerability of Black participants taking a difficult verbal test by varying whether or not their performance was ostensibly diagnostic of ability, and thus, whether or not they were at risk of fulfilling the racial stereotype about their intellectual ability. Reflecting the pressure of this vulnerability, Blacks underperformed in relation to Whites in the ability-diagnostic condition but not in the nondiagnostic condition (with Scholastic Aptitude Tests controlled). Study 3 validated that ability-diagnosticity cognitively activated the racial stereotype in these participants and motivated them not to conform to it, or to be judged by it. Study 4 showed that mere salience of the stereotype could impair Blacks' performance even when the test was not ability diagnostic. The role of stereotype vulnerability in the standardized test performance of ability-stigmatized groups is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)"

(study 4 was what i was referencing)

and,
http://pwq.sagepub.com/content/33/4/437.full
which shows a similar thing with women

and there are tons of other similar studies. simply being aware that there is a stereotype or expectation that you won't do as well can make you not do as well. so i don't agree with how they are handling this, but its apparent that there may be something to this more than some simple bias written into a test. i don't think it should be so easily dismissed.

3/19/2011 3:18:51 PM

I know what the stereotype threat is. And I'm sure it played a heightened role here given the media attention the test got a couple years ago. And I'm sure there is some hidden bias on the test. But all of that doesn't explain the fact the minority candidates used to pass this test (before Dayton worked with a firm to eliminate bias and before Dayton dropped the passing cutoff score the first time). A more likely explanation for the current round of scores is that qualified minority applicants are going to college to do things other than become city cops. This means the people left to take the test are the less qualified applicants. Positions in civil service used to be highly sought after...now not so much apparently.

I hesitate to emphasize the roles of things like stereotype threat and test bias because they do not adequately describe reality. If it's all about bias and stereotype threat, then that means everything is actually okay. All we need to do is stop testing, and society would be perfect. Prenatal care, childhood nutrition, state curricula, teaching practices, the organization of school systems, access to community services...it's all wonderful! Dayton doesn't need to do a better job of recruiting minority applicants because the ones they've got are top notch already! Judges and attorneys just need to ignore the increase in shoddy paperwork that comes their way, and when promotions time comes around, we just need to ignore those scores, too.

I can't fight for equality while simultaneously denying the effects of inequality.


[Edited on March 20, 2011 at 1:19 PM. Reason : I don't know what I would do if I was Holder. Having diverse police forces is important.]

3/20/2011 1:12:26 PM

Quote :

"does that one county have all of those school districts? that might be your problem right there, lol."

yes. see: flight, white

and as a resident of dayton, oh, it's pretty annoying to see how wasteful it is to have all these contiguous communities have their own mayors, councils, etc. when really, the whole region would be better served if under a unified system. but then the rich areas would have to pay for / have their kids go to school with the poors.

3/21/2011 6:27:59 PM