The Neverending Story Of Lower Testing Standards
03/17/2011
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The ABC station in Dayton, Ohio reports:

The Dayton Police Department is lowering its testing standards for recruits.

It's a move required by the U.S. Department of Justice after it says not enough African-Americans passed the exam.

Dayton is in desperate need of officers to replace dozens of retirees. The hiring process was postponed for months because the D.O.J. rejected the original scores provided by the Dayton Civil Service Board, which administers the test.

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'. ...

The D.O.J. and Civil Service Board declined Dayton's News Source's repeat requests for interviews. The lower standards mean 258 more people passed the test. The city won't say how many were minorities. ...

The D.O.J. has forced other police departments across the country to lower testing standards, citing once again that not enough black candidates were passing.

A story on WHIO in Dayton gives a few more (sometimes conflicting) numbers:

Officials with the City of Dayton Service Board announced Thursday that it has accepted the cutoff score for the police recruit written examination administered on Nov. 20, 2010. Officials said a total of 1,083 candidates completed the written portion of the examination.

The test was administered in two parts, a Test Preparation Manual (TPM) test with 86 questions and a Situational Judgment and Writing Ability Test (SJWAT) with 102 questions.After consultation with the United States Department of Justice, as well as Fire & Police Selection, Inc., the creator of the written examination, the cutoff score for the examination is 50 points for the TPM portion and 64 points for the SJWAT portion.

This resulted in 748 individuals passing the written examination, which was a pass/fail examination.

Presumably, this means that the top 748 out of 1083 now proceed afresh through the oral part of the hiring process all with equal chances.

So, under the original scoring, 490 of 1,083 candidates for these "dozens" of jobs passed the test. So, you had to be in the top 45% on the written test. Now, they'll go down another quartile.

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