Race Bias

Standardized testing has been around since the early 1900’s. Today, it determines a high school student’s future. Every year juniors in high school start to prepare months in advance for the SAT’s and ACT’s. Along with the test itself, comes stress that is not necessary. The debate of standardized tests defining a student’s academic ability or not has become a recent popular controversial topic. Many colleges and universities are starting to have test optional applications because they are realizing that a single test score does not demonstrate the knowledge of a student. There is more value in a student that should rule an acceptance or rejection. In the article, “SAT Scores Help Colleges Make Better Decisions” Capterton states, “The SAT has proven to be valid, fair, and a reliable data tool for college admission” (Capterton). Capterton, president of the College Board, believes that the SAT’s and ACT’s should be used to determine a student’s acceptance because it is an accurate measure. What Capterton and deans of admissions of colleges and universities don’t know is the abundant amount of resources upper class families have for preparation, the creative talents a student has outside of taking tests, and the amount of stress they put on a 17 year old.

African Americans are the most judged group of individuals in the U.S. and around the world. Many American and non-American citizens see African American males as threating and thugs, while others view African American females as angry and ghetto. These stereotypes have led to Blacks being least likely to date outside of their race compared to other races. In this study we will discussing the reasons why White Americans would either object or not object to a member of their family bringing home an African American for dinner, we will also look at how education, gender, and region affect these decisions. In this study we will go into detail about why these attributes can cause different responses with White American. This research is important because there has been little to no research done on how whites really feel about family members dating outside their race and to test why White Americans would either except or object this notion. While White and Black Americans have come a long way in our hatred for each other we still have so far to go. Americans (White, Black, Hispanic, and other) are all entitled to our own opinions but these opinions should not be based off of racism.

Each year high school students from around the country take the SAT or ACT. The ACT and SAT are both standardized test used by colleges to determine the knowledge of a student and predict what their performance will be in their first year of college. An immense amount of pressure is put on student to receive certain scores in order to obtain scholarships and admission into college. Even just one point on a student’s score can determine if they will be accepted into their dream college. However, the results from standardized tests, such as the ACT and SAT, are often inaccurate. Because of this one’s knowledge and academic ability are misrepresented, and they are denied certain opportunities. Standardized tests such as the ACT and the SAT

Einstein once said, “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Likewise, if a poor test-taker is judged by their SAT score, they could be forced to attend an inadequate institute of higher education. For decades, the SAT has been “the test” that makes or breaks a student's chances of getting into their top college. Generally, the privileged populace do well, but minorities and women do not come out as strong and are therefore limited to college choice. The SAT has proven to be an unsuitable, biased method for predicting success of students in college.

For many years, standardized tests have been a pillar of college admissions. Students are persuaded to take the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) or the American College Test (ACT) because colleges believe the scores can predict an applicant’s academic success after high school. However, an increasing number of colleges have made reporting test scores optional due to inconsistencies with the tests, many of which have been emphasized by students. These inconsistencies and other problems with test distribution have led to increasing demands for standardized testing to be reformed or become optional in the admissions process. Standardized testing should be eliminated as a criterion for college applicants because the tests have made education less significant, have made scores vary among students with similar academic abilities, and have not contributed a noticeable improvement to children’s intelligence.

Although we seem to see a new news story every day concerning racial bias and blatant racism, it is not a new issue. “We have been engaging in this conversation for as long as I can remember. Fighting this fight for centuries. Caught in a cycle of bias for as long as they can remember.” (Nichols) I believe all the adversity we are facing as a country today can be attributed to the attitudes of the early American settlers who laid the basis for our bias as a country. In fact, historians date racism in America as far back as the 1500’s with the beginning of the Middle Passage and our first look into racially profiling individuals for slavery.

Working Title: Examining the History of Standardized Tests in Higher Education through a Critical Race Lens and Analyzing Predictors of Graduate School Success among African Americans

High School juniors and seniors are frequently asked what they plan to do for their college education. While discussing their future in college, many relevant topics come into the conversation. One may talk about their grades and classes, paying for school, and their test scores. All of these have a very important impact on what a student will do for the next few years of their life. Unfortunately, in our society, test scores are an extremely important factor in the college admissions process. Students are highly encouraged to put forth a serious effort in order to achieve the best possible score. “To this day, most four-year colleges require applicants to take one or more of a number of standardized tests for admission, and

“I can’t breathe,” imagine having to hear your father, son, or brother desperately gasp for air while murmuring those words, “I can’t breathe.” It’s heart wrenching, but now visualize him being viscously choked from behind by a police officer. The predicament is startling and unseen. Your loved one has surrendered but the officer has no intention of relinquishing his grip, restricting the airway, making it incredibly difficult to breathe. Suddenly, the police officer forces your loved one’s motionless body to the ground, proceeding by mashing his face into the pavement. Slowly loosing conscious, he lifelessly lays on the Staten Island concrete. Nobody performs CPR, not even the ambulance upon their arrival. Your loved one is pronounced dead at the hospital, and the officer who stole his life walks a free man.

By now, everyone has come to the conclusion that SAT is a flawed system. The test is designed to determine the future of high school students. Its job is to capture a snapshot of what a student has learned over the course of their academic career. Unfortunately, this is not what happens. Instead of treating a student’s score as just a snapshot, colleges treat a student’s score as their complete academic intelligence. What the system fails to realize is that not all students are good test takers. A student could study for weeks, but when the curator says “You may begin” their mind goes blank. Furthermore, the education system has become too dependant on the SAT to calculate a student’s intelligence. The real emphasis should be on the student’s GPA, essays, extracurriculars, volunteer work, and how much they challenged themselves. Focusing on these aspects allows the college to review an applicant’s work ethic.

The purpose of this proposal is to examine current and future Iowa State University admissions decisions processes. At the present time most colleges, including Iowa State use a combination of standardized test scores, high school class rank, high school grade point average, and essays to make decisions on admissions. All of the above are good determinants of a student’s possible success in college, except standardized test scores. Standardized tests discriminate against minorities and are not a good overall indicator of a student’s potential. For these reasons and others, Iowa State should not use standardized test scores when making admissions

Misinformation, false and inaccurate information, can not only affect one’s bias but future poor decisions about consequential matters. Many of today’s spread of misinformation derives not only from the reader’s interpretation of the given bias and rhetoric within the sources, but the afterward outspread of this information. In the case of standardized testing, media often portrays it as an unnecessary and overwhelming tool used to equally assess the student population in core subjects. But, the media never shines the light on those who rely on the tests to excel in their classes. In “SAT Scores Helps Colleges Make Better Decisions, Gaston Caperton of the U.S. News and Report argues that SATs indeed gives colleges administrators a fair field

The College Board and ACT nonprofit organizations, known for developing and administering the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and American College Testing (ACT) assessment respectively, represents higher education’s widely accepted college readiness determinant for prospective students. These examinations empirically measure a student’s grasp of reading, writing, and mathematics – subjects taught every day in high school classrooms. As a result, they typically constitute a significant proportion of the total entrance requirements for prospective students to relevant institutions of higher learning and denote a serious endeavor unto itself. Students commonly take one or both of these examinations during their junior or senior year of high school as dictated by an institution’s administrative guidelines, although most colleges now allow either test as part of their proprietary admission formulas. And since it turns out there exists subtle differences in the tests themselves, students should review research concluding certain individuals may be better candidates for maximizing performance on one examination versus another.

According to Zwick’s research, “Academic researchers investigate the fairness of the SAT based on how well it predicts college grades for each racial group” (321). Rather than arguing for racial bias on the SAT like Lemann, Zwick argues that such bias does not exist. Unlike Lemann, she does not believe that the SAT underestimates racial subgroup’s scores, rather, she claims “ [that] SAT scores tend to predict higher college grades than were actually attained by African-American, Latin, and American Indian students and lower grades than were actually attained by Asian American and white students” (321). Zwick explains how the SAT helps minorities get into the college of their choice, not how it hinders them. In fact, in the UC system, “the main barrier of all ethnic groups in admissions is the failure to complete college preparatory courses” (324). Now she qualifies her argument by agreeing with Lemann on the way to successfully and efficiently integrate students of all ethnicities into colleges: “improve K-12 education so that college applicants will be better prepared for the SAT” (324). By making a strong, uniform high school curriculum, all students will be equipped with the core fundamentals of learning, which will better their chances of joining the elite. Like Lemann, she desires to help the meritocratic system become a fair system for all

Racial bias is still a very active issue in society today. This paper explores the understanding of racial bias in business hiring. This is critical because racial bias continually uniforms businesses in hiring decisions. The prevalence of racial bias in business hiring, potential interventions, and explanations of why this occurs will be explored. How prevalent is racial bias in business hiring today and how can it be mediated?