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Audacity of Truth
Gaffetastic:
Vice President Joe Biden had his “oops” moment Wednesday speaking in a 49er-crazed SF when he told a crowd at a city political fundraiser that “the Giants are on their way to the Super Bowl.” - SF Chronicle, 1-18-12
Virginia Beach agrees to change the way it scores police math exams
So reads the headline from the Hampton Roads news site. Just what changes will be applied to police math exams? The way they are scored – because Hispanics and black people couldn’t reach the 70% cutoff score required to pass it:
VIRGINIA BEACH — The city has reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department to resolve allegations that it discriminated against black and Hispanic police recruits.
Under a consent decree filed Monday in federal court in Norfolk, the city will change the way it scores the police entrance exam.
The Justice Department had complained that the math portion of the exam had an adverse effect on minority applicants and unfairly excluded them from being hired.
The city will offer to let 124 black and Hispanic former applicants resume the hiring process. Those recruits failed the math test between 2002 and 2005 but would have passed under the new standards.
The city also will create a $160,000 fund to compensate those applicants.
In the 27-page settlement, the Justice Department states that the city did not intentionally discriminate against blacks and Hispanics.
“The Department of Justice has alleged that the testing component disproportionately disqualified minority applicants” Deputy City Attorney Mark Stiles said. “They don’t allege that we engaged in that conduct with the intent of discrimination, but rather that the disparate impact was found to have occurred by our simply using the test.”
In a letter to the city in February, the Justice Department said Virginia Beach had “engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination” against black and Hispanic applicants.
After an 18-month investigation, the Justice Department found that the police force did not reflect the diversity of the city’s population because of how the math test was graded.
The Justice Department claimed that the test’s pass-fail system had a disproportionate effect on minorities because the passing rates for blacks and Hispanics were less than 80 percent of the passing rate for whites.
Can you believe this?
Re: the old standard versus the new standard:
Under the old standard, Virginia Beach required all recruits to score 70 percent on each of three written tests for reading comprehension, grammar and spelling, and math.
The Justice Department questioned whether math is relevant to the daily duties of a police officer. The city agreed to eliminate the 70 percent cutoff score for the math part of the test.
Under the new standard, an applicant must score at least 70 percent on the reading and grammar parts of the test and score an average of at least 60 percent on all three parts of the exam. The new scoring method will take effect as soon as next week, when the next exam will be administered.
According to data from the city, an additional 15 percent of applicants probably could pass the overall exam under the new standard.
“This is the right standard” Stiles said. “The investigation, at least in part, helped us realize what we have to do.”
Yes, and that is ‘dumb down our tests before we get unjustly accused of discrimination against minorities again.’
Is this really the way this country should go about achieving ‘diversity’? I think not.
La Shawn Barber has written about this issue in the past and says what needs to be said much better than I could in prior posts you will find here, here, and here.
Others blogging about this: Right Wing News, GOP Bloggers
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9 Responses to “Virginia Beach agrees to change the way it scores police math exams”
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So now any ‘D’ student can hope for a carreer in Law Enforcement! Excellent! And not only will Virginia Beach give you a job as a cop, you’ll get a thirteen hundred dollar bonus for being below average!! They won’t be calling them Virginia Beach’s Finest now…
If I am reading the settlement properly, if the applicant scores at least a 70 on the reading and grammar parts of the exam, he can score a 40 on the math part and still pass with a 60 overall average! I suspect that it’s a multiple-choice test, so a random score would be about 25. Might as well just eliminate the math test and save some money.
Your directing your ire in the wrong direction. If math were being learned, perhaps the scores would be higher. You can teach as hard as you will, but unless your student wants to learn they’ll end up failing the math part of the police exam. I’d hire them because the other option is an undocumented worker. Peace
Why test at all? If the issue is to address perceived racial inequities in employment, then why not simply set the quotas and hire first come, first served until every slot is filled.
No point in pretending you are applying standards when you keep moving the goalposts in order to achieve some magic percentage. Especially since you (i.e., VA Beach PD) has just admitted that the standards take second place to meeting quota.
Why should this be any surprise look at the collage admissions criteria the military has had to change the physical requirements fire departments have had to change there physical requirements also and many more. Just take a look at Government schools if students are having trouble passing a graduation test just lower the bar, the teachers union says it’s not the teachers or the curriculum we need more money. When someone stands up and says the test should be the same for everyone no matter what your race or gender is they will be called and labeled a “Raciest” or “Extremist” or “Chauvinistic”. The left loves to use the words “Fair” and “We need a level playing field” but that is only toward private business or the “Evil Rich” you can’t use the same analogy when it comes to Race or Gender. Liberals categorize people because of there color, gender, religious preferences, the poor, the rich or the middle class or there favorite The Working Class. But you ask a liberal and they will tell you they are color blind and there isn’t any difference between a man and a woman then turn around and support affirmative action and preferential treatment because of race and gender. They will tell you that some races of people do better on tests that other races so to make it “Fair” you have to change the bar depending upon your race. If that is not pure hypocrisy and racism I don’t know what is.
Jim M, no Leftist I know,and I know a few,ever said any of those things to me. All of those things you attribute to the Left are all in your own tiny, closed mind(?). Peace
Hey Steve(FN) NASA is looking to create a semi-conductor in a vacuum you could volunteer the space between your ears.
P.S.
Steve(FN) I am sure you know a few bed wetting booger eating liberals and you all live in Hillary’s village of idiots.
The Department of Justice has made a racist argument:
the Virginia beach police department has successfully discriminated against blacks by administering a “smart” test to this population.
If the Department of Justice said that the tests had been improperly graded or poor schools may be the blame, they would have said so. But instead THEY SUPPORT THE VALIDITY of the test results to credit their argument that it discriminates.
Everyone knows hispanics were drawn in to the suit to make people think that this was a populaist issue instead of us black folk not wanting to achieve and reinforcing the white stereotype that we want something for nothing. Or maybe my white brothers are right about a lot of us – like breaking into a house, we will break into a job with the right help, a lawyer in this case.
Tye police chief needed to stand up to my less than honorbale brothers and not back down. You keep giving concessions at the drop of a dime you will keep getting hit. I also think the officers who elect to not pass the math portion HAVE FAILED THE CHARACHTER portion of the exam. Who wants an officer to safegaurd the public when he makes questionable ethical and moral decisions at the outset like sue his way into a job by lowering the standards.
This is crazy man!