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Bernard R. Gifford and Linda C. Wing Standardized testing has
become a ubiquitous feature of American life. As a major source of
information for reducing uncertainty in the alJocation of merit
based educational, training, and employment opportunities, testing
affects the life chances of individuals. Moreover, testing
inOuences the way in which our societyjudgesitselfandprovides for
ourcollective future. Test scores may determine a child's admission
to lcindergarten and promotion to the fIrst grade. Most states
award the high school diploma only ifa student has passed a minimum
competency test. Major institutions of higher education typically
require applicants to supplement their records of academic
achievement with scores on college admissions tests. In the labor
market, as a condition of employment or assignment to training
programs, more and more employers are requiring workers to sit for
personnel selection tests. Additionally, it has become commonplace
to use test scores to calibrate our national sociopolitical
condition and our capacity to compete with other countries in the
global economy. In short, with increasing frequency and intensity,
scores on examinations that purport to be objective and precise
measures of individual knowledge, abilities, and potential are
playing a critical role in the opportunity marketplace. Similarly,
test scores are exercising growing influence in assessments of our
social and economic institutions and in policy decisions about the
relative invesunents that should be made in each. In all these
instantiations, test scores are at the center of high-stakes
decision making about the future of individuals and of the nation
itself."
Linda C. Wing and Bernard R. Gifford How should a society committed
to the ideas of individual merit, equal opportunity, and the free
marketplace allocate scarce educational and employment
opportunities? How can that society draw distinctions fairly and
justifiably-among people competing against each other for the same
opportunity? These are among the central questions of a democracy.
How a society answers them reveals a great deal about its values
and its priorities, and determines a great deal about its future
course. In recent decades, we have placed the standardized
pencil-and-paper test at the center of these fundamental questions
about the nature of opportunity allocation in American life. In
more and more areas of our lives-schools, employment, the
military-we rely upon the standardized test to rank or classify
people, and to assure ourselves that we have done so fairly. The
papers gathered here were prepared at the invitation of the
National Commission on Testing and Public Policy. (The editors of
this volume were involved in the commission from its inception in
1987 until shortly after the publication of its major public report
in 1990-Bernard Gifford as Chair and Linda Wing as Associate
Director. 1) Each chapter focuses on an aspect of employment
testing-a topic that could hardly 1 POLICY ISSUES IN EMPLOYMENT
TESTING 2 be more in need of calm deliberation and reasoned
discussion than it is today."
Bernard R. Gifford and Linda C. Wing Standardized testing has
become a ubiquitous feature of American life. As a major source of
information for reducing uncertainty in the alJocation of merit
based educational, training, and employment opportunities, testing
affects the life chances of individuals. Moreover, testing
inOuences the way in which our societyjudgesitselfandprovides for
ourcollective future. Test scores may determine a child's admission
to lcindergarten and promotion to the fIrst grade. Most states
award the high school diploma only ifa student has passed a minimum
competency test. Major institutions of higher education typically
require applicants to supplement their records of academic
achievement with scores on college admissions tests. In the labor
market, as a condition of employment or assignment to training
programs, more and more employers are requiring workers to sit for
personnel selection tests. Additionally, it has become commonplace
to use test scores to calibrate our national sociopolitical
condition and our capacity to compete with other countries in the
global economy. In short, with increasing frequency and intensity,
scores on examinations that purport to be objective and precise
measures of individual knowledge, abilities, and potential are
playing a critical role in the opportunity marketplace. Similarly,
test scores are exercising growing influence in assessments of our
social and economic institutions and in policy decisions about the
relative invesunents that should be made in each. In all these
instantiations, test scores are at the center of high-stakes
decision making about the future of individuals and of the nation
itself."
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