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INTRACHILD VARIABILITIES
:
WILL CURTAILMENT
OF
TESTING HARM
MINORITY CHILDREN?
RALPH
SCOTT
AND
JAMES
STUMME
Uitiversity
o.f
Northern
Iowa
Compared intrachild variability of five-year-old children
(49
black,
34
white)
on the Primary Mental Abilities Test when subjects reached their fifth birth-
day after completing at, least two years of preschool enrichment. Conclusions,
although qualified on the basis
of
limited sample size, revealed wider intra-
child variability with minority children. This suggests t,hat abandonment.
of
testing may increase instructional problems and possibly lower t,he quaht.y
of
inst,ruct,ion provided minority and
poor
children.
Recent years have witnessed vigorous debate on the question, “Is testing
harmful to minority students?” The response has frequently been affirmative;
I&
tests have been outlawed in the schools of such cieies
as
New York, Philadelphia,
and Washington, D.C. Some authorities, including Jane Mercer who authored
the SOMPA Test, assert that achievement measures contain essentially the same
flaws
as
do
I&
tests (Mercer,
1977).
Consequently,
it
appears that some banning
of achievement tests may also be anticipated.
However, the testing coin has two sides. Measurement advocates acknowl-
edge certain test shortcomings, but note that responsible evaluation can promote
improved procedures for providing students with more appropriate learning ex-
periences, because teacher observations and test results should be complementary
:
each can contribute to
an
improved understanding of
a
child’s learning needs
(Scott,
1970;
Exhibit C,
1978).
Some resistance to testing stems from the belief
that between-race comparisons are invidious and imply that particular patterns
of
scores are “superior”
or
even adaptive (Samuda,
1973);
such resistance should
soften when inquiries turn to within-race observations designed to help teachers
formulate more viable individualized strategies (Scott,
1976).
Since the appearance of the Coleman Report (Coleman, et al.,
1966),
educators
have sought to narrow the black-white achievement gap. But few National Head
Start Evaluations have demonstrated long-term benefits. Some studies suggest
that the general failure of enrichment programs may be traced to difficulties teach-
ers encounter in matching assignments and children’s academic functioning levels
in the major achievement area8
as
children move through the grades (Borich,
1977).
Presumably, the task of planning highly effective educational programs is
more difficult when students manifest
a wide, rather than narrow, range
of
intra-
child achievement variability (Glasser,
1972;
Heiss,
1977).
Therefore, the present
study sought to determine
if
test profiles revealed more test score variability with
minority than majority youngsters who entered kindergarten after at least two
years of participation in an early childhood and family-based enrichment program.
Requests
for
re rints should be sent t,o’Ralph Scot,t, Educational Clinic, University
of
Nort,hern
Iowa, Cedar Falls,
?A
50613.
68