Bell Curve

494 Living Together Affirmative Action in the Workphce 495These are not cognitive ability scores or scores that are being used toselect people for further education but the scores achieved by peoplewho are heading into the nation's classrooms. According to the institutionsthat have graduated these applicants for teacher certification (insome cases, the scores are for teachers already on the job), all of themhave met the requirements for a college degree, and they presumablycan read, write, and do basic math. The scores are on tests that makeno pretense to seek excellence but to weed out the most obviously unsuited.[211With differences ranging upwards of 1 standard deviation, theinescapable conclusion is that a large gap separates black and whiteteachers in basic skills.'22'--The Compensating Skills FallacyOne of the most common arguments about the current practice of affirmativeaction might he called the compensating skills fallacy. It is commonlyapplied to any profession under discussion, but teachers provide anespecially good example. The argument goes like this:There are many skills and qualities that go into being a good teacher hesidt.stest scores. The ability to inspire confidence, to create an eagerness to kani, tolisten to children are all part of the wide repertoire of skills that 0) into being agood teacher that have nothing to do with the traits meaiured by a copitiue ahilicyor academic skik test.The statement itself is correct. Most professions involve a number ofimportant nonintellectual attributes. The fallacy lies in assuming that peoplewho have lower cognitive test scores will, on average, be hetrer endowedin these other areas than people with higher scores.Suppose that the teacher competency exams consistecl of several parts,each of which measured one of these nonintellectual skills. It would bepossible to defend hiring teachers with marginal grades on the intellecti~alskills if these teachers were hired from the top of the list on the tests of theother qualities. But the way affirmative action programs actually work,these other qualities are not tested or compared. The minority candidatewith the best score on the test of intellectual qualities is selected. As forthe other qualities, not measured by the test, there is no reason to assumethat they are any higher than average.'"'A Journalist's Account of the Washington , D . C . , Police ForceBecause affirmative action has been practiced most aggressively in publicemployment-police, firefighters, social welfare agencies, departmentsof motor vehicles, and the like-they are logical places to lookif indeed job performance has been compromised.24 The Washington,D.C., Police Department is a case in point, as described by journalistTucker Carl~on.'~In the mid-1970s, the Washington, D.C., Police Departmentinst~lled a residency requirement for police. Washington's white populationis densely concentrated among white-collar and professionalgroups, with no significant white working-class neighborhoods. The residencyrequirement thereby severely restricted the pool of potentialwhite applicants. By 1982, 40 percent of the candidates who took thepolice admissions test failed it, and the department was having a hardtime filling positions. A new test was introduced in 1985, normed to favorminority applicants. Standards in the police academy were loweredto the point at which not one student flunked out of the training coursein 1983 (despite the lower cognitive ability of the candidates being admitted).In 1988, the academy abolished its final comprehensive pencil-and-paperexamination after 40 percent of graduating recruits failedit. The former head of the Fraternal Order of Police and a veteran oftwenty-two years on the force reported that, at about that time, he beganhearing "about people at the academy who could not read orwrite."2h A former academy instructor says that "I saw people who werepractically illiterate. I've seen people diagnosed as borderline retardedgraduate from the police academy."z7This degradation of intellectual requirements translates into policeperformance on the street. For example, the paperwork that follows anarrest has been a bane of police everywhere for many years, but whenpolice can do the work, it is mainly an inconvenience, not a barrier. Anofficer who cannot do the paperwork or who finds that it pushes the limitsof his abilities may forgo making arrests in marginal cases. The arreststhat are made are often botched. Between 1986 and 1990, about athird of all the murder cases brought to the U.S. attorney's office in theDistrict were dismissed, historically an unusually high rate, often becausethe prosecutors were unable to make sense of the arrest reports.