| Kali Prasad |
Posted
on 11-Jul-01 11:17 PM
SOURCE: CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Texas Law Limits Use of Standardized Tests in Graduate Admissions
By DAN CURRY
Advocates for minority students are cheering a new Texas law that bans graduate and professional schools at state universities from using standardized tests as the primary factor in deciding to reject applicants.
The ban took effect on June 15, the day the bill was signed by Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican.
Proponents of the measure hope it will increase the number of black and Hispanic students in some of the state's graduate and professional programs. In some highly selective programs, enrollment of black and Hispanic students declined sharply following a 1996 federal appeals court decision, commonly known as Hopwood, that banned the use of race in admissions.
Under the new law, institutions will no longer be able to stop considering a student for admission based solely on his or her score on a standardized test, such as the LSAT (for law school), MCAT (for medical school) and GRE (for many graduate-level academic programs). The law states that if standardized-test scores are used in the admissions process, they must be considered along with other factors, such as socioeconomic background, proficiency in more than one language, and "region of residence." It also says that a student's test scores must be compared to the scores of students from similar socioeconomic backgrounds.
"Administrators needed something to resort to without fear of lawsuits," said State Rep. Irma Rangel, the Democratic author of the law. "This law is clearly not affirmative action. There are no [quotas] in this law."
The bill was introduced in the 1999 legislative session, but did not pass.
Ms. Rangel said the law applies only to graduate programs because a separate law, enacted in 1997, ensures that many minority students will have access to the state's top undergraduate programs. That law permits any student who graduates in the top 10 percent of his or her high-school class to attend any public undergraduate institution in the state -- effectively eliminating test scores as a factor for those students.
Administrators at some highly selective graduate programs in Texas said the new law probably won't have a large impact on their admissions process.
"We already have an admissions system that is pretty much in compliance with the law," said William C. Powers, dean of the University of Texas School of Law, the defendant in the Hopwood case, in which four white students charged that they had been improperly denied admission because of their race. "We don't use LSAT scores as an exclusive or an eliminating factor."
However, some administrators said that they would need to modify their admissions process in response to the new law.
Filomeno G. Maldonado, assistant dean of admissions at Texas A&M University's medical school, said that his office would probably need to conduct more personal interviews, now that MCAT scores cannot be used to filter applicants. The medical school received 1,800 applications for the 2000-1 entering class, and interviewed roughly 500 students. About 200 students were admitted, and 64 enrolled.
"We don't know exactly how we're going to handle this," Mr. Maldonado said. "Because we are so thorough, even reviewing the application materials for one student is an arduous task."
Among law schools in the state, the University of Texas was hit hardest by the court order to end the use of race in admissions. Enrollment of first-year black students dropped from 7.4 percent in 1995 to less than 1 percent in 1997, the year after Hopwood, before rebounding to 3.8 percent in this year's class. The number of first-year Hispanic students declined from 12.5 percent in 1995 to 5.6 percent in 1997, before climbing to 7.1 percent this year.
Texas admissions officials say the increases are a result of intensified recruiting efforts and a greater emphasis on factors that may favor minority students, such as family income.
Despite the recent increases, Ms. Rangel insisted that the new law is needed.
"I would not brag about the numbers that presently exist because they are not even reflective of the population of Texas," she said. "I feel like this law is necessary. If these schools are doing something right now, it is not reflected in some of the color on their campuses."
Albert H. Kauffman, regional counsel for the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which worked closely with Ms. Rangel on the law, said that the proportion of Hispanic students in Texas graduate and professional programs is nowhere near the proportion of Hispanic people in the state's total population -- roughly 33 percent.
Standardized tests have become a hot-button issue because black and Hispanic students tend to score lower, on average, on the tests than do white and Asian students. Mr. Kauffman said that the lower scores for black and Hispanic students reflect the significant language and cultural barriers that many of those students face.
Critics of standardized tests also note that a disproportionate number of black and Hispanic students come from low-income families, and thus can't afford test-preparation classes. "Rich kids can buy a leg-up through coaching," said Robert A. Schaeffer, public-education director for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, also known as FairTest.
Mr. Schaeffer said he knew of no other state law designed to reduce the emphasis on standardized tests in graduate schools. "Texas was in the vanguard among states in responding to the assault on affirmative action at the undergraduate level," he said. Now, the state "is taking the next step of addressing graduate admissions."
Curt A. Levey, director of legal and public affairs at the Center for Individual Rights, a nonprofit legal organization that represented the plaintiffs in the Hopwood case, said that some of the admissions factors that the law says should be considered along with test scores, such as "region of residence," seem like a thinly veiled attempt to raise the proportion of minority students. But he said the center does not oppose using such factors.
"Our position is that as long as it's race-neutral, you shouldn't automatically assume the worst," he said.
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