We frequently hear comparisons between our education system and the systems of other industrialized countries, along with suggestions that we do things the way they do. But these countries don't have our history of slavery or our sense of responsibility for righting past inequities, so decisions and policies that are straightforward for them can be much more complicated for us.
Take the practice of testing prospective employees for general competence. On the face of it, this makes a lot of sense. But the fairness of these tests has been challenged all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And the Court has ruled that if a test results in a disproportionate number of minorities being excluded, the test will be considered discriminatory unless it is directly related to the job. For example, if requiring prospective ditchdiggers to pass a reading test resulted in screening out a disproportionate number of minority ditchdiggers, the test would be viewed as discriminatory.
A couple of years ago, economists John Bishop and James Rosenbaum both presented studies about the relationship between high school achievement and entry-level employment before a U.S. Labor Department commission of which I was a member. They argued that one of the reasons our country was lagging in productivity was that most U.S. students who are not headed for college don't take schoolwork as seriously as their peers in other industrialized countries.
It's not that our kids are dumber; it's that success in an American high school doesn't count in the kind of job you get when you graduate. Top corporations generally do not employ people right out of high school. And the companies that do hire new graduates typically don't look at high school records. So students who were often absent-and tuned-out on the days they did go to school-get the same low-level jobs as students who worked hard and did well in school.
The logical response to this is to make achievement in high school count for employment. Reward kids who do well in high school with better jobs and better pay, and kids will soon get more serious about high school. This will improve the kids' future prospects, the climate of schools and, eventually, the quality of our work force.
When I argued this position at the commission meeting, I found myself in the middle of a debate. Several members of the commission thought that linking achievement with jobs and pay would be unfair to minority youngsters. They feared that a lot of the jobs available to minority youngsters who had dropped out or had not done well in school would go to non-minority youngsters with good records. Anyway, why do you need a bunch of B's in math and English to flip hamburgers?
There are several problems with this position. The biggest is that in trying to be fair, it is unfair. It reinforces low expectations by assuming that minority youngsters will not be able to improve their achievement even if there is a real incentive to do so. The position also makes it unlikely that employers will reward school achievement with jobs. Why should they if they fear that doing so might lead to accusations of discriminatory hiring practices or make them vulnerable to law suits?
John Bishop suggested in recent testimony before Congress that the proposed civil rights bill would increase the danger of lawsuits for employers who use basic skills tests or other educational criteria. Under the bill, the burden of proof for establishing that the criteria are directly related to the job would be on employers (instead of on the employees, as is now the case).
Bishop's perspective on the proposed civil rights bill is important and hasn't gotten much attention. How should we be thinking about it?
On the one hand, minorities in other countries have found that tests and other qualifications based on achievement work to their advantage. People can study for tests and pass them. And they are judged on what they know and can do instead of on who they know or what race or ethnic group they belong to.
Nevertheless, many African-Americans are suspicious of hiring based on tests and credentials. And it's true that, until now, doing well in school did not pay off for them. In the days before the civil rights movement, education standards for blacks were different from those for whites -segregated schools and discriminatory laws made sure of that. As a result, employers tended to discount credentials held by blacks in hiring and promotion. Then, in the baby boom period, when more African-Americans were being educated, the same was true for every other group in the population, so everyone's education was worth less.
However, we are entering a period in which there will be a tremendous labor shortage. It will be so severe that employers will not be able to turn down applicants because they don't like their skin color or ethnic background. Qualified applicants will get jobs and get promoted. Poorly qualified ones will be stuck in dead-end jobs, as they are now.
So instead of downplaying achievement, we should be letting students know that what they do in school will make a difference and that this will be true for all students. And we should be sure that the new civil rights act will permit employers to reward students who have done well. Anything else will teach students the wrong lesson.