Teacher Certification Test Remains Biased Against Minorities

A Federal judge threw out a test used to vet prospective Teachers on the grounds it was “deficient” and “unfairly discriminatory” against minority candidates. The June 5 ruling was the latest in a 19-year court battle and the second time U.S. District Judge Kimba M. Wood invalidated a test used by the city to score potential educators.

Her decision followed a similar ruling in 2012 in which she found the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test, which the then-Board of Education began to require in 1993, wasn’t job-related and had a disparate impact on black and Latino candidates. The latest decision invalidated the LAST-2, which replaced the previous exam in 2004. For every 100 white candidates who passed the test annually, as few as 54 and at maximum 75 minority applicants did before DOE scrapped it about a decade later.