Testing, Judicial Decisions on

Testing for Classroom Placement

The use of achievement test scores to determine student placement through tracking or ability grouping has led to litigation when lower tracks have disproportionately large numbers of minority students compared to the composition of the overall school population and where there is concern that the lower tracks afford inferior learning opportunities. Many of the earliest and most well-known cases arose in the era after Brown v. Board of Education (1954) in civil rights disputes over school classification practices and access to educational opportunities. These cases focused on the protections of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and on the implementation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity in programs receiving federal financial assistance. The claims generally arose as part of a broader school desegregation case. More recent cases have relied on the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974, which requires appropriate action by public schools and states to ensure access to education for at-risk students, like racial minorities or English language learners.

Tracking or ability grouping in formerly segregated schools based completely or partially on the use of achievement or ability test scores has been challenged in several cases when the lowest tracks were disproportionally composed of minority students. The use of these placement practices was generally barred by courts in schools that had not yet achieved full racial integration on grounds that the placements resulted in classes that were racially isolated. In several cases, courts determined that test scores reflected the effects of past unlawful discrimination or were used with the intention to discriminate and could result in continuing segregation of schools and the denial of educational opportunities. The general standard that courts eventually developed allowed the use of tests for class placement so long as the tests were necessary and were used according to professional norms, the scores used were not the reflection of past denials of educational opportunity due to school segregation, school officials could show that they were not intentionally trying to segregate minority students, and the placements would result in better educational opportunities for students. Judges looked more favorably on tracking when information in addition to test scores was used in decisions and where at least some students in low tracks were able to move up eventually to higher tracks. Often, school districts were unable to successfully defend their placement decision policies and practices. In the small number of more recent trial and appellate [Page 2151]cases, courts have been more inclined to allow test-based tracking practices.

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