Validity and Competency Tests

Abstract

Both competency testing and test validity have been receiving considerable attention in recent months. But the relationship between the two remains unclear. Indeed, as more attention has focused on the issue of competency tests’ validity, the more disagreement there appears to be among people billed as experts on testing and who might have been presumed to bring some coherent professional opinion to bear on the matter. But where the experts — given to usually abstract disputation — seem to have fostered complexity and provided more questions than answers, lawyers and judges — given more to dealing in the particulars of law and cases at hand — are producing some firm answers on the question of competency tests’ validity. It remains uncertain whether the clash between the disputation of testing experts and the decision-making of the courts is consistently making for better law, but it is at least leading to more direct attention to practical issues of test validity. This chapter’s purposes include the following: 1. To describe major points of dispute over competency test validity as evidenced in arguments in the Debra P. case. 2. To summarize how courts have made sense of such disputation in reaching their decisions. 3. To suggest some of the ways in which the relationship between a test and what is covered in school might be conceived. 4. To suggest some practical strategies for examining the validity of competency tests.