Predicting Incomes With Standardized Test Scores

By race and sex:

The following is from http://home.att.net/~dysgenics/TRC.htm

In just this one analysis therefore, the closing gap between Whites and Blacks is shown to be meaningless because of confounding effects, and for that reason the results are without any merit at all. And in a vindication of The Bell Curve that we are seeing more and more of in academic journals and books, Hauser states, "In one important respect, Herrnstein and Murray were surely right: It is most dangerous to project trend lines unthinkingly. Yet another set of NAEP assessments -- for 1992 -- became available after The Bell Curve went to press, and these data appear to confirm that the trend toward convergence in Black and White test scores was reversed after 1986-1988. For example, Figure 1 shows trends in the average (mean) NAEP scores of Blacks and Whites at age 13 in reading, science, and mathematics. The years of greatest convergence are not entirely clear because there are no reading scores for 1986 and no science or math scores for 1988. It does appear that sometime in the middle to late 1980s, the convergent trend ended, and Black-White gaps returned to levels of the early 1980s."

In summary then the following conditions led to a false indication that the intelligence gap between Blacks and Whites was closing when the government changed important programs as follows:

-- Educational expenditures went up much faster for Black students than for all students being tested.

-- Back to basics programs emphasized "teaching to the test" to improve scores so that Black students could do better on the standardized exams.

-- An end to social promotions increased absenteeism and the drop-out rate, so that these marginal or low intelligence Blacks were no longer tested and included in the averages.

-- More students were enrolled into special education programs (slow learners) which was dominated by Blacks and these students also were not included in the NAEP test score results.

Finally, Ceci, Rosenblum and Kumpf state, "THE ESTABLISHED FACTS: There is no dispute among psychometric researchers that Whites outscore Blacks on IQ tests as well as on standardized achievement tests. The gap most commonly reported is approximately 1 SD. (On the most widely used individual IQ tests, this translates into a 15- to 16-point gap between Blacks and Whites; Hispanics fall midway between these groups, and Asian Americans score about 3 points, on average, higher than Whites.) Racial and ethnic gaps in IQ and achievement tests scores have existed throughout this century; for example, IQ differences between Blacks and Whites were evident on the first Stanford -- Binet IQ test normed in 1932. Even earlier signs of a racial gap of approximately 1 SD were apparent on the Army Alpha tests administered to recruits during World War 1. These facts are not in dispute among researchers, although their interpretation is open to argument."