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DAYTON -- The Dayton Police Department is lowering its testing standards for recruits.

It's a move required by the U.S. Department of Justice after it says not enough African-Americans passed the exam.

Dayton is in desperate need of officers to replace dozens of retirees. The hiring process was postponed for months because the D.O.J. rejected the original scores provided by the Dayton Civil Service Board, which administers the test.

Under the previous requirements, candidates had to get a 66% on part one of the exam and a 72% on part two.

The D.O.J. approved new scoring policy only requires potential police officers to get a 58% and a 63%. That's the equivalent of an ‘F’ and a ‘D’.

“It becomes a safety issue for the people of our community,” said Dayton Fraternal Order of Police President, Randy Beane. “It becomes a safety issue to have an incompetent officer next to you in a life and death situation."

“The NAACP does not support individuals failing a test and then having the opportunity to be gainfully employed,” agreed Dayton NAACP President Derrick Foward.

The D.O.J. and Civil Service Board declined Dayton’s News Source’s repeat requests for interviews. The lower standards mean 258 more people passed the test. The city won't say how many were minorities.

“If you lower the score for any group of people, you're not getting the best qualified people for the job,” Foward said.

“We need to work with the youth and make them interested in becoming law enforcement officers and firefighters,” said Beane. “Break down the barriers whether they are real or perceived, so we can move forward in this community.”

The D.O.J. has forced other police departments across the country to lower testing standards, citing once again that not enough black candidates were passing.

The Dayton Firefighter recruit exam is coming up this summer. The chief said it’s likely the passing score for that test will be lowered as well.Civil Service Board Announces Police Recruit Scores

Friday, March 11 2011, 12:17 AM EST

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Lowering standards to let retards pass. Sounds like our high school system.

Well it's probably similar to how Obama got into Harvard.

Must be pretty bad when even the NAACP knows its not right. Also where I went to school 63% was an F

Hey Elm, Let's circulate a petition to lower the standards for the NBA draft because not enough white people are getting in. You know, just to see what happens.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

While alarming, it's not as bad as it sounds because the test scores are just a starting point to create a civili service list, and they still work down from the top, if they're even hiring. Most cities in Ohio are required to maintain a list whether they anticipate hiring or not.

They wok down from the top, and candidates usually have to then pass a PT test, a background, psychological, physical, polygraph, and some sort of oral board or interview. All this really means is that they can go lower on the list before having to retest. If they meet hiring needs without hitting the bottom of the list, they generally retest in 1 to 2 years regardless; there's always a legal limit to the list's lifespan.

The principle of lowering scores to get more minorities is far more alarming than the actual effects.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Since dropping the score threshold will surely allow more white people to pass along with black people, my question is: How do they ensure more black people get in after lowering the scores without just arbitrarily disqualifying white people that passed the test?

They don't, so it's feel good do nothing politics at work?

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

They just assume the blacks are dumber and thus need help.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

So we're clear, I'm not stating I think this policy is a good thing.

I think the logic they're using is in order for a population to have faith in the police force, the police force must at least to some degree reflect the demographics of the area they serve. (For all parties involved)

The national leader of the NAACPs position is that if fewer African Americans are passing the test, then the test is discriminatory (I just heard him say this on a national TV news Interview.

That he says that and probably believes it shows he has no true understanding of what discriminatory means.

Are there questions on the test you are only going to know the answer to if you are white? Come on now.

Another question is how many black people are taking that test. What percentage of that is the total? Could it be that not many are passing it because not many with any real qualifications are taking it?

How about a comparison on educational levels achieved and pass/fail rates? Maybe not enough dumb people of any race are passing it.

Sheesh, too many questions nobody is going to answer.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Instead of lowering the standards for the NBA draft, why not petition to lower the hoop height, might work the same.

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Dream as if you'll live forever...
...Live as if you'll die tomorrow

Vivere Senza Rimpianti

The NBA is some sportsy thing?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I don't get it. There must be other requirements. Because... I'd think that scores wouldn't matter. You need X new officers, you accept the top X scores.

There must be more to it.

I don't see why a police force necessarily needs the same demographics as the area it serves, unless the difference is the result of active discrimination in the first place.

Pretty much any police force will always have a massive imbalance in favor of males, for example. This is because males are more likely to want to do the work, and more likely to be physically capable of doing it. Yet the masive imbalance in terms of sex does not mean women, in general, distrust the police far more than men.

The logic they are using would have been corect 40 or 50 years ago, when imbalances probably were due to an overt refusal to hire blacks. The problem is that an imbalance now is far, far less likely to be caused by that, and far more likely to be caused by a poorer state of education amongst blacks, making it harder to pass the written exam.

In fact, even if the poorer education were somehow shown to be a result of active discrimination, that still would not be an excuse for this because the police are not in control of that, and the public should not be forced to accept less-qualified police because of the educational system.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

If you needed four more engineers, interviewed 50 and decided only two of them were good enough to work at your company, would you lower your standards to hire the next-best two? Would you hire the "top" four, even if only two of them met your standards?

There is. Like I said, you start at the top and work your way down, but just passing the written test doesn't mean you get hired.

Let's say you have a medium-sized city police force, and you anticipate hiring 24 new officers this year, or about 1 every 2 weeks or so, to keep pace with attrition.

Now, in Ohio, where I have taken entirely too many police tests, you generally test the first 200 individuals to turn in a completed application. Let's say for the sake of argument that 70% is passing, and let's further assume that 3/4 the test takers pass, just to keep the numbers easy.

You now have a pool of 150 applicants to hire from, good for the life of the list, right? Let's say by law you have to give a test every 2 years.

Not exactly. Most likely, you will give all the passing scores a PT test, in order to have it over and done with. Let's say 30% of that 150 fail the PT test, so now you have 105 names.

Now you need to start hiring from the list. Generally, there are civil service rules saying you need to interview X number of people per open position, or there is a formula where if you have a large number of open positions you don't need to interview int he same proportion. For example, you might be required to interview 10 people minimum, or 3 per open position, whichever is higher.

So lets say you need to interview 72 people for these 24 spots. You interview 72; lets say 50 are determined suitable. Now you go into medical, psychological, polygraph, and background.

Depending on how those go, you might have more or less suitable people at the end than the 24 you need. If more, some won't be hired, but will generally be retained as eligable in case you need more people.

Lets say you only end up with 20. You need 4 more. Now you start over with your pool of 105 and interview another 12. You go through the process again, and get your 4, and lets say 2 are still suitable.

Now, next year rolls around and you need to hire another 24 for attrition. You can hire 2 right away, but the other 22 you need to hire have to come from a pool that's down to 21 applicants.

Oops.

We already know that a good portion of those won't be suitable after interviews, backgrounds, etc, and by this time some will have lost interest, been hired elsewhere, etc.

This means you need to give a new test to take care of the remaining openings.

When you lower the criteria to pass the original written test, some, or all, of those positions will be filled with people who failed, and a new test won't be given as soon. It won't be that many additional people because a lot will get weeded out and you're already at the bottom of the list. The consequences aren't that severe. The principle is the problem; we don't lower the psychological, medical, background, or polygraph standards, why lower the academic ones? (I won't speak to the PT standards which are wildly variable and in some cases, appallingly low.)

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."