U.S. Supports Teacher Tests Hit by Minorities : Justice Dept. Sees ‘Double Standard,’ Asks Court to Overturn Order Blocking Texas Examinations

WASHINGTON —  The Justice Department, in its first attack on what it regards as an inferior “double standard” for educating minority students, Monday defended the use of teacher training admission tests that Latinos and blacks contend discriminate against them.

In a move the department described as a significant new direction in civil rights enforcement, Assistant Atty. Gen. William Bradford Reynolds urged the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to overturn a lower court order that blocked such tests in Texas.

The Texas Legislature in 1981 had required students to pass a test on basic skills as a condition of admission into a state-approved teacher education program.

Past Segregation Blamed

Last August, U.S. District Judge William W. Justice in Tyler, Tex., ruled that far more blacks and Latinos failed the test than did whites because of past segregation in Texas’ elementary and secondary education system.

But Reynolds, in a statement accompanying a brief that the department filed Monday, called the case “a perfect example of how a misguided approach to our civil rights laws--particularly in the educational arena--hurts those minority persons it is purportedly intended to benefit.”

He declared: “You don’t ‘solve’ the educational problems of minority students by holding them to a ‘double standard’ of education and foreclosing inquiry into whether they possess the basic skills required of all others in the profession they seek to enter.”

The Texas judge’s order ignores, rather than corrects, any educational deficiencies caused by segregation, Reynolds argued, and thus “enshrines these deficiencies forever--and may even pass them along to a whole new generation who will be taught by teachers unable to demonstrate even basic educational skills in the most fundamental learning areas.”

The court brief is the first official action the Justice Department has taken to implement a policy Reynolds disclosed in an interview with The Times published Sept. 20.

The teacher training admission test, given for the first time in Texas in March, 1984, is designed to measure reading, writing and arithmetic skills at the 12th-grade level. During the first year of the test’s use, 73% of whites passed, compared to 34% of Latinos and 23% of blacks.

Students who fail the test, which is given three times a year, can attempt to pass it as many times as they wish. If a student fails any section of the test, he is limited to taking six credits of education courses until his score is acceptable.

In July, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the GI Forum, the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and a number of Latino and black college students challenged the test in court, contending that it violated a statewide school desegregation decree. They argued that the test violated provisions in the decree requiring Texas to provide Latino and black students in the public schools with access to minority teachers.

The District Court judge agreed, holding that the state’s obligation to create a unitary school system includes a duty to provide minority children with “minority role models.”

In challenging that conclusion, the Justice Department contended that there has been a “significant improvement in black and Hispanic pass rates” during the last year.

Jurisdiction Challenged

The department argued that the judge lacked jurisdiction in the case on the grounds that the statewide decree only requires Texas to take responsibility for the desegregation of elementary and secondary schools--and does not limit the state’s authority in higher education.

Jose Botello, Texas state director of LULAC, denied in a telephone interview that his organization was calling for a double standard of education.

“Not everyone is capable of taking tests,” he said, adding that the 14 student plaintiffs represented by his organization have “high grade-point averages.”

Grover Hankins, an attorney for the NAACP, declined comment until he can review the department’s 43-page brief.