Newspaper Page Text
The Maroon Tiger
February 22, 1979
Page 10
Feature
Whalum Chosen
Dr. Wendell P. Whalum, Maroon Tiger Teacher of the Month.
Special To The Maroon Tiger
ETS Has Great
Persuasive Power
by Ralph Nader
The next time you pick up a well-
sharpened No. 2 pencil and begin
to hurriedly answer a standard
ized, multiple-choice test, chances
•are that your test is one-of more '*
than eight million given annually*''
by the Educational Testing Service
(ETS). You may know ETS manu
factures SATs, LSATs, GREs and
GMATs. With these tests alone,
ETS influences the educational
and career opportunities of mil
lions of people. But the power of
ETS does not begin or end with
those tests.
ETS markets 299 different tests.
ETS test are used to determine
entrance to over 60 occupations
including firefighters, actuaries,
policemen, real estate broker, sai
lors, teachers, gynecologists, engi
neers, and auto mechanics. ETS
test results are the standards of
access to some of the most power
ful professions: Foreign Service
officers, New York stockbrokers,
lawyers in over 40 states, CIA
agents.
Two million elementary stu
dents take ETS tests, and ETS is
even developing ways to test
infants. ETS helps determine who
will be eligible for financial aid and
how much they will receive. The
financial information ETS obtains
on nearly two million families is
more detailed than a mortgage
application or an IRS return. ETS
consultants and trainees help
shape education and labor alloca
tion policy in scores of countries,
including Singapore, Brazil, and
Saudi Arabia. And ETS has test
centers in 120 countries.
In thirty years, probably 90 mil
lion people have had their school
ing, jobs, prospects for
advancement, and beliefs in their
own potential directly shaped by
the quiet but pervasive power of
ETS.
What is the Educational Testing
Service? How has it centralized so
much power? Is it accountable to
anyone, or anything? Should your
opportunities be so influenced by
ETS’ standards of aptitude or
intelligence?
' Despite its massive influence,
few people question ETS. Students
may want to tear up test forms in
moments of frustration, but few of
us think of challenging the corpo
ration that makes the tests. We will
soon release a lengthy report on
ETS, written by Allan Nairn,
which we hope will help people
understand, and question, the uni
que and unregulated power of this
corporation.
Indeed, ETS is, in non-dollar
ways, a large corporation. It has
more customers per year than GM
and Ford combined. Despite its
non-profit status, it declares
roughly a million dollars in “non
profits” each year. This money is
plowed back into corporate expan
sion and maintaining the ETS est
ate, which includes a 400 acre
headquarters in Princeton, New
Jersey, a $250,000 home for the
president, William Turnbull, and a
three million dollar hotel/confer-
ence center-all built with student
test fees. Its revenue from test fees
enabled ETS to double in size
every five years from 1948 to 1972,
a rate of growth faster than IBM.
ETS’s sales and near monopoly
power, combined with its privi
leged legal status as a non-profit
corporation, make it unprece
dented in corporate history. ETS is
exempt from federal and state
income taxes, is effectively beyond
the reach of many anti-trust laws,
and has no stockholders. ETS
escapes the restraints governing
other corporations because it is an
“educational” institution.
The power of ETS is massive, as
even one ETS executive conceded.
“No matter what they try to tell
you here about how we really don’t
have much power,” he said, “we
know we do. We know we’re the
nation’s gatekeeper.” This gate-
As Teacher Of The Month
By Duane Cooper
Dr. Wendell P. Whalum is the
Maroon Tiger’s Teacher of the
Month of February. Dr. Whalum
is the Fuller E. Calloway Professor
of Music and Chairman of the
Department of Music, and he
directs the Morehouse College
Glee Club.
Dr. Whalum, reared in Mem
phis as the middle of five children,
became interested in music at the
age of six when he began to study it
with his mother.
When Whalum came to More
house as a student, he was honored
his freshman year as “one of ten
most outstanding students.” He
was active in the Glee Club as a stu
dent. “I was the second tenor in the
by William G.Pickens
Atlanta Constitution Editor
Ralph McGill, in his article, “We
don’t know our own language”,
sets forth some quite interesting
points. He deplores the prevalent
relationship between students and
the English language. He asserts
that the “most vital working tool
any person may have is the ability
to receive and impart information
in his own language.” And “it is a
shocking fact,” he feels, “that we
don’t really read or understand our
own language.” Mr. McGill
believes that if a person is going
into business, maybe poultry hus
bandry, he should first take a
course in English. Then with his
background, he can read, inter
pret, and put into effect the ideas
which are then easily obtainable
from the many periodicals and
works that treat the particular sub
ject. Therefore, a person is better
equipped for his vocation by
knowing his language.
keeper can determine who enters
college, graduate and professional
schools, as well as many occupa
tions and professions. Is that
power legitimate?
ETS defends it role as the gate
keeper by claiming it has deve
loped the “science of mental
measurement,” but as our report
will argue, the tests measure
nothing more than how you ans
wered a few multiple-choice ques
tions. The correlation between
SAT scores and first-year grades in
college, for example, is often lower
than the correlation between the
test scores and the income of the
test taker’s parents. At best, stand
ardized tests measure the special
ized skill of test-taking, but they do
not measure key determinants of
success such as writing and
research skill, ability to make
coherent arguments, creativity,
motivation, stamina, judgment,
experience, or ethics.
ETS not only influences how
institutions judge individuals,
however; it also influences how
individuals judge themselves. As
Nairn says. “A false self-estimate
Morehouse College Quartet for
three years, and I was the accom
panist for the Glee Club. 1 was
president of the Glee Club for two
years, student director of the Glee
Club for three years,” recalls Wha
lum, who also served as secretary
of the student body and twice as
student council member. After
receiving the B.A. degree from
Morehouse, Whalum earned his
M.A. from Columbia University
and his Ph.D. from the University
of Iowa. He returned to More
house to teach in 1953.
Dr. Whalum plays piano, trom
bone, tuba, and organ, and in his
spare time, he enjoys hunting and
reading. He says, “I don’t get a
chance to do the hunting very
It can immediately be seen that
there is, perhaps, a great deal in
what Mr. McGill theorizes. The
writer feels that indeed a full appre
ciation for the English language
and a knowledge of it form a very
substantial background for further
study in any other field. For as one
of our own noted professors, Dr.
Kelsey, has observed, a man can
not be deep without being broad.
Furthermore, it is rather appalling
to notice the inability of a great
or image is instilled in the mind of
the individual who receives a
standardized test score. For
although the scores are signifi
cantly determined by social class,
he is told they are objective, scien
tific measures of the individual.”
Moreover, test takers are subject
to numerous injustices, ranging
from incorrect scoring of tests, to
late reporting of applicant infor
mation, to secret evaluation of
grades and test scores—and they
have no recourse.
We must begin to examine the
examiners.
There is a growing movement to
reform and restructure the testing
industry. In New York. Ohio,
Texas, and other states, student-
run Public Interest Research
Groups (PIRGs) have introduced
“Truth in Testing” legislation in
their state legislatures. This legisla
tion would force ETS and other
testing companies to disclose test
questions and answers, and all stu
dies and data on the tests; it would
also require companies to keep
information on applicants confi
dential. Disclosing test answers
would enable students to contest
disputed answers, and thus elimi
nate much of the mystery sur
rounding the tests.
much now. but 1 have been known
in the past to kill a buck or two.
and rabbits and coons."
The Morehouse College Glee
Club has received national and
international recognition. Though
the singing ability of the members
can be partially attributed to their
success. Dr. Whalum admits, “We
were in the right place at the right
time. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
brought a magnificent bit of atten
tion and focus on Morehouse,
especially during his campaigns,
and then in his death. When his
funeral was held on the campus the
world saw and heard the More
house Glee Club.” Eminating from
that date, the Glee Club has
received countless invitations to
sing around the world, including
recent invitations to sing in Chile
and the Philippines, both of which
were refused because there was not
enough money available to cover
the expenses.
Dr. Whalum is the father of an
eight year old son, Wendell, Jr.
number of college students to
speak understandably and to read
and write well. A greater percen
tage of concentration on the Eng
lish language would then, perhaps,
raise the general scholastic average
of students as a whole, thus also
enabling them to become more and
more adept at their vocation.
So the writer believes that Ralph
McGill has struck a note that
schould echo throughout the scho
lastic world.
ETS has said it is willing to
release 99% of its test data. But,
Nairn says, the bulk of this 99% is
the material provided by the test-
takers themselves—name, social
security number, etc. Nairn says it
is crucial to disclose that last one
percent, as it includes ETS’s
extrapolations from the informa
tion provided by test-takers-such
as predictions of future academic
success.
The testing reform movement
has other facets. Jesse Jackson is
organizing around the issue of the
ETS National Teacher Examina
tions which have systematically
eliminated qualified black appli
cants from teaching jobs. The FTC
has apparently found, contrary to
ETS claims, that certain kinds of
prep Or cram courses can raise test
scores—but the report has been
withheld at this time. And several
members of Congress have called
for an investigation of the testing
industry.
Students now have opportuni
ties to challenge the test makers.
Individuals interested in this
issue, or in sponsoring Truth in
Testing legislation, can contact Ed
Hanley at our office at P.O. Box
19312, Washington, D.C. 20036.
English Majors All
EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. William Pickens wrote this article for the
1946-47 “Maroon Tiger” Founde’s Day Issue. In that same issue Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote an article on the Purpose of Education.
That article appeared in the last issue of the 1978-79 “Maroon Tiger”.
Charles V. Willie was the editor-in-chief of the 1946-47 “Maroon
Tiger.”
HELP PEOPLE
HELP THEMSEIVES,
THE UNITED WAV.