Dive Brief:

• Manhattan Federal District Court Judge Kimba M. Wood ruled Friday that the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test (LAST-2), which all teaching candidates must take, is racially discriminatory. 
• The judge argued that the test measures knowledge of liberal arts and sciences as opposed to skills necessary to be a good teacher, putting minority candidates at an unfair disadvantage. 
• According to Wood, just over 50% of black and latino candidates passed the exam, whille 75% of white candidates passed.

Dive Insight:

This is the second LAST test found to be discriminatory. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the LAST-1 was used, but later found to put minorities at a disadvantage. The test in question was created by National Evaluation Systems, a branch of Pearson, and Wood found the company's processes at fault. 

“Instead of beginning with ascertaining the job tasks of New York teachers, the two LAST examinations began with the premise that all New York teachers should be required to demonstrate an understanding of the liberal arts,” she wrote in her opinion. 

This is a particularly important issue in New York schools, considering that the city's public school population is 25% black and 41% latino while 60% of teachers are white. This is a troubling statistic considering students perform better when their teacher is the same race as them (or at least see people in positions of authority who look like them), according to a new study published in the April issue of the Economics of Education Review.