The first was the use of a test or device to discourage voters, like the English-language literacy test New York had adopted in 1921.
Similarly, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx were covered because of a New York State English-language literacy test that disenfranchised tens of thousands of Puerto Rico-born voters in those boroughs prior to the passage of the V.R.A.
The borough landed on the list of places to be monitored more than four decades ago, along with Brooklyn and Manhattan, when the statewide English-language literacy test required of voters suppressed participation in Hispanic and black neighborhoods around the city to rates low enough to prompt federal intervention.
Any proposed change to the city's electoral system has required federal approval since the early 1970s, when Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx were added to a monitoring list under the voting act after the federal government determined that a statewide English-language literacy test required of voters had suppressed voting in many Hispanic and black neighborhoods.
As for the language arts literacy test given to eighth graders, 75percentt of white students scored proficient as against 45percentt of black students; 9percentt of white students scored "advanced proficient," compared with one percent of all black students tested.
Our statute books have been littered with laws that have racist, discriminatory, and segregationist aims that are disguised in other language — a literacy test for voting, a zoning law, a ban on "indecency".
Table 1 provides details of each participant group on non-verbal cognition, standardized language and literacy tests.
To compare profiles across language and literacy tests that had been standardized on different populations, all scores on these tests were restandardized relative to a normative set of twins who were selected to be representative of the whole population.
Assessment frameworks for English language proficiency differ accordingly: In the Inner Circle the PISA reading literacy test has been used to assess proficiency in native speakers, while in the Expanding Circle non-native speakers are usually assessed by tests linked to CEFR.
External variables such as the achievement on the German PISA reading literacy test might help interpret the correlation between the two English language constructs.
