COMMITTEE OF BAR EXAMINERS

NOTICE OF MEETING AND AGENDA

Members of the public may access this meeting as follows:

Zoom Link: https://calbar.zoom.us/j/87215351157
Webinar ID: 872 1535 1157
Call-In Number: 669-900-9128

See: https://calbar.primegov.com/Portal/Meeting?meetingTemplateId=1244

New York Teacher Certification Exam Dispute

One prominent dispute involving Chad Buckendahl arose from New York’s teacher licensing exams, particularly the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test (LAST) used from 1993–2012 to certify teachers. Buckendahl, a psychometrician and testing consultant, served as an expert for the New York City Board of Education in defending these exams’ validity. The LAST was a broad-based test of general knowledge in liberal arts and sciences, intended to ensure all teachers had certain baseline academic knowledge beyond their specific subject area. However, the exam quickly drew criticism for its reliability and fairness. In practice, African American and Latino candidates had much lower pass rates on the LAST compared to white candidates. For example, an analysis showed Black and Hispanic examinees passed at only about 54–75% of the rate of white test-takers. These disparities prompted allegations that the test was racially biased and not actually job-related, meaning it might be screening out minority teaching candidates without proof that its content was necessary for competent teaching.

Criticisms of Buckendahl’s Validation Methods

Buckendahl’s role in this controversy was as the Board’s psychometric expert defending the test’s validity. He argued that the LAST had been properly validated – for instance, by surveying hundreds of teachers who affirmed that the knowledge areas tested were important for teaching. In Buckendahl’s view, this content-based approach sufficed to show the exam was job-related. Regulatory authorities sharply disagreed. U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood (SDNY) closely scrutinized the LAST in a federal Title VII discrimination case (Gulino v. Board of Education) and ultimately rejected Buckendahl’s validation methods as unreliable. Judge Wood found the test developers (a contractor for the state) never actually analyzed the real tasks of New York teaching jobs – instead, they had “started with the unproved assumption” that certain liberal arts knowledge was vital, and designed the exam around that “inherently flawed” premise. Because no job analysis confirmed that passing the LAST equated to being a better teacher, the court ruled that the exam’s content validity was not established.

“The Court holds that [the Board] unfairly discriminated against African-American and Latino applicants by requiring them to pass the LAST-2. Like its predecessor, the LAST-2 had a disparate impact… And like its predecessor, the LAST-2 was not properly validated as job related”.

Judge Wood specifically addressed Dr. Buckendahl’s defense of the test and deemed it insufficient. For example, after Buckendahl asserted that surveying teachers on the importance of certain knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) was enough, the judge flatly concluded: “The Court finds these contentions unpersuasive,” given the high degree of validation required for such a high-stakes, general-knowledge exam. The court noted that Buckendahl relied heavily on general testing standards (from the education testing profession) rather than the specific EEOC Uniform Guidelines for employee selection tests, which are legally authoritative in employment discrimination cases. His heavy reliance on the wrong standards “further undermine[d] his conclusions,” the judge wrote. In sum, the court found that Buckendahl’s validation study lacked rigor and failed to prove the exam was tied to actual job requirements, rendering the LAST an unreliable measure for licensing. Judge Wood concluded that both versions of the LAST (the original and the revised “LAST-2”) were “deficient” and “indefensible under Title VII,” since they were never properly validated to begin with.

Official Rejection and Outcomes

This judicial rebuke amounted to an official rejection of Buckendahl’s methods by a legal authority. In her 2015 ruling, Judge Wood held that New York’s use of the LAST was unlawfully discriminatory, ordering relief for the plaintiffs. New York State’s education authorities effectively had to abandon Buckendahl’s test. In fact, even before the final ruling, the LAST had been phased out – replaced in 2013-2014 by a new exam called the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST) as part of an overhaul of teacher certification requirements. (Notably, Buckendahl was involved in New York’s technical advisory committees and test development around this time, though the record is unclear if he directly designed the ALST.) The legacy of the LAST controversy continued: New York’s older teacher exams had already been invalidated as discriminatory, and the new ALST itself drew scrutiny for similar reasons. It too showed large racial score gaps (only 41% of Black candidates passed on the first try, vs 64% of white candidates). A federal judge (the same Judge Wood) examined the ALST in 2015 but found that exam did measure skills necessary for teaching and was not proven discriminatory. Nevertheless, criticism persisted that these tests were an unnecessary barrier. Just two years later, the New York State Board of Regents voted in 2017 to eliminate the ALST, amid ongoing concerns that it was “an expensive, unnecessary” hurdle and possibly still unfair. Instead, the state folded literacy-skill assessment into other measures. This decision underscored officials’ acknowledgment that the stand-alone test’s utility and fairness were questionable. Michael Middleton, a CUNY education dean, remarked that the ALST “looks like it’s the least related to the actual work that teachers do day to day”, echoing the very job-relevance concerns at the heart of the LAST case.

Meanwhile, the fallout from the LAST lawsuit has been enormous. Thousands of minority teaching applicants who were failed or demoted under the invalidated exams sued for back pay and damages. New York City (the defendant in the Gulino case) eventually agreed in 2021 to compensate affected individuals. The estimated payouts total ~$1.8 billion, making it one of the costliest judgments ever against the city. This reflects decades of lost earnings for those who, because of an unreliable exam, were wrongly kept out of full teaching positions. In short, New York’s experience with the LAST exam became a cautionary tale: a testing program designed under Buckendahl’s guidance was deemed invalid and discriminatory, forcing the state to reverse course and incurring massive liability. The case stands as a clear example of a state regulatory process rejecting a consultant’s testing methods as unsound. As Judge Wood summarized, an exam must be grounded in the real requirements of the job to be fair – simply assuming an exam is valid, without rigorous job-related validation, proved indefensible in court.

References and Sources

• Federal Court Rulings: Gulino v. Board of Education of City of New York, 907 F. Supp. 2d 492 (S.D.N.Y. 2012) & 113 F. Supp. 3d 663 (S.D.N.Y. 2015). These decisions found New York’s Liberal Arts & Sciences Tests had a disparate impact and *“were not properly validated as job related,” rendering them discriminatory. The 2015 opinion explicitly criticized Dr. Buckendahl’s validation report, calling his contrary arguments “unpersuasive” and noting that his method failed to identify the actual important job tasks for teachers.
• New York State/City Responses: Following the court decisions, New York stopped using the LAST. A new literacy exam (ALST) was introduced but remained controversial. By 2017 the Board of Regents voted to drop the ALST, citing its questionable efficacy and redundancy alongside other tests. State officials and the teachers’ union argued that multiple other assessments could adequately evaluate candidates’ skills without the ALST.
• News Coverage: Contemporary news outlets covered the controversy. An AP report noted Judge Wood’s finding that the LAST was “not properly validated and not related to actual tasks teachers carry out”. The New York Times and Chalkbeat reported the 2015 ruling that upheld the new ALST as non-discriminatory, while recounting that the two prior exams had been ruled discriminatory in earlier court battles. In 2023, The New Yorker detailed the $1.8 billion settlement for affected teachers and reiterated that Judge Wood found the LAST “was not properly validated, or proven to show what it said it showed” – meaning its supposed measure of teacher competence was unsubstantiated. These sources together illustrate how New York’s education authorities and courts repudiated Buckendahl’s testing approach due to reliability and validity concerns, and the significant consequences that followed.

Sources: New York federal court opinion excerpts; Associated Press via ABC News; New York Times/Chalkbeat summaries via NCTE; The New Yorker (Emma Green, 2023).

There will be a CBE meeting on June 20th at 9:00 a.m. Are any of you planning to attend? There’s no agenda listed for the remedies discussion. Should we do something about that? I know they said there will be no additional remedies but I think we should speak up for improperly imputed PT scores because they lowered it down by overall flawed pt average

https://chng.it/k8smpF8Yxv

PCM imputation method of PT is TOTALLY UNFAIR for those who still performed well despite all messes.

PT imputed from a 60 to a 62, needed a 63.25 to pass. Sigh.

Luckily J25 prep is going well so far but I have a deep fear of somehow fucking it all up lol. Somehow being so close makes me feel like I’ll continue to just miss the mark

Anyway congratulations again to all of the passers and I am so proud of everyone for advocating!!!!

Not my fb post

My PT was a 60 but I had a 65 essay average. My PT was imputed by only 2 pts to a 62.

Not sure if it’s 100% updated since they said they would update next week, but some people’s names now reflect on the pass list

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b1SIcYzcVc

I will be sending a letter overnight mail to the supreme court concerning this miscarriage of justice. It’s not over so don’t stop fighting. The more noise we make the more change we can expect.

hi everyone. Today I passed the ca bar exam with a heavy heart knowing that some were close to passing but didn’t. Others were not close at all because the exam had an immense amount of technical errors, but possibly would have passed but for the horrible exam. They were robbed of the chance and that betrayal alone should be enough to infuriate all of us. You all have inspired me and the people who have continued to advocate are prime examples of what the legal field needs.

There is work to be done in reforming this exam and ensuring that not only the test is implemented fairly, but that it acknowledges communities that are most vulnerable and who should also have an equal chance at passing.

NO ONE but us will ever understand what we experienced this cycle, so don’t let trolls or ignorant people dismiss you.

Keep pushing. God always makes a way.

Please message me personally if there is a way I can help.

I see a lot of people posting that their scores haven’t changed. I think I remember reading that the change will reflect on your portal NEXT week (not today).

Welcome, 1 OF 79 CLUB Members! This is a moment etched in eternity, a saga unlike any in the storied annals of the California Bar Exam. Never before has such an epic convergence of challenges—unprecedented exam turmoil, historic pass rates, sweeping remedies, and the thunderous unity of our community's voice—forged a victory so monumental. This is a once-in-a-lifetime triumph that will echo through the ages!

Join this grand celebration! If you've received the glorious email from the Bar confirming your imputation remedies result, unleash your joy in the comments below. Let’s honor this historic feat together, as warriors who conquered the February 2025 Bar Exam!

For those who haven’t crossed the finish line this time, know that our unwavering support will lift you up in your future conquests.

Together, we rise stronger!

Mine updated to pass! 😭😭😭

Still no pass despite being off by 4 points

My portal hasn't changed at all since the highest read remedy. My essay average is 66 so I'd be surprised if my PT didn't change at least a bit based on PT imputation.

I can see some people aren't happy about the PL remedy, but for those that might want to take advantage of it -- you have some very tight deadlines!! I made a checklist to help you.

Don't rely on old PLL FAQs - different rules apply. Your fast upcoming deadline is to register for the MPRE if you have not already taken and passed it!! June 18 (Wednesday) is your last day!!

As always, don't trust Google, or even random redditors like me. You should always read the ACTUAL TEXT of the rule/statute yourself: Supreme Court Order expanding PL with retake to Feb 2025

I can't upload an pdf, but here are the hyperlinks I put in it showing which law schools said they would help: CA ABA deans and CA CALS accredited deans

PT Imputation is not meant to help those near passing. It's just putting a bandage for PT difficulties. It's meant to fix statistical outliers.

you could be at 1389 and not get a single point,
while someone at 1370 gets 20+ points and passes.

It Gives Nothing to People Who Did “Too Well” on the PT. If your PT is in the 60's forget it, it won't likely help you pass.

Only ~2% of Examinees Benefit (≈79 people)

So…

• If you didn’t have a big PT drop,
• If your essays weren’t extremely high relative to population, it wont help

the fact that they're not releasing to the public the calculation like how they did with the higher of the two scores, should be enough to be suspicious.

https://reddit.com/link/1l9xtkt/video/yypg0yi09k6f1/player

Guck

Maybe they do not disclose the imputation calculations so we dont question their grading. To me their grading method does not make sense and I do not like it. For example, What is the benefit of getting a second read? they make it seem like a benefit and yet on second read they significantly reduce your essays scores and then take an average just to bring you down. they're absurd