Police may scrap entrance exam
'OPEN UP THE PROCESS' | Union chief: It's 'too stupid to be true'
BY FRAN SPIELMAN AND FRANK MAIN Staff Reporters
The Chicago Police Department is seriously considering scrapping the police entrance exam to bolster minority hiring, save millions on test preparation and avert costly legal battles that have dogged the exam process for decades, City Hall sources said Tuesday.
If the process is opened to everyone who applies and meets the minimum education and residency requirements, Chicago would be virtually alone among major cities. Most cities have police entrance exams -- and for good reason, experts say.
"A background check and a psych [exam] alone will not eliminate some people who should not be there," said Brad Woods, who ran the Personnel Division under former Chicago Police Superintendents Phil Cline and Terry Hillard.
Calling an application-only process a "step backward" and the "wrong way to go," Woods said, "When you lower your quality, you will get poor police service and more complaints. ... Whenever you make it easier to be the police, you're doing the citizens and the Police Department a disservice."
Charlie Roberts, who ran the training division from 1995 to 1999, noted that there are "eleven tracks" recruits must go through in the police academy, including the law and the municipal code.
"If you don't give someone at least a reading comprehension test, can you just put them in and risk the possibility of having so many of them fail? That could get quite expensive," Roberts said.
"We were getting people with 60 hours of college credit who were reading at a third-grade level. What do you think you'll get if you have no screening process?"
Human Resources Department spokesperson Connie Buscemi acknowledged Tuesday that the Daley administration has been exploring other "options" since last fall, when a "request-for-proposals" for companies interested in preparing an on-line police entrance exam was cancelled.
The last police entrance exam was held on Nov. 5, 2006.
"We wanted to try to develop something on-line to allow the city to accommodate members of the U.S. military who are on active duty. But, we didn't get any responses that met our needs. No one said they could administer an on-line exam" and guarantee its integrity, Buscemi said.
"We're [now] reviewing our options on how to administer the police application process."
Other sources confirmed that the police entrance exam could be scrapped altogether "to open up the process to as many people as possible." A final decision could be made later this week.
Fraternal Order of Police President Mark Donahue said the idea "sounds too stupid to be true."
"You need a testing process. ... You need to be very concerned about the very limited information you would get from just a screening and application process," Donahue said.
Hiring and promotions in the Police and Fire Departments have generated controversy in Chicago for as long as anyone can remember.
The criticism reached a crescendo in 1994 after a sergeants exam produced just five minority promotions out of 114.
The test was the first to be administered by the city after "race-norming" -- the practice of adjusting scores on the basis of race -- was ruled unconstitutional.
In November 2005, City Hall announced plans to offer the police entrance exam a record four times the following year -- and for the first time on the Internet -- after an unprecedented outreach campaign that bolstered the number of minority applicants to 34 percent black, 24 percent Hispanic and 26 percent women.
More than two years later, black ministers told newly-appointed Police Supt. Jody Weis that, if he was serious about re-establishing trust between police and the black community, he should start by hiring and promoting more African Americans.
The Police Department is currently operating at least 2,000 officers-a-day short of authorized strength, counting vacancies, medical leave and limited duty.
Mayor Daley's 2010 budget uses federal stimulus funds to add just 86 officers, 30 of them for the CTA.
That's nowhere near enough hiring to solve a manpower shortage that, Weis fears, will get dramatically worse when as many as 1,000 more officers retire later this year.
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