It’s a provocative question:
Is there so much bias built into the ASWB tests that New York needs to get rid of the exam requirement for LMSW and LCSW licensure?
Within the New York social work community, there have been rumblings for years about how fair the ASWB (Association for Social Work Board) Masters and Clinical exams actually are.
Many graduates from New York MSW programs, taught at some of the finest schools of social work in the country, have anecdotal stories of Black and other minority graduates failing on their first try while white test-takers have sailed through the process.
After years of calls to release data on the demographic breakdown of test scores, ASWB finally put out a report in 2022.
It showed exactly what many had feared: white test takers pass at nearly double the rate of Black candidates.
For Social Work Licensing Examinations, the Injustice Is Coming From Inside the House
It’s a tough pill for social workers to swallow. The very profession that has done so much to push for racial equity and justice for decades turns out to have what many would argue is a racial discrimination problem of its own.
Every social worker who put their heart and soul into protesting the murder of Eric Garner, of Amadou Diallo, of Akai Gurley, only got their position because they took a test that turned out to be biased itself.
The problems are more than just skin-deep. ASWB data also revealed that test-takers over the age of 50, or whose primary language is not English, have significantly lower pass rates as well.
Bias Against Social Workers of Color Hurts the Entire Human Services Community
On the face of it, this is all bad enough. But when you start to dig even deeper into the demographics and needs of human and social services in New York, it only gets worse.
That’s because the communities that are most in need of the services that social workers provide are impacted the most by the shortages.
Almost any indicator you look at—health, wealth, criminal prosecutions—in New York’s demographic data reveals that BIPOC communities have greater needs for social services. And it’s no mystery that social workers who come from those communities themselves have the greatest success connecting and delivering those services.
That means that exam bias is a problem that ends up impacting human services for all New Yorkers who need it.
According to a NASW (National Association of Social Workers) compilation of survey data from 2020, the pipeline for social work as an industry is disproportionately minority. Nearly a quarter of MSW graduates between 2017 and 2019 were Black, and 14 percent were Hispanic/Latino.
When nearly a third of your potential workforce is being discriminated against at the final step to licensure, you are bound to see shortages in providers. And that’s exactly what is happening all across the state, with staffing levels in many areas falling far short of needs.
How To Get Past Issues of Systemic Bias in Social Worker Credentialing in New York
ASWB has been accused of blaming the victims in its response to these revelations. The Association’s report exploring the data points out that a number of other professional standardized exams, such as those for American pharmacists, nurses, and lawyers show varying pass rates for historically margined groups.
ASWB also suggests that issues unrelated to the test itself may be causing the issue, such as stereotype threat and failings in the educational pipeline to fully prepare minority students. The organization has pointed out that it uses Differential Item Functioning to evaluate each individual question to assure statistical fairness among different demographic groups. And it also notes that the actual questions are written not by ASWB staff members, but by a diverse array of practicing licensed social workers from across the U.S.
While victim-blaming is classic defensive in-group behavior that social workers have seen millions of times before, the fact that these defenses are coming from social workers themselves should give the community pause in a rush to judgement.
Dealing with Complex Issues of Fairness and Reality Requires Innovation From Social Workers
Social workers have been here before. In 2016, a landmark investigation by ProPublica demonstrated that the COMPAS (Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions) tool used by judges and probation officers across the country was more likely to incorrectly judge Black defendants at a higher risk of reoffending than white defendants.
Many social workers lobbied hard against such algorithmic bias and are still fighting against it in many fields, from healthcare to banking.
But the insidious lesson of COMPAS is that fairness can depend on what is being measured. The defense of COMPAS was that the prediction score was equally accurate between races. Both white and Black defendants were individually as likely to reoffend as their scores indicated. But social workers understand that the very fact that real-world recidivism rates by race played a role in the outcome goes to the heart of the problem. Why we’re striving for is a system that sees people as individuals not as part of a racial collective.
The Big Question for New York’s Social Work Community: Does Passing Tests Make You a Better Social Worker?
Testing is so baked in to the American educational and licensing system that the most obvious question isn’t one that occurs to people first. But many social workers in New York and elsewhere are doing what they do best with this controversy: questioning the hidden assumptions.
It’s strange but true that there seems to be no rigorously tested data to show that social workers who have passed ASWB exams are more competent and qualified than those who haven’t. A number of states, including Illinois, California, and Rhode Island, have license levels for social workers without testing requirements. There’s no buzz in the community that LSWs in those states are incompetent.
Researchers have long known that test-taking itself is a skill of sorts. It’s not one that is necessarily associated with a mastery of the underlying subjects of the test, either. This is particularly true of multiple choice exams like the ASWB Masters and Clinical tests used for New York licensure.
Put together the possibility that ASWB is correct and that problems exist within the training pipeline and outside the test, with the reality that disparate testing outcomes still have a negative impact on the profession of social work, and you get to this: maybe tests aren’t the right measure for New York social work competency.
New York Social Workers Are Finding Solutions That Increase Equality and Maintain Excellence
As a snapshot in time, testing can reveal knowledge and demonstrate problem-solving skills. But then, so does simply completing one of the rigorous Master of Social Work degree programs available from top-notch New York universities.
By focusing on the excellence of New York state social work education and the real-world demonstrations of expertise that come with experiential learning, it’s possible to be both more inclusive in social work licensing and still assure excellence.
Efforts to repeal the state law requiring testing for LMSW licensure have been underway in Albany since 2023, but are still under consideration in the state Assembly. The New York state chapter of NASW has come out in support of the repeal, along with efforts in more than half of states to eliminate or offer additional pathways to licensure.
It’s important to unclog the social work licensure pipeline in New York and to eliminate systemic racism in the process. And it’s also important to maintain high standards for professionals delivering services to the most vulnerable populations in the state. With a willingness to make adjustments where needed and a sensitivity to the needs of the most vulnerable New Yorkers, it’s certainly possible to both streamline the path to licensure while seeing to it that those who hold LMSW and LCSW credentials have what it takes to do the job.