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TESTIMONY
Dennis Sweeney, Battalion Chief, FDNY on Clarity and Transparency in FDNY Exam Processes
1:01:40
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161 sec
Dennis Sweeney, Battalion Chief at FDNY, emphasizes the need for clarity in terminology and transparency in FDNY’s examination processes.
- Sweeney highlights the confusion and potential unfairness associated with the use of 'curving' and 'band scoring' in FDNY promotional exams.
- He distinguishes between the need for curving in difficult high school math tests and the unnecessary application of curving in FDNY promotional exams.
- Sweeney requests the council to inquire into the history and rationale behind the use of curving in exams.
- He also touches on the topic of band scoring, comparing it to ranked choice voting and questioning its fairness.
- The testimony calls for greater transparency and fairness in the examination process to ensure that promotions are based on merit.
Dennis Sweeney
1:01:40
Good afternoon.
1:01:41
Dennis Sweeney.
1:01:42
I'm a resident of the Upper East Side, and a carved Italian chief with the FDNY.
1:01:45
Thanks to the chair and the committee for listening on a very important topic.
1:01:49
And mostly wanted to reiterate and stress the importance of being clear in the terminology that we are using when we are discussing.
1:01:57
The important exam work that Decast does.
1:02:00
I think it's well settled.
1:02:01
There's different weighting of seniority for different agencies.
1:02:05
And I think I can speak for most membership, but we're not even particularly concerned about the initial mistake using the 85% as opposed to the 50% but the terminology that we are concerned about is curving.
1:02:18
And I I would like to offer a distinction from maybe our previous experience with curving as high school students and the experience that we have in the FDNY.
1:02:28
We've all been in a scenario when a math teacher wrote a a math test.
1:02:33
It was just a little too hard.
1:02:35
Most of the glass got smoked.
1:02:37
And that teacher would have to curve that exam to get the appropriate number of people back into a passing range.
1:02:43
Right?
1:02:44
When we have a multiple choice exam for a promotion, whether it's police, fire, sanitation, the ranking that is achieved to that multiple choice section already accomplishes the the ranking purpose that is designed for.
1:03:01
So there's no need to to curve to bring people into the passing range in that analogy to when we've we got smoked in high school in Athens yesterday.
1:03:11
So in your follow ups with with Decast, I I guess I would really ask the you inquire into the history of the curving, why it is used, and see if we can get some transparency for everyone who took the test.
1:03:26
And then I also, as Gavin Tracy mentioned, just a quick thought on on band scoring.
1:03:32
You must be very familiar with these issues in a new world of ranked choice voting.
1:03:37
And the analogy I would draw there for you as you're considering this is let's say there was a 40% cutoff in in the final round.
1:03:45
Right?
1:03:46
And then it's a toss-up.
1:03:47
Then we're gonna pull straws.
1:03:49
40% indicates that the voting population is roughly happy with either of these candidates, so it's fine.
1:03:54
We'll just pick 1.
1:03:56
Back to Captain Tracy's point, can you imagine the the years of preparation, and then we say, add the band from 95 to 100 is is about the same.
1:04:06
We're just gonna pick it around within that band as to who we promote, and worse, the band from 70 to 75.
1:04:12
Because as you move further down that list, chance that you don't get promoted at all increases if we're just pulling it random within ranges.
1:04:19
So, again, thanks to the great of your time.