Commentary of the Special Issue Regarding Black Children: a California School Psychology Perspective

Abstract

As editors for this special journal, Graves and Woods have compiled a discussion of the accuracy of the labels for Black children. It is exciting that they have brought together a team of scholars to tackle the very specific question posed by Hilliard (1991) and Guthrie (1976Guthrie ( /2002 about the validity of IQ testing in regards to accurately and predictively focusing on high quality assessments for Black youth. As practitioner[1]scholars who have trained and practiced for nearly 50 combined years in California, we appreciate the opportunity to share our perspective regarding the important topic of this special issue. In America, 49 other states and its territories do not have a ban on tests that can be used with students. However, in California, since the 1970's, due to the Larry P v. Riles court case and resultant directives from the Special Education Department within the California Department of Education (CDE), there has been a ban on using Intellectual Quotient (IQ) tests for use in special education placement for Black students in any of the 13 handicapping conditions, which is an expansion of the findings for Larry P. v. Riles , 495 F. Supp. 926 (California 1979) which dealt exclusively with Intellectual Disability and whose expansion was ruled against in Crawford v. Honig 37 F .3d 485 (9 th Cir. 1994). For this commentary, the authors answer the following questions. What would happen if the ban was lifted in California? How does California special education eligibility, with its injunction not to use cognitive ability/ intelligence tests for Black students, compare to the rest of the nation that does not have such an injunction? Should school psychologists use IQ tests or not and is that the best question to ask? The authors conclude with recommendations for practitioners and scholars.

Can clinical judgement overcome flawed materials when assessing black children: The need for more intervention-based pedagogy and less assessment negligence

“…The outcomes of this case led to the ban on the use of intelligence tests with Black children in California. Approximately 40 years later, the outcome of this case is still highly debated in the school psychology community (Gamble & Hiramoto, 2021; Woods & Graves, 2021).…”