Rick Dean
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http://www.nationalvanguard.org/story.php?id=3282
California Struggles to Hide Black Inferiority
Racist if you do, racist if you don't.
by Alex Wells
New Haven, CA -- California has prohibited its public schools from administering IQ tests to Black students since 1979. Now a White mother has challenged the prohibition in an effort to obtain special education for her 6-year-old Mulatto son.
When Pamela Lewis requested that her son Nicholas be given the standardized IQ test to see if he qualified for special education, she was informed that only students of other races may
take the test. The reason? Testing the intelligence of Blacks is "biased."
Special education is nothing unusual for Black students enrolled in California's public schools. IQ testing in
the late 1970s resulted in so many placements of Blacks in special education courses t
hat a lawsuit was filed in 1979 charging that the test was biased. A California court ruled that it was, and since then only non-Black students have been tested for intelligence.
After cultural biases in the standardized IQ test were recognized, psychometrists labored painstakingly to eliminate all such features of the test in the interest of fairness. The change has not resulted in significantly higher scores among Black students, however, who, ironically, tend to score highest on parts of the test that are the most culturally weighted. As always, they lag far behind their White counterparts in test sections measuring mathematical ability and logical/inferential reasoning.
Although a school district offic
ial suggested that Lewis' son could be tested if she were to change his paperwork to re-classify him as White, Lewis took the suggestion as an "insult." She has appealed the state's re
fusal to test him under his current classification.
California Struggles to Hide Black Inferiority
Racist if you do, racist if you don't.
by Alex Wells
New Haven, CA -- California has prohibited its public schools from administering IQ tests to Black students since 1979. Now a White mother has challenged the prohibition in an effort to obtain special education for her 6-year-old Mulatto son.
When Pamela Lewis requested that her son Nicholas be given the standardized IQ test to see if he qualified for special education, she was informed that only students of other races may
take the test. The reason? Testing the intelligence of Blacks is "biased."
Special education is nothing unusual for Black students enrolled in California's public schools. IQ testing in
the late 1970s resulted in so many placements of Blacks in special education courses t
hat a lawsuit was filed in 1979 charging that the test was biased. A California court ruled that it was, and since then only non-Black students have been tested for intelligence.
After cultural biases in the standardized IQ test were recognized, psychometrists labored painstakingly to eliminate all such features of the test in the interest of fairness. The change has not resulted in significantly higher scores among Black students, however, who, ironically, tend to score highest on parts of the test that are the most culturally weighted. As always, they lag far behind their White counterparts in test sections measuring mathematical ability and logical/inferential reasoning.
Although a school district offic
ial suggested that Lewis' son could be tested if she were to change his paperwork to re-classify him as White, Lewis took the suggestion as an "insult." She has appealed the state's re
fusal to test him under his current classification.
