Assessment and Placement of Minority Students

Standard testing procedures for assessing intelligence and abilities may lead to very misleading conclusions when dealing with children from cultural, linguistic or socioeconomic backgrounds which fall outside the mainstream. When decisions that determine a student's classroom placement and possible career path are based solely on standardized assessment tools, some children might be unfairly streamed into educational programs which underestimate their abilities, and may doom them to a future of intellectual and economic underachievement. Minority groups are over-represented in this situation, often for reasons that hold little justification upon close examination. This book serves as a resource for teacher education, as well as for those who must contend with assessment and placement issues in their daily professional duties.