The Soledad Children: The Fight to End Discriminatory IQ Tests

$19.95

A fascinating account of the effort to outlaw unfair testing practices that led to minority children being placed in special education classes.

by Marty Glick & Maurice “Mo” Jourdane

ISBN: 978-1-55885-888-6
Publication Date: September 30, 2019
Format: Trade paperback
Pages: 232

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Ten-year-old Arturo Velázquez was born and raised in a farm labor camp in Soledad, California. He was bright and gregarious, but he didn’t speak English when he started first grade. When he entered third grade in 1968, the psychologist at Soledad Elementary School gave him an English-language IQ test. Based on the results, he was placed in a class for the “Educable Mentally Retarded (EMR).” Arturo wasn’t the only Spanish-speaking child in the room; all but one were from farmworker families. All were devastated by the stigma and lack of opportunity to learn.

In 1969, attorneys at California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) discovered California public schools were misusing English-language, culturally biased IQ tests, by asking questions like “Who wrote Romeo and Juliet?” to place Spanish-speaking students into EMR classes. Additionally, Mexican-American children were not the only minorities impacted. While African-American and Mexican-American students made up 21.5% of the state population, they were 48% of special education programs!

Written by two of the attorneys who led the charge against the unjust denial of an education to Mexican-American youth, The Soledad Children: The Fight to End Discriminatory IQ Tests recounts the history of both the CRLA and the class-action suit filed in 1970, Diana v. the State Board of Education, on behalf of 13,000 Hispanic kids already placed in EMR classes and another 100,000 at risk of being relegated to a virtual purgatory. From securing removal from EMR classes for the misplaced to ensuring revised, appropriate testing for students throughout the state, this engrossing book recounts the historic struggle—by lawyers, parents, psychologists and legislators—to guarantee all affected young people in California received equitable access to education.

Click here to listen to an interview with Marty Glick about his book, The Soledad Children: The Fight to End Discriminatory IQ Tests.

“The issues at stake are so fundamental and affecting that the authors easily maintain a sense of narrative momentum, and some of the specifics will have readers seething. Overall, this book is an engaging account of a watershed moment in Chicano—and American—history. A well-told and little-known story of education reform.”—Kirkus Reviews

“This engaging account by two lawyers who championed equal educational rights talks of ingrained prejudices throughout the California educational system, the decade-long political and legislative wrangling waged by California Rural Legal Assistance, and multiple court cases that led to lasting positive change.”—Booklist

MARTY GLICK is a litigator with the international firm Arnold & Porter and is listed in Best Lawyers in America in Intellectual Property and Patent Law. He worked in Mississippi for the Justice Department in the 1960s and for the California Rural Legal Assistance for eight years. He has been CRLA’s outside counsel for four decades. He lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.

MAURICE “MO” JOURDANE is the author of The Struggle for the Health and Legal Protection of Farm Workers: El Cortito (Arte Público Press, 2005). His work at California Rural Legal Assistance helped secure farmworkers’ rights during the nation’s civil rights gains of the 1960s and 1970s. He lives and works in San Diego, California.