Public and Catholic School Responses to IQ Testing in the Early 20th Century

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In this excerpt, the author seems to be pointing to the acceptance of IQ testing as a means of placing students into appropriate learning tracks amongst public schools, and a rejection of the same in Catholic school circles. On the one hand, the author highlights the historical and scientific roots of the tests, where they are noted to have emerged from the armed forces and were further based on scientific findings. In this regard therefore, most public school administrators found the tests to be the most appropriate way of identifying student capabilities as part of their democratic right to pursue their best interests. The tests were on the other hand met with resistance from Catholic school administrators since they conflicted with catholic ideological beliefs of divine laws granted by God. In this regard, they challenged the eugenic principles behind the tests which they perceived to be an unfair means of student placement. The latter administrators would however face challenges in standardization and placement as their students proceeded to pursue higher education.

These arguments in the excerpt demonstrate the conflicting challenge between science and religious ideology. On the one hand as notes the author, the public schools system attempted to follow scientific findings in their application of standardized testing for students. This would however be met with resistance from the church since it conflicted their ideological beliefs. In truth, and as it would later emerge, scientific methods often prove to be more accurate and valid since they are based on research and actual results. As seen in the current scenario, the standardized tests represented an ideal way of identifying student capabilities in such a way that enables the identification of their most ideal learning track which would be their democratic right.

Reference:

Ryan, M. A. & Stoskopf, A. (2008). Public and Catholic school responses to IQ testing in the early 20^th century. Teachers College Recorded 110(4), 894-922.