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SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY
for the 21st Century
FOUNDATIONS AND PRACTICES

SECOND EDITION

Kenneth W. Merrell
Ruth A. Ervin
Gretchen Gimpel Peacock

THE GUILFORD PRESS

New York London

2
Epub Edition ISBN: 9781609187545; Kindle Edition ISBN: 9781462504152

© 2012 The Guilford Press

A Division of Guilford Publications, Inc.
72 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012
www.guilford.com

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher.

Last digit is print number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Merrell, Kenneth W.
School psychology for the 21st century : foundations and practices / Kenneth W. Merrell,
Ruth A. Ervin, Gretchen Gimpel Peacock. — 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60918-752-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. School psychology—United States. I. Ervin, Ruth A. II. Gimpel Peacock,
Gretchen. III. Title.
LB1027.55.M47 2012
371.7′13—dc23
2011029475

3
 In memory of Ken Merrell, our coauthor, colleague, friend, and mentor

Over the years, Ken was an inspiration to us, as well as countless other
school psychologists. We are better school psychologists, scholars, trainers,
and, more important, individuals because of our association with Ken.
To honor Ken’s memory, royalties we receive from this text will be donated
to the Kenneth W. Merrell School Psychology Scholarship at Utah State University,
where he directed the school psychology program from 1991 to 1997.

For Ken, who led us consistently, supportively, and by example

—Ruth A. Ervin and Gretchen Gimpel Peacock

4
 About the Authors

Kenneth W. Merrell, PhD, was Professor of School Psychology and Director of the Oregon Resiliency
Project at the University of Oregon. For 25 years, Dr. Merrell’s influential teaching and research focused on
social–emotional assessment and intervention for at-risk children and adolescents and social–emotional
learning in schools. He published over 90 peer-reviewed journal articles; several books and nationally normed
assessment instruments; and the Strong Kids programs, a comprehensive social and emotional learning
curriculum. Dr. Merrell was the Founding Editor of The Guilford Practical Intervention in the Schools
Series. He was a Fellow of the Division of School Psychology (Division 16) and the Society of Clinical Child
and Adolescent Psychology (Division 53) of the American Psychological Association. In 2011 he received the
Senior Scientist Award from Division 16, the Division’s highest honor for excellence in science, and the
Outstanding Contributions to Training Award from the National Association of School Psychologists.
Sadly, Dr. Merrell passed away on August 19, 2011, at the age of 53 after a year-long battle with cancer.
Although no longer present in person, his contributions to the field of school psychology will continue to live
on in his published works, in the many students he mentored over the course of his career, and through the
manner in which he touched the lives of his colleagues on both a professional and personal level.

Ruth A. Ervin, PhD, is Associate Professor of School Psychology and Special Education at the University of
British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Her professional teaching and research interests lie within the
domains of promoting systems-level change to address research-to-practice gaps in school settings;
collaborative consultation with school personnel, parents, and other service providers for the prevention and
treatment of emotional and/or behavioral disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and
oppositional defiant disorder via a data-driven, solution-oriented problem-solving approach; and linking
assessment to intervention to promote academic performance and socially significant outcomes for school-age
children. Emphasis in Dr. Ervin’s work has been placed on systems-level change and the merging of research
and practice agendas to support school personnel in the timely provision of primary, secondary, and tertiary
prevention efforts to address student needs.

Gretchen Gimpel Peacock, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at Utah State University, where she is on the
program faculty of the specialist-level school psychology program and the PhD program in clinical,

5
counseling, and school psychology, and where she serves as head of the Department of Psychology. She
regularly supervises practicum students in the departmental clinic. Dr. Gimpel Peacock is a licensed
psychologist and educator-licensed school psychologist. Her publications and professional presentations are in
the area of child behavior problems and family issues as related to child behaviors as well as professional issues
in school psychology. Dr. Gimpel Peacock serves on the editorial advisory boards of several school
psychology-related journals.

6
 Preface

The field of school psychology continues to be at a critical juncture. Until recently considered to be a young
field, school psychology is now showing signs of maturity. We believe the field has moved into a new era in
which it is beginning to fulfill its potential to significantly affect the education and mental health needs of
children, adolescents, and their families in a positive way and to become a key player in the advancement of
American education. But let’s face it: Growing up is hard. Arriving at a point at which maturity exists almost
inevitably involves at least some of these four C’s: confusion, chaos, compromises, and changes. The arrival of
school psychology at this crossroads coincided to a great extent with the move from the 20th to the 21st
century. Two of the seminal occurrences of this transition were a special issue of School Psychology Review
(Vol. 29, No. 4, 2000) titled “School Psychology in the 21st Century” and the 2002 Future of School
Psychology Conference, which was held in Indianapolis and simultaneously webcast. A quick scan of the
content of these two projects indicates an emerging consensus regarding the maturation of school psychology
from a philosophically based to a scientifically based profession and the need for maps or an overall vision to
help it make the successful transition beyond the crossroads. The common understanding that emerged from
these efforts, which helped serve as a stimulus for the first edition of this volume, was that school psychology
is moving out of its decades-long struggle for identity, and beginning to marshal its vast resources into a rich
vision for helping to solve the enormous challenges of promoting the education and mental health of young
people in our complex society and troubled times. In a twist on the 19th-century German philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous statement “out of chaos comes order,” one of the presentations at the 2002
Future conference was a panel discussion entitled “From Chaos Comes Resolutions.” This presentation (and
its great title) summarized much of our view about where school psychology is as a field and what needs to
happen for the field to successfully get past the crossroads:

1. Our focus should be increasingly on context and systems, and not just individuals.
2. We should focus primarily on diagnosing competence and the conditions that enable and support it, not
solely on the description and categorization of pathology.
3. School psychologists should direct their efforts toward helping all students, not just those who have been
referred because of serious problems.

7
 4. Our practices and decision-making processes must be outcome focused and data based.

Not coincidentally, the title of this volume, School Psychology for the 21st Century: Foundations and Practices,
invokes the temporal element of change and references the previous and current development of the field.
Early in the first decade of this new century, we as authors began a discussion that led to the conception and
creation of the first edition of this volume. As we discussed the feasibility of writing an introduction to school
psychology, we quickly found that we shared a viewpoint and vision for our professional field and that we were
all enthusiastic about the possibilities that exist at this important juncture. We embarked on this work not
only to provide a solid introduction to school psychology but also to help shape the further development and
progress of the field.
This volume is designed to provide an introduction and orientation to the field of school psychology. We
especially intend for it to be of interest and use to graduate students who are beginning to prepare for careers
in the field. Almost all of the hundreds of graduate programs in school psychology in the United States and
Canada offer an introductory class on the field and its professional issues. Students typically take this class
during their first year of graduate study, often during their first semester or term. We believe that it is ideally
suited for use in such introductory graduate classes, where we hope that it will help to shape the views and
practices of the emerging generation of school psychologists. We believe that it will also be of interest to
undergraduate students in psychology and education who are considering graduate studies and careers in these
fields and who desire to learn more about the possibilities that school psychology may hold for them. We also
intend this book to be of use to individuals who are considering a career change into school psychology and
need a resource to help them explore the field. Individuals who currently work as school psychology
practitioners, trainers, administrators, and researchers will find this volume to be a fresh introduction and
guide to our dynamic and exciting field.
The first two chapters present a foundation and context for understanding school psychology. Chapter 1
provides an introduction to the field, and Chapter 2 gives an overview of the history of school psychology as
well as the historical context of its place in psychology and American education. Chapter 3 provides a
foundation for effective school psychology practices in an increasingly diverse cultural context. Chapters 4
through 6 provide a foundation for the professional practice of school psychology, focusing on training and
credentialing, employment trends and issues, and legal and ethical aspects of practice in this field. Chapters 7
through 12 provide the details of our vision of best practice in school psychology and focus on the wide range
of roles that we believe school psychologists should pursue, including a data-oriented problem-solving
approach to practice; assessment; prevention and intervention; facilitating systems-level change via
implementing a public health perspective on school psychology services; and being involved as a consumer and
producer of research and evaluation. Chapter 13 provides some concluding comments regarding moving the
field of school psychology forward and mapping our own future as professionals. Together, the 13 chapters in
this book provide a comprehensive and, in our view, state-of-the-art introduction to the field of school
psychology.
This volume was written deliberately to reflect our shared points of view as well as a shared vision of what
school psychology can become. As we began to discuss the possibility of writing an introductory volume to
school psychology, none of us was interested in simply providing another overview of the history, current

8
status, and issues of the field. Rather, we wrote this book because we were interested in promoting a forward-
thinking vision of the exciting and dynamic possibilities within the field of school psychology. We believe that
school psychology has much to offer and that its potential is just beginning to emerge. The possibilities for
this field to make a strong positive impact in schools and other settings and in the lives of children,
adolescents, and their families are simply enormous. We also believe that there are still several barriers to
achieving this vision, foremost of which are the low expectations of many professionals and institutions for
school psychology, some of which have unfortunately been perpetuated by the narrow vision of school
psychology that is held by some of its own practitioners and trainers. We are not naive about the challenges,
obstacles, and barriers that many school psychologists face in using their professional skills and interests to
achieve the maximum good. Rather, we believe that, through a concerted effort over time, school
psychologists can individually and collectively advance the field at all levels, and that in doing so, school
psychology will make an enormous positive impact.
Although each chapter within this book is unique, these chapters were developed through a collective vision
for the book. Some of the “big ideas” on which this book and our vision for the field of school psychology are
based include the following:

• North American society has become increasingly diverse and pluralistic with respect to the cultural
background, race, ethnicity, and language of its citizens, and it will continue to become increasingly diverse
during the 21st century. School psychologists should develop cultural competence so that they can work
appropriately and effectively with individuals and groups from a variety of backgrounds (see Chapter 3).

• School psychology practice has been and should continue to be primarily focused in school or other
educational settings. The educational setting is a primary focus of our vision and of this book. However,
school psychologists have much to offer outside of the context of school settings, and we encourage the
practice of school psychology in a variety of settings and contexts (see Chapter 5).

• School psychology practice should be outcome focused and data driven. School psychologists should base
their decisions on valid data and use effective data collection techniques to inform, monitor, and modify
intervention activities (see Chapter 7).

• Assessment of children and adolescents has been and will continue to be a mainstay activity of school
psychologists. However, the types of assessment methods and the process of assessment have evolved over
time. Assessment activities should do more than simply describe or diagnose problems. Rather, the most
useful assessment strategies are those that provide a foundation for implementing and monitoring effective
interventions (see Chapter 8).

• School psychologists have historically worked with a limited segment of student populations, primarily
those who have or are suspected of having disabilities and those who are otherwise at high risk for negative
outcomes in life. We believe that there will always be a need for school psychologists to focus some of their
efforts on the small percentage of students who have serious learning, behavioral, and social–emotional
problems. We also recognize that longitudinal research points to the chronic nature of such problems and the
critical need for early intervention if negative long-term outcomes are to be curtailed. Thus, we strongly
contend that school psychologists should use their unique expertise to positively affect all students in school

9
settings, not just those who currently exhibit serious learning, behavioral, or social–emotional problems.

• Effective prevention and intervention activities should occupy a significant percentage of school
psychologists’ time. Such activities should occur within the context of a problem-solving, evidence-based
practice model (see Chapters 9 and 10).

• Prevention and intervention activities can occur with individuals, within small groups, within classrooms,
within entire schools, and within school district- or community-based contexts. School psychologists should
engage in prevention and intervention activities at each of these levels, so that a larger number of individuals
may be positively influenced (see Chapters 9 and 10).

• School psychologists do not typically function in isolation but work as part of a system. School
psychologists should strive to use their expertise to develop a solid understanding of the systems in which they
work and to help facilitate systems-level change as needed (see Chapter 11).

• School psychologists should be savvy consumers of research and should have the skills to engage in
research and evaluation activities within their respective settings that will help to advance practice (see
Chapter 12).

• School psychology is a field with incredible potential for helping to solve the “big” problems facing
education. And yet this potential is still not fully realized. We believe that school psychologists should play an
active and important role in this regard. This book is built on the foundation of a progressive, forward-
thinking vision of school psychology, and we are optimistic that collectively individual school psychologists
can continue to move the field forward through their efforts (see Chapter 13).

We hope that this book will receive a broad audience and that it will meet the needs of those who use it,
perhaps even inspire them to think about and practice school psychology in a new way. In sum, school
psychology is a dynamic and exciting field that has incredible and still unrealized potential for positively
affecting education, psychology, and the lives of children, adolescents, and their families. It is our hope that
this book will provide a useful and engaging guide to the field of school psychology and will help the field
continue to move forward.

COMMENTS ON THE SECOND EDITION

The second edition of this volume maintains the same vision, unifying themes, and chapter/organizational
structures as the first edition. What is different in the current edition of this volume is a number of updates
and improvements that reflect developments in the fields of school psychology and education since 2006, new
legal issues impacting the field, new research findings, and recent social and demographic trends in the field
and in society in general. Some of the specific changes from the first edition include:

• Hundreds of new references that reflect updates to the critical literature in the field, new research findings
in education and psychology, and the latest legal, ethical, and social developments.

• Enhanced discussion and coverage of response-to-intervention (RTI) methods of assessing and supporting
students, which have become a major development in the field in a remarkably short period of time, since the

10
implementation of the 2004 Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA).

• Expanded coverage of issues related to supporting the increasing number of culturally and linguistically
diverse students in schools, including enhanced and updated content in Chapter 3 as well as updated content
infused across other chapters.

• Up-to-date coverage of the changes in school psychology training programs, professional standards, and
demographic trends in the field that have emerged since the publication of the first edition of this volume.

• Updates on some of the latest trends, programs, and tools for assessment and intervention with children
and adolescents in educational and related settings.

• Analysis of some of the recent economic, demographic, and social changes that have occurred in the United
States and Canada (and worldwide, in some cases) since the first edition of this volume, particularly those
changes and trends that impact education, children and adolescents, and families.

• Expanded coverage of the evidence-based practice model in addressing mental health concerns as well as
expanded coverage of empirically supported mental health interventions.

11
 Acknowledgments

We have enjoyed the support of many colleagues as we have developed the first and second editions of this
volume, and we wish to acknowledge their contributions. In particular, we would like to acknowledge Randy
Floyd for his supportive consultation and expertise. We are indebted to Chris Jennison, former Publisher,
Education, at The Guilford Press, who provided the persistent encouragement (and occasional nudging) to
one of us (KWM) over a period of 2 years to write an introductory book on the field of school psychology that
led to this book becoming a reality in its first edition in 2006. At Guilford, Craig Thomas, Senior Editor;
Natalie Graham, Editor; and Anna Nelson, Senior Production Editor, have all provided invaluable assistance
to us in moving forward the second edition of this volume as well as other volumes we have published with
Guilford both individually and collectively. We are indebted to our colleagues and students at our respective
institutions (University of Oregon, University of British Columbia, and Utah State University) for helping to
create intellectual environments in which we could conceptualize and articulate what we think is a progressive
view of school psychology. We are also grateful to our own mentors and past colleagues in the field. Finally,
we are indebted to the many scholars, practitioners, and leaders in the field of school psychology over the past
several decades who, through their life’s work, have helped bring the field to the critical and promising point
where it is at the present time.

12
 Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication

About the Authors

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction to the Field of School Psychology

Defining School Psychology
Previous Definitions
Current Definitions
Characteristics of School Psychologists
Being There: Four Stories from the Field
Alexa: “A Tough but Rewarding Field”
Roger: “Like Putting Water on a Dying Plant”
Dana: “A Great Time to Be a School Psychologist”
Mariana: “One of the Most Rewarding Things I Can Imagine”
Tying It Together
How Does One Become a School Psychologist?
Differentiating School Psychology from Related Professions
Related Fields in Psychology
Related Fields in Education
Using This Book: A Vision for School Psychology
Discussion Questions and Activities

The Historical Context of School Psychology

Philosophical, Intellectual, and Social–Cultural Foundations
Classical Greek Influences
Modern European Influences
The Emergence of Psychology
Developments in American Education
Colonial Foundations
19th-Century Steps

13
20th-Century Developments, Persistent Issues
Beginnings of School Psychology
Development and Professionalization of the Field
Recent History of School Psychology
Public Law 94-142/Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
Training Standards and Credentialing
Growth through Tension and Opposition
Two Cultures of Psychology
NASP and APA
Leaving Adolescence: Toward the Maturation of the Field
Discussion Questions and Activities

The Changing Face of School Psychology: Responding Effectively to Cultural and Linguistic Diversity
with Elsa Arroyos
Demographic Trends: The Changing Linguistic, Ethnic, and Cultural Landscape
Beyond Stereotypes: Within-Group and Between-Group Differences
Stereotypes
Within- and between-Group Differences
Ethnic Minority Underrepresentation among the Ranks of School Psychologists: A Major Challenge for the Field
Key Concepts and Issues in Cultural and Linguistic Diversity
Acculturation
Worldview
Identity
Models for Best Practice in School Psychology Service Delivery
Assessment
Consultation
Response to Intervention
School Psychology and the Misrepresentation of Minority Students in Special Education Programs
Alternative Viewpoint on the Emphasis of Multicultural Competence
Data-Driven Problem Solving: An Approach for Supporting All Students
Discussion Questions and Activities

Becoming a School Psychologist: Training and Credentialing Issues

Becoming a School Psychologist
School Psychology Training Programs, Students, and Faculty
School Psychology Training Programs
Characteristics of Faculty and Students
Practicum and Internship Training
Practicum Training in School Psychology
Internship Training in School Psychology
Credentialing in School Psychology: Certification and Licensure
State Department of Education Certification/Licensure
Nationally Certified School Psychologist Credential
State Board of Examiners in Psychology License
Specialty Credentialing
Continuing Professional Development
Discussion Questions and Activities

Working as a School Psychologist: Employment Trends, Opportunities, and Challenges

Obtaining a Job as a School Psychologist
Obtaining a Job in a Non-School Setting
University Training Programs

14
Clinical Settings
The Work Setting
School Psychologists in Nontraditional Settings
Salaries and Time Spent Working
The Role and Function of School Psychologists
Ideal and Actual Roles
Demographic Characteristics of School Psychologists
Gender
Age
Ethnicity
Educational Level
Job Supply and Demand
Discussion Questions and Activities

Legal and Ethical Issues in School Psychology

Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act–2004
Background on Special Education Law
IDEIA-2004: Part B
LRE and Court Cases
Appropriate Education and Court Cases
IDEIA-2004: Part C
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act
Other Important Federal Legislation
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
No Child Left Behind
Ethical Issues
Competence
Professional Relationships
Privacy/Confidentiality
Professional Practice: Intervention and Assessment
Research
Training and Supervision
Advertising/Media Relations
Record Keeping/Fees
Ethical Decision Making
Integrating Ethical Principles and the Law: Limits to Confidentiality
Child Abuse and Neglect
Duty to Protect
Privileged Communication
Conclusions
Discussion Questions and Activities

Facilitating Change through Data-Driven Problem Solving: A Model for School Psychology Practice
Historical Discussion of Traditional and Alternative Approaches to School Psychology Practice
Historical Roots of Traditional and Alternative Models of School Psychology
Rationale for Adopting a Problem-Solving Approach
Evidence That Traditional Systems Have Many Problems
Urgency of the Need for Change
Continued Evidence Supportive of a Problem-Solving Approach
A Context for Change: EBP and RTI
Overview of the Data-Driven Problem-Solving Model
Step 1: What Is the Problem? (Problem Identification and Validation)

15
Step 2: Why Is It Occurring? (Problem Analysis)
Step 3: What Should Be Done About It? (Intervention Development and Implementation)
Step 4: Did It Work? (Intervention Evaluation and Follow-Up)
Summary of the Critical Features of a Data-Driven Problem-Solving Model
Systems to Support Sustained Use of Problem Solving
A Focus on Prevention
The School Psychologist’s Role
Discussion Questions and Activities

The School Psychologist’s Role in Assessment: Models, Methods, and Trends in Gathering, Organizing,
and Analyzing Data
Assessment Standards and Psychometric Properties
Assessment Standards
Reliability
Validity
Intellectual Assessment
Assessment of Academic Skills
Standardized, Norm-Referenced Achievement Tests
Curriculum-Based Assessment/Measurement
Brief Experimental Analysis
Assessment of Social–Emotional and Behavioral Functioning
Projective Techniques
Behavior Rating Scales
Interviews
Observations
Self-Report Measures
Functional Behavioral Assessment
Diagnosis and Classification in the Schools
Assessment as a Problem-Solving Process
Identification of the Problem: The Referral and Clarification
Analysis of the Problem: Development of Hypotheses and Collection of Assessment Data
Review of Data
Intervention Development
Evaluation of the Intervention
Final Thoughts
Discussion Questions and Activities

The School Psychologist’s Role in Prevention and Intervention: Part 1. Academic Skills
Prevention and Intervention as Part of a Data-Driven Problem-Solving Process
Factors That Influence Development
Risk Factors
Protective Factors
Evidence-Based Instruction and Intervention Strategies
Literature on Effective Instruction
The Student (Who Is Being Taught?)
The Curriculum (What to Teach)
Effective Instructional Approaches (How and When to Teach)
Prevention and Intervention Literature on Effective Teaching
Strategies Designed to Improve Academic Engagement, Motivation, Self-Regulation, and Problem Solving
Strategies Designed to Improve Skill Development, Fluency, and Retention of Information
Data-Driven Problem Solving across Levels of Prevention
Conclusions

16
 Discussion Questions and Activities

10. The School Psychologist’s Role in Prevention and Intervention: Part 2. Mental Health and Social–
Emotional Behavior
Noted Advancements in the Field
Mental Health and Social–Emotional Needs of Students
Prevalence of Disorders and Range of Problems in School-Age Populations
Issues of Complexity and Comorbidity: Need for Early Detection and Intervention
Addressing Mental Health Issues from a Problem-Solving Stance
Adaptation of a Public Health Prevention Framework to Schools
Evidence-Based Practice Movement
Parent Management Training for the Treatment of Aggression and Oppositional Behavior
CBT for the Treatment of Internalizing Problems
Psychostimulants for the Treatment of ADHD Symptoms
Concluding Comments Regarding EBP
Linking Supports across Service Delivery Systems and Providers
Data-Driven Problem Solving across Levels of Prevention
Conclusions
Discussion Questions and Activities

11. The School Psychologist’s Role in Collaboration, Consultation, and Facilitation of Systems Change
Consultation and Collaboration
The School Context: Challenges Facing Schools
Technological Advances and Changing Dynamics of the Workforce
Changes in the Student Demographics and Student Needs
Increased Demands for EBP and Accountability Despite Diminishing Resources
Current Global Economic Challenges
Change as a Unifying Feature of the Challenges Facing School Systems
Problem Solving, Systems Change, and School Psychology
Systems-Change Theory
Lessons Learned from Past Systemic Reform Efforts
Phases of the Systems-Change Process
Phase 1: Creating Readiness
Phase 2: Initial Implementation
Phase 3: Institutionalization
Phase 4: Ongoing Evolution
The Role of the School Psychologist
Discussion Questions and Activities

12. The School Psychologist’s Role in Research and Evaluation

School Psychologists as Consumers of Research
Types of Journal Articles
Evaluating Research
Conducting Applied Research in the Schools
Single-Subject Research
Program Evaluation
Targets/Needs Assessment
Identifying Goals and Objectives
Program Activities
Assessing Process and Outcomes
Data-Based Decision Making
Discussion Questions and Activities

17
 13. Moving the Field Forward: Mapping the Future of School Psychology
From Where We Were to Where We Are: The Evolution of School Psychology
The Challenges of Prognostication: Previous Attempts to Predict the Future of the Field
School Psychology in the 21st Century: Our Predictions
Mapping Our Future: A Vision for School Psychology
Priority Goals and Outcomes from the 2002 Futures Conference
Concluding Comments: Another Look at the “Triangle of Support”
Discussion Questions and Activities

APPENDIX A. American Psychological Association Ethical Principles

of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (Revised 2010)

APPENDIX B. National Association of School Psychologists Principles for Professional Ethics (Revised 2010)

References

Index

About Guilford Publications

Discover More Guilford Titles

18
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction to the Field

of School Psychology

It is fitting for the first chapter of this introductory volume about school psychology to provide a general
exploration of this exciting field. If you are investigating this field or are new to it, you probably have some
basic questions, and this chapter is an attempt to answer some of them and to provide a useful orientation to
this book. The chapter begins with a discussion of the various definitions of school psychology and how these
definitions inform and shape the field. General characteristics of school psychologists are described, including
such aspects as the number and location of individuals who work in the field, demographic characteristics of
school psychologists, professional organizations, and level of training. To help provide a more direct
introduction to the field, we present four composite vignettes of individuals who work in school psychology.
These vignettes show the diversity, strength, creativity, and challenges within the profession. Some aspects of
entry into the field are described, including graduate training and credentialing. School psychology is
differentiated from some of the more closely related fields in psychology and education. Finally, we include a
guide to using this book and an overview of some of the “big ideas” on which the book was developed.

DEFINING SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY

At the beginning of a book introducing readers to the field of school psychology, it is reasonable to consider
the questions “What is school psychology?” and “What is a school psychologist?” Individuals who have
worked in this field for several years might assume that the meaning and definition of school psychology are
self-evident. However, a closer look at the development of the field, the evolution of a professional identity,
and some of the controversies regarding issues that to outsiders appear to be straightforward show us that in
order to define school psychology we must examine it closely and consider the importance of “what’s in a
definition.”

Previous Definitions

It is interesting to look through the literature from a few decades ago to see how the defining characteristics of
school psychology have evolved over time. In their 1961 book The School Psychologist, White and Harris stated,
“In our view school psychology is that branch of psychology which concerns itself with the personality of the
pupil in interaction with the educational process,” and argued that the field “encompasses not only the
learning process, as part of education, but also the personality of the learner as a member of school society, as a

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member of a family unit, and as a member of the community” (p. 1). In her landmark book The Psychologist in
the Schools, the original treatise on problem solving as the professional aspiration of school psychologists,
Susan Gray (1963) posited that school psychologists had two primary roles: one as data-oriented problem solvers
in schools and the other as transmitters of psychological knowledge and skills. Bardon and Bennett, in their book
School Psychology (1974), wrote, “The specialty in psychology concerned with how schooling affects children in
general and with the pupil in interaction with a specific school is called school psychology. The specialty
includes knowledge about research and theory dealing with what happens between children and others when
they are together in schools; more than that, school psychology deals with how school for a child in Jackson
Junior High is different than school for a child in Wilson Junior High” (p. x).

Current Definitions

In contrast to these notable statements from the 1960s and 1970s, which tended to define the field by
focusing on what school psychologists do or should do rather than on what the specialty is, the most current
definitions of school psychology tend to be more direct in defining the essential characteristics of school
psychology. In the About School Psychology section of the National Association of School Psychologists
(NASP) website, the answer to “What is a school psychologist?” is provided:

School psychologists help children and youth succeed academically, socially, behaviorally, and emotionally. They collaborate with
educators, parents, and other professionals to create safe, healthy, and supportive learning environments that strengthen connections
between home, school, and the community for all students.
School psychologists are highly trained in both psychology and education, completing a minimum of a specialist-level degree
program (at least 60 graduate semester hours) that includes a year-long supervised internship. This training emphasizes preparation in
mental health and educational interventions, child development, learning, behavior, motivation, curriculum and instruction, assessment,
consultation, collaboration, school law, and systems. School psychologists must be certified and/or licensed by the state in which they
work. They also may be nationally certified by the National School Psychology Certification Board (NSPCB). The National Association
of School Psychologists sets ethical and training standards for practice and service delivery. (NASP, 2010d, paragraphs 1 and 2)

Another definition or description of school psychology is provided by the Division of School Psychology
(Division 16) of the American Psychological Association (APA). In the Goals & Objectives section of their
website, the archival description of the specialty of school psychology reads:

School Psychology is a general practice and health service provider specialty of professional psychology that is concerned with the science
and practice of psychology with children, youth, families; learners of all ages; and the schooling process. The basic education and training
of school psychologists prepares them to provide a range of psychological assessment, intervention, prevention, health promotion, and
program development and evaluation services with a special focus on the developmental processes of children and youth within the
context of schools, families, and other systems.
School psychologists are prepared to intervene at the individual and system level, and develop, implement, and evaluate preventive
programs. In these efforts, they conduct ecologically valid assessments and intervene to promote positive learning environments within
which children and youth from diverse backgrounds have equal access to effective educational and psychological services to promote
healthy development. (APA Division of School Psychology, 2010, paragraphs 1 and 2)

Because these definitions are from the two most influential entities representing the field of school
psychology in the United States, they have particular importance. What do these definitions have in common?
They indicate that school psychology is a profession concerned with the development, mental health, and

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education of children and youth. They indicate that school psychologists provide services to children, youth,
and their families within the context of educational settings but are not limited to those settings. They
indicate that school psychologists are concerned with supporting children, youth, their families, and other
professionals who work with them in educational and other settings. Importantly, these definitions tell us that
school psychology is part of the broader field of psychology and that it also is connected to the field of
education and to other professional fields as well. Formulating definitions of school psychology and
subsequent efforts to refine these definitions have been exceedingly difficult at times. These issues are not
trivial. Professional identity and activities are shaped in great measure by how a specialty is defined. The short
answer to “What’s in a definition?” is “more than you might think.”

CHARACTERISTICS OF SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGISTS

Definitions aside, another way to obtain a snapshot of the field of school psychology is to look at the
characteristics of school psychologists. Like a good working definition of the field, it is surprisingly complex to
provide a simple description of those who call themselves school psychologists. Because the practice of school
psychology is governed by various credentialing bodies within the individual states and provinces, and because
membership in professional organizations is voluntary, there is no unitary list or registry of school
psychologists. This section provides some basic data regarding school psychologists, particularly the number of
individuals who are estimated to work in the field, and some of their basic demographic characteristics,
including gender and ethnicity. In Chapter 5, we provide more details regarding the characteristics of school
psychologists, specifically in the context of employment.
Perhaps the most direct way to make inferences regarding basic characteristics of school psychologists is to
look at available data from national organizations. However, even this method is fraught with challenges
because the actual percentage of school psychologists who join professional organizations is unknown and
many school psychologists (like ourselves) belong to two or more professional organizations that represent the
field.
Data provided to the authors by the NASP’s Membership Department indicated that as of March 18,
2010, there were 26,085 members of the association. The majority of these NASP members resided in the
United States, but 300 lived in Canada and 133 were from other nations. On the basis of our own experiences
and conversations with school psychologists, we estimate that 60 to 65% of school psychologists in the United
States are members of NASP, and the figure for school psychologists in Canada is somewhat less. If we are
correct, then a reasonable estimate of the number of school psychologists in the two nations ranges from
39,000 to 43,000. Of course, this number is nothing more than an educated guess. Not only do we not know
the actual percentage of school psychologists who belong to NASP, but we must also recognize that there are
some individuals who are NASP members who are not specifically trained as school psychologists or who are
working in related fields. That said, our estimate is very consistent with data from a Charvat (2005) survey of
state departments of education educational licensing agencies, which indicated there were nearly 38,000
certified or licensed school psychologists in the United States alone. This estimate is also in line with other
recent estimates taking into account U.S. school psychologists only. For example, Fagan (2008) noted that a
“reasonable figure” for school psychologists within the United States is in the 30,000–35,000 range, and

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Charvat (2008) estimated that there were approximately 35,400 credentialed school psychologists in the
United States in 2008, with 28,500 of these individuals being practicing school psychologists.
Using APA Division 16 data is less informative in terms of estimating the number of school psychologists.
On March 18, 2010, we were informed by the division’s vice president of membership that at the end of 2009
there were approximately 2,200 members of Division 16. This figure is obviously not a proxy figure in any
respect for the total number of school psychologists in the United States, because it is widely understood that
far fewer school psychologists join APA than NASP, and it is unknown how many individuals are members of
both organizations. One reason that APA Division 16 has far fewer members than NASP is that a doctoral
degree is required for full APA membership, but a large majority of practicing school psychologists do not
have doctoral degrees.
Internationally, the number of school psychologists is also something of a puzzle, and it is even more
difficult to ascertain than the number within the United States. Several years ago, Oakland and Cunningham
(1992) conducted an international survey and estimated the number of individuals globally in the field of
school psychology to be 87,000. More recently, Jimerson, Stewart, Skokut, Cardenas, and Malone (2009)
estimated that there were 76,122 school psychologists in 48 countries, including 32,300 in the United States
and 3,500 in Canada. After the United States, Turkey had the next largest estimated number of school
psychologists (11,327), followed by Spain (3,600), and then both Canada and Japan (3,500 each). Jimerson et
al. noted that estimates for school psychologists for the three countries with the largest number of children
(India, China, and Indonesia) could not be obtained, and in Indonesia there was no evidence of school
psychology practice. It does seem likely that the 76,122 figure somewhat underestimates the number of school
psychologists internationally and that Oakland’s (2007) estimate of 100,000 may be a better reflection of the
number of school psychologists worldwide.
Although we are using the term school psychologists very generally to make these worldwide comparisons, it is
worth noting that the role of school psychologists outside of the United States and Canada (who are also
referred to in some nations as “educational psychologists”) may differ considerably from the role of school
psychologists in the United States and Canada. Particularly in the United States, the role of the school
psychologist has been strongly linked to public law for education of students with disabilities. In most other
nations, this is not the case. That being said, many of the basic core functions of school psychologists in terms
of consultation, intervention, and assessment are likely similar across many countries (Oakland, 2007;
Oakland & Jimerson, 2008). (More information on the practice of school psychology worldwide is available at
the International School Psychology Association website: www.ispaweb.org.)
With respect to gender of school psychologists, there is considerable evidence that the field has become a
female-dominated profession in the past two or three decades, and the percentage of women in the field
continues to increase slightly. The most recent membership survey data available from NASP (from 2004 to
2005) indicated that approximately 74% of NASP members are women, reflecting increases from the
November 1999 estimate of 72% reported by Fagan and Wise (2000) and from their 1994 estimate of 67%. In
commenting on the fairly recent shift in gender composition of school psychologists since about the 1970s,
Reschly (2000) stated that the increased proportion of women in the field during this time period constituted
“the clearest changes in school psychology during the past two decades” (p. 508).
Future trends regarding the characteristics of school psychologists are difficult to predict. Because the field

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does not exist in isolation, future trends will inevitably be shaped by external forces, such as economic
conditions, the development of public education, new federal laws and mandates, advocacy by national and
state organizations, and national and worldwide social trends. However, it appears that in the immediate
future several trends are very likely. The field of school psychology should continue to grow at least modestly,
and school psychologists will continue to enjoy adequate to good employment prospects in most regions, even
during times of economic downturn. Public school settings will almost certainly continue to be the primary
place of employment for school psychologists, although expansion into nontraditional settings will continue.
The large majority of school psychology practitioners will hold master’s or specialist degrees as their highest
academic degrees, although the percentage of school psychologists with doctoral degrees may increase slightly,
as it has in recent years. For the foreseeable future, the large majority of school psychologists will be women,
and it is likely that the percentage of women in the field may even continue to increase.
It is important to recognize that the clear evidence of professional gender imbalance is not limited to school
psychology alone, but seems to be evident in most areas of specialization within graduate training programs in
psychology, at the doctoral, master’s, and specialist levels. For example, a 2007 APA survey (APA, 2007a) of
recent doctoral recipients in the field of psychology found that 76% of all respondents were women, which
reflected an increase of 7 percentage points over 10 years and 24 percentage points in 21 years since previous
surveys had been completed. Fagan (2008) asserted that “the proportion of women in school psychology may
rise to as high as 80%” (p. 2070). Although Fagan stated that “effects of the increasing female representation
have not been studied” (p. 2071), he did note that the increase in women in the psychology field has helped
the profession maintain its ability to meet the needs of its clientele and has likely led to the increase in certain
research/service areas (e.g., women’s issues, bullying).

BEING THERE: FOUR STORIES FROM THE FIELD

Although the general professional definitions and descriptions of school psychology are extremely important
and have broad impact on how the field is perceived both internally and externally, they give us only a small
glimpse of what school psychologists do in their day-to-day work. Definitions cannot capture the diversity of
roles that school psychologists fill, nor can they adequately convey how each practicing school psychologist is
in a unique situation and setting and has a unique perspective on the field. In addition, general definitions
cannot possibly convey the wealth of experience, passion, and personal commitment that individual school
psychologists bring to their work. Perhaps a better way to illustrate what school psychology looks like at the
point of actual practice is to present a glimpse into the professional lives of several school psychologists. The
following four composite vignettes contain elements of the professional lives of several school psychologists
whom we know and have spoken to extensively about their work. Although these vignettes are composite
scenarios of more than one person and do not contain identifying information, all are based on actual persons.

Alexa: “A Tough but Rewarding Field”

Alexa is currently in her second year working as a school psychologist in a large county school district in the
southwestern United States, comprising a large urban area, its immediate suburbs, and an outlying rural
region that is sparsely populated. Alexa has responsibility for three schools (two elementary schools and a

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middle school), and she also provides training and consultation across the district to help teachers adapt to the
system’s new response-to-intervention model (RTI) for identifying and supporting students who have
learning problems. Alexa arrived here after completing her doctoral program and internship from a nationally
recognized training program. Prior to her doctoral studies, she received a bachelor’s degree in psychology in
her home state in the Midwest, and then earned a specialist degree in school psychology at an institution in
the Mountain West region. Alexa did not fall into the field happenstance or after a late discovery: She has
been focused on her goal of a career in school psychology since her senior year in high school.
Alexa’s days are full. Her three schools all have pressing needs and problems. Not only are there the usual
array of student concerns, but the area has been hit hard by the severe economic recession that began in 2008,
and a large military base nearby means that many of the children at her schools have a parent who is deployed
overseas in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere. The population in her school district has historically been
transient, which creates a revolving door of incoming and outgoing students with special needs. In addition,
the district has a significant and growing population of English language learners, most of whom speak
Spanish at home. As a result of these factors, many of the students in her schools have notable stressors in
their lives, and it manifests in a variety of academic, behavioral, and social–emotional problems. In addition,
the district’s adoption of an RTI model the year she arrived has created a strong need for Alexa to consult and
train with specialists and teachers. Not only is assisting with RTI implementation a part of her job
description, but RTI was an integral component of her doctoral training program, and Alexa carved out a
strong area of interest and specialization in RTI during her training.
Although her initial goal in accepting her current position was to work 2 to 3 years and then pursue an
academic position at a research institution with a doctoral program, Alexa has been rethinking that idea. “I’m
finding the district’s move to an RTI model to be very rewarding and exciting, and I like working as a
practitioner more than I thought I would. I also really enjoy the relationships and friendships I have formed
with my colleagues. And I’m probably making more money now than I would if I moved to a university
trainer position. I’m getting a good start to paying off my student loans and I finally was able to buy a decent
car!”
But Alexa’s enthusiasm for her professional role is tempered by the realities of some of its challenges. “The
move to RTI happened more quickly than most of the staff expected, and I don’t think it was carefully enough
planned and orchestrated in the beginning,” she says. As a result, she has encountered significant resistance to
the idea from staff at two of her three schools. “In my specialist program internship, I mostly gave
standardized cognitive assessments, participated in team meetings, and did some consultation with parents
and teachers. I liked it, but I often questioned how it was helping kids. What I am doing now is so much
more satisfying and useful than what I was doing then. But it is not easy, and the kinds of changes we need to
put in place are moving slowly.”
Despite those sometimes hard realities and challenges in her professional role, Alexa is convinced she made
a good choice by going into school psychology: “This is important work. When we get it right, I can see the
results in the lives of our students and their families, not to mention our teachers. And what I really like about
it is being able to follow through with kids over time, to see them progress when we are able to put together
the right combination of programming for them. This field can be tough, but it’s so rewarding.”

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 Roger: “Like Putting Water on a Dying Plant”

Unlike Alexa, Roger got a later start to his career in school psychology. Currently in his late 30s, Roger is in
his seventh year of a second career as a school psychologist. A native of California, he graduated with honors
from a small liberal arts college in the Pacific Northwest and then went through a master’s program in
business administration at a large, prestigious university in California. “I wanted to move up the corporate
ladder in management and sales, and I wanted to make lots of money. At least that’s what I thought and what
my family seemed to expect.” After receiving his MBA, he joined a large company and began the climb
upward in the sales division. He stayed with the company 5 years, earning two promotions and a very healthy
salary. But after about 3 years he began questioning his pursuit and found it increasingly a poor match for his
idealism and sense of social justice. He also became interested in exploring other options. “I was becoming
more and more frustrated, and although it was a good job and there was nothing wrong with that industry, I
wanted to do something that I felt was making more of a difference in people’s lives day to day.” His
introduction to school psychology came in the unlikeliest of places. “I would work out at a gym three or four
nights a week, and got to know a group of five or six other regulars there. One of them was a school
psychologist, and I found myself wanting to ask her lots of questions about her work, then I started
researching the field.” He was soon convinced that this was a good direction for him, and the next year he
applied for and received admission into a specialist-level master’s program in his home state. “I loved my
school psychology training—It was hard, but so much different and more satisfying to me than my MBA
program.”
Roger completed his internship with a school district in the San Francisco Bay area, accepted a regular
position there, and has been there ever since. The district is large, mostly urban, and very diverse. About 40%
of the students are Asian and about 25% are Latino; white and African American students each constitute
about 10% of the district’s population. There are also many immigrants from the Middle East and quite a few
students for whom English is not their first language. Roger feels that his own Asian ethnicity helps him with
initial cultural acceptance issues when dealing with Asian students and families, but he does not see it as an
advantage with students from other groups, stating that after the initial work has started “what really matters
is connecting with people and coming up with plans that can help students and make a noticeable difference
in their education.” He is assigned to an alternative middle school/high school program for at-risk students,
including many students with disabilities, and also provides services to an elementary school one day a week.
Roger likes the elementary school and says “it gives me a sense of perspective,” but his clear passion is the
alternative middle-secondary program: “These kids come to our school basically having failed or been thrown
out or seen as the bad kid, but for most of them, they come here and it’s like a new start. We get the right
things into place for them and it’s like putting water on a dying plant. I love it.” The alternative school is
relatively small, and one of Roger’s assignments is to serve as the special services coordinator and assistant
principal. He oversees the coordination of referrals for special education eligibility and mental health services.
He also works individually with students and co-leads social and emotional learning classes with three to four
teachers per week. “It’s incredible how quickly some of these kids make gains. We still have lots of challenges,
but we see on a weekly basis major positive changes happening in their lives.”
In the past 4 years, Roger has sought out additional training in positive behavior support and has helped to

25
introduce it schoolwide. “It’s cut down our office discipline referrals by 45% since we started, and now that it’s
part of the routine, it really doesn’t take that much time.” His expertise in applied behavior analysis and
functional assessment from graduate school provide a natural springboard for him to use in developing plans
for the students who continue to act out even with positive behavior support in place, and he is integrally
involved in writing behavioral goals and objectives for students who are on individualized education plans
(IEPs).
Roger clearly loves his work and does not regret his decision to leave the corporate world, but he wishes
there were greater resources available: “We need a full-time mental health specialist, and we could use two
more teachers. And the supplies and materials and facilities are really pathetic. The corporate world wouldn’t
put up with these conditions for a minute.” Despite the challenges, Roger would absolutely recommend a
career in school psychology. “For someone who is not afraid to work hard and be flexible, it’s a great way to
make a definitive impact for good. If you have the right training and tools, you can measure what you are
doing, and sometimes it amazes me how well we are able to get things turned around.”

Dana: “A Great Time to Be a School Psychologist”

Dana works as a school psychologist in a large suburban school district in the midwestern United States,
adjacent to one of the nation’s largest cities. She serves one middle school (1,600 students) and one large
elementary school (900 students). In addition, she serves on the district’s crisis intervention response team and
on a steering committee charged with guiding the district’s practices and policies for at-risk and underserved
students. In her mid-40s, Dana is a veteran school psychologist with 16 years of professional experience,
including 3 years with a large urban school district in another state immediately after completion of her EdS
degree.
Dana has worked in the field long enough to have seen some significant changes. Her graduate training
emphasized individual cognitive and academic assessment as well as individual and small-group counseling.
For her first few years in the field, much of her time was devoted to conducting individual psychoeducational
assessments and participating in decision-making processes to determine which students would receive special
education services because of a specific learning disability, guided by the traditional ability–achievement
discrepancy model. She also carried a small caseload of students from her schools’ programs for youth with
emotional disturbances who required individual counseling.
Much has changed for Dana in recent years. “As soon as the 2004 Individuals with Disabilities Education
Improvement Act was in place, we were positioned to begin moving to an RTI model for assessing students
with learning problems, because some of our psychologists and our special education director had been
moving in this direction. Now I give far fewer individual intelligence and achievement tests, and I spend more
time helping teachers and the student support teams gather data and develop and monitor interventions. At
first it was a hard transition, because I didn’t have much training in those kind of tasks, but I got up to speed
fairly soon. I really find that this is a better use of my skills—we’re helping students earlier, and we spend
much less time doing assessment just for the purpose of eligibility decisions.”
Another major shift for Dana has been in how she supports students who have behavioral and emotional
problems. She has always had a strong interest in this area, and has specifically stayed in her current

26
assignment for so long because both of her schools have strong programs for supporting students who are
eligible for special services under the behaviorally disabled (BD) category (her state’s name for the federal
“emotionally disturbed” [ED] category). Initially, most of her intervention work with BD/ED students was in
individual counseling and small-group social skills training interventions. “These were good to an extent, but
we were only serving a very small number of kids, out of necessity. But we moved to schoolwide positive
behavior support about 10 years ago, and for the past 4 years both of my schools have been emphasizing social
and emotional learning schoolwide and classwide, not just in small groups. We’re now seeing much better
results and I’m helping a lot more kids as a result.” With regard to her interest in the BD/ED area, Dana
states: “I’m not only involved in assessment, service eligibility, and providing services to students with BD, but
I’m actively involved in helping the district focus on ethnic overrepresentation issues in the BD program. As
an African American myself, I’ve been really aware and frustrated that our BD programs are identifying
African American kids—particularly boys—at a rate so much higher than their presence in the school system
in general. Some of these identifications are appropriate, but way too many have been questionable, and I tend
to advocate very actively for not only making data-based decisions, but looking at cultural issues too. We’ve
made some progress here, but have a long way to go.”
Dana admits her work can be stressful and has had 1 or 2 years that were particularly challenging (she
played a key role in responding to the aftermath of a school shooting a few years ago). Overall, however, she
finds her profession and career to be very satisfying and rewarding. “Now is a really great time to be a school
psychologist. Even with all the economic and budget and social issues we are facing, we have some really
exciting possibilities. I wish the field was at the point it is now when I went through grad school and started
my first job—I could have helped so many more kids.”

Mariana: “One of the Most Rewarding Things I Can Imagine”

Mariana is a school psychology program faculty member at a regional state college in a small eastern U.S
college town, a position she has held for 7 years. She was awarded tenure and promotion to the rank of
associate professor 1 year ago. She mostly teaches graduate-level classes in her department’s certificate of
advanced graduate study (specialist-level) school psychology program, but also teaches two undergraduate
courses in psychology each year, and she supervises her advisees’ graduate thesis research. Prior to the start of
her career as a university educator and school psychology trainer, Mariana completed her predoctoral
internship and 1 additional year of work as a school psychologist in an urban school district in the
northeastern United States. Her doctoral training was at a prominent program that had a strong orientation
toward behavioral theory and school psychologists as problem solvers.
Mariana enjoyed her 2 years working as a full-time practitioner but was focused on the goal of becoming a
faculty member from the start: “I’ve always loved the university setting, and the opportunity to be around new
ideas and innovations that come with it. At first, I thought I wanted to focus a lot on research and work as a
faculty member in a PhD program, but I found that I really loved the teaching and mentoring of students, and
was less enthusiastic about teaching less but being expected to publish a lot more.” Her greatest surprise in
making the transition from practitioner to trainer was how much work was involved. “I knew that my mentor
and the other faculty from grad school worked hard, but I really had no idea. The first 2 years I was constantly

27
struggling just to be prepared for my classes and meetings the next day, and got almost no scholarship done.
There are a lot of complex demands, and the job doesn’t have as clear a starting and stopping point every day
as I had in my work as a practitioner.” After that initial transition, Mariana found her footing, improved her
time management, and began to carve out an area of scholarship related to multicultural educational issues as
well as mental health service delivery in schools. “These are really important areas, and there is so much to be
done.” Mariana loves working in her present role, and rates her mentorship of students as the single most
satisfying part of the job. “To see these students progress from knowing very little about the field to becoming
highly effective and respected school psychologists is one of the most rewarding things I can imagine. My
work is impacting so many students indirectly, through the work of the students I trained. I honestly have no
interest in doing anything else at this point in my career.”

Tying It Together

The variety, personal investment, challenges, and impact reflected in the professional lives of the four
composite school psychologists featured in these vignettes could easily be duplicated by conducting similar
interviews with any four randomly selected school psychologists. It is also noteworthy that professional lives
evolve over time. Those school psychologists profiled in this section have seen their career paths develop and
change, sometimes in ways they never anticipated. The same could be said for any school psychologist who is
committed to making in impact in the field. Although tied together by a collective professional identity and
associations, every school psychologist has a unique story, makes unique contributions, and follows a unique
path. And yet there is a commonality among them that ties them together and reflects the shared vision and
unique identity that defines school psychology. We believe that this vision and identity stem from a focus on
affecting the academic, behavioral, and social–emotional problems of children and youth in educational
settings through the effective use of psychological principles and procedures and through the medium of
“school psychology.” This vision is also clearly tied to the personal commitment and idealism of those
individuals who choose to join the field of school psychology. Although school psychologists have differing
backgrounds, job descriptions, expectations, and professional ambitions, as a group they share a collective
desire to positively influence the lives of children, adolescents, and their families. It is the incredible power of
this collective individual idealism that fuels the impact and potential of the field.

HOW DOES ONE BECOME A SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST?

Having established a definition of school psychology and some of the characteristics of school psychologists,
the next question that might be asked by someone exploring the field is “How does one become a school
psychologist?” This question is dealt with in extensive detail in Chapter 4, which covers training and
credentialing issues. To help us establish our basic introduction to school psychology, a few of the more
elemental details regarding the paths that must be traveled to become a school psychologist are covered in this
section.
To become a school psychologist, one must have completed a graduate-level program in school psychology
and have received a credential (i.e., a certificate or license) to practice in the field. The specialist-degree level
of training has become the minimum standard of preparation for entering the field. This level of training

28
typically (but not always) requires approximately 2 years of full-time graduate study beyond the bachelor’s
degree and includes a field experience component (practicum and internship). NASP has advocated for a
specialist standard of preparation requiring a minimum of 60 semester credits of graduate study and including
a full-time academic-year internship. Because these standards are integrated into NASP’s Nationally Certified
School Psychologist credential (the NCSP, which is promoted and offered by NASP’s National School
Psychology Certification Board), the 60-credit/1,200-internship-hour specialist level of training has become
the de facto standard in the field. It is worth noting that many graduate programs do not offer a specialist
degree by that name but provide an equivalent level of training through a master’s degree (MS, MA, or MEd)
or certificate of advanced graduate study program.
Although the efforts of NASP to advocate for minimum training at the 60/1,200 specialist level have
created a general standard, it is important to recognize that neither NASP nor any other professional
organization actually credentials school psychologists for work in the field. There is no national-level licensing
body that provides clearance to work as a school psychologist anywhere. Rather, credentialing of school
psychologists is the responsibility of individual states and provinces. For school psychologists to work in public
school settings, they must usually obtain a credential, which may be called a certificate or a license, from the
educational licensing agency of the particular state or province where they intend to work. Usually, these
agencies are part of the state or provincial department of education. Each state sets its own standards for entry
into the field in that state, and some states have lower entry-level requirements than others. However, the
NASP-advocated specialist level of training is almost always sufficient for credentialing in any state or
province.
As if the differentiation between NASP professional standards and various state education department
standards was not confusing enough, newcomers to the field are frequently surprised to find that there is
another level of credentialing that is usually necessary to practice as a school psychologist outside of school
settings. To become licensed as a psychologist to practice independently or to practice in settings such as
hospitals, clinics, and community mental health agencies with the use of the title “psychologist,” one must
hold a doctoral degree in psychology (school psychology, counseling psychology, or clinical psychology) and be
licensed by the professional psychology licensing board of a particular state or province. The doctoral level of
professional psychology training, which usually requires 1 year of supervised predoctoral internship and 1 year
of supervised postdoctoral residency (although, as noted in Chapters 4 and 5, several states no longer require
supervised postdoctoral hours) as well as passing written and oral competency examinations that are required
by many states, is what is advocated by APA and its various state affiliates. However, the APA position, as
well as most state psychology licensing laws, includes provisions for the use of the title “school psychologist”
(as opposed to “psychologist” or “licensed professional psychologist”) with less than the doctoral level of
training and without a psychology license, providing that the work is limited to school settings and is
conducted under the banner of a school psychology credential from a state department of education.
There are currently close to 250 institutions of higher education in the United States and Canada that
provide graduate training in school psychology at some level, and more than 300 different training programs
exist at these institutions (Miller, 2008). Although the specialist level of graduate training has become the
standard and typical mode of entry into the field for most school psychologists, a substantial percentage of
school psychologists have earned doctoral degrees. Recent estimates of the percentage of school psychologists

29
who have doctoral degrees have been around 32% for all school psychologists, although the percentage is
lower (24.4%) for practitioners (Curtis, Lopez, et al., 2008). For about the past 30 years, the trend has been in
the direction of steady but small increases in the proportion of school psychologists with doctoral degrees.
Individuals who enroll in school psychology graduate training programs have a variety of undergraduate
backgrounds, the most common of which are psychology and education. A generation ago, it was not
uncommon for individuals entering the field of school psychology to have had backgrounds in education,
perhaps some experience as teachers, and in many cases to be midcareer (i.e., in their 30s or 40s), but these
background characteristics appear to be less common now. We are not aware of any studies or data that have
tracked the age, undergraduate preparation, and background of students entering school psychology programs
over the years, but it has been our experience that the trend has been toward students entering graduate school
in their early to mid-20s, more often than not with an undergraduate degree in psychology and often with
limited volunteer or professional experience in psychology or education. We anticipate that as education and
mental health fields become increasingly professionalized and that as higher levels of educational attainment
become more common, these trends in school psychology training will continue and become even more
noticeable.

DIFFERENTIATING SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY FROM RELATED PROFESSIONS

In addition to understanding what school psychology is all about and how one becomes a school psychologist,
prospective graduate students who are beginning to explore the possibility of a career in this field must also
decide whether to pursue school psychology or some closely related field. As school psychology faculty
members, we visit with prospective graduate students on an ongoing basis. Although many prospective school
psychologists have a very clear idea what being a school psychologist involves and how school psychology
differs from some of its sister fields, many do not. Most trainers have likely sat through meetings with
prospective students who assumed that they were considering entering a school counseling training program,
for example. Because there are important differences not only in the entry-level requirements but also in the
typical role and function of various fields, it is very important for prospective graduate students to get a clear
picture of how school psychology is both similar to and different from its sister fields in psychology and
education.

Related Fields in Psychology

At the doctoral level of training, there are other areas of professional psychology that overlap considerably
with school psychology and that may prepare professional psychologists to work with children, adolescents,
and their families. Historically, school psychology has been included with two other fields, clinical psychology
and counseling psychology, as one of the three applied areas of professional psychology. Completing a doctoral
program in any one of these three fields will, in part, prepare one to become a board-licensed professional
psychologist and to work in a variety of clinic, private practice, community, and medical settings. Clinical and
counseling psychology programs have not traditionally focused on schools and educational issues as school
psychology has, and they do not typically prepare students to work primarily in school settings. However,
many clinical and counseling psychology programs focus on working with children, adolescents, and their

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families and provide a path toward a predoctoral internship and postdoctoral residency year in a child-focused
setting, providing assessment, intervention, and consultation services. Historically, there have been some
important differences between clinical and counseling psychology, with the former field focusing more on
abnormal behavior and psychopathology and the latter on normal developmental and adjustment issues of life.
However, these distinctions have become increasingly blurred in recent years, and today it is not uncommon
to find clinical psychologists working in college counseling centers and counseling psychologists working in
hospitals and community mental health clinics.
Within clinical, counseling, and school psychology, some subspecialties focusing on children, youth, and
their families have emerged in recent years, and these subspecialties are usually not specific to one field of
psychology. For example, just as APA has a division devoted to school psychology (Division 16), it has
separate divisions devoted to child, family, and youth services (Division 37), clinical child and adolescent
psychology (Division 53), and pediatric psychology (Division 54). Child and adolescent neuropsychology has
also emerged as a strong subspecialty within the division of neuropsychology (Division 40). These specialty
areas include doctoral-level psychologists who are graduates of school, clinical, or counseling psychology
programs, who have received specific specialty training, and who have developed particular expertise and
interests in the respective specialty area.
With these related psychology fields and specialty areas, school psychology shares a focus on children,
youth, and their families. What makes school psychology unique among these related areas within psychology
is the specific focus on schools as practice settings and on educational and learning issues as primary concerns.
Although some overlap exists among these areas, they all have a unique identity.

Related Fields in Education

Because school psychology is rooted in education as well as psychology, there are professions specific to
education with which we share common concerns and professional overlap. School counseling is perhaps the
best known of these related educational professions. This field grew out of the mental hygiene and child
guidance movements of the early 20th century, and its focus has evolved from vocational guidance and college
placement to the promotion of a comprehensive model of student development, adjustment, and growth at all
grade levels. The American School Counselor Association has been in existence since 1952 and currently has
more than 27,000 members internationally. Many more school counselors than school psychologists are
employed in schools. Within the United States, the national average ratio of school counselors to students is
slightly less than 1:500 (American School Counselor Association, 2010), whereas the national average for
school psychologists is estimated at about 1:1,500 (Fagan & Wise, 2007). In terms of differences in training
and job focus between the two fields, school psychologists tend to receive more training in individual
assessment methods and intervention techniques than do school counselors and have historically focused more
on students with disabilities. School counselors are more likely to be assigned to work at a single school,
whereas school psychologists are often itinerant and may have responsibility for two to four schools or may
work on a districtwide basis. Much of this difference in site-based versus itinerant service models is related to
the large differences in professional to student ratios, which are much smaller for school counselors.
In addition to school psychologists and school counselors, school social workers are also employed in public

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and private schools. This profession is part of the larger field of social work, and it began in the early 1900s in
the large urban areas of the northeast United States out of a concern for underprivileged youth and their
families. The first school social workers often were part of psychological clinics in the schools and had the title
of “visiting teachers.” Their role was often focused on home visits and advocacy for children and their families
who were living in tenements in industrial areas. Today, school social workers maintain some of the same
historical emphasis on advocacy and working with at-risk students, but they tend to work on multidisciplinary
teams with psychologists, counselors, teachers, and nurses and to focus on a broad array of mental health and
social–behavioral adjustment issues. It is difficult to estimate the number of school social workers nationwide.
It is widely understood that there are far fewer school social workers than school psychologists, although an
exact professional-to-student ratio is not known.
Although school counseling and school social work are the two best known professions within education
that are closely related to school psychology, there are other professional roles in schools that have much in
common with our field. These other roles are not necessarily defined as separate professions but have evolved
as specialty positions in education in many school systems. Special education consultants, service coordinators,
behavioral specialists, or consulting teachers are often employed in larger school districts and have the
responsibility of working with teachers, other educators, and parents in developing appropriate educational
programs for students, especially those who are at risk for negative outcomes or who are otherwise having
difficulty in school. Such consultant or coordinator positions are often filled from the ranks of experienced and
talented teachers, but sometimes they are filled by individuals with school psychology backgrounds. These
roles usually involve extensive indirect intervention through consultation, and they may have a problem-
solving or training focus as well. In addition, some schools hire teachers or counselors to serve as educational
diagnosticians or educational assessment specialists. These types of positions include an exclusive focus on
individual assessment of students with learning and behavior problems, and on the surface they seem quite
similar to the role of school psychologists who are in very traditional “test-and-place” assessment roles.
Although most school psychologists remain employed with that title, those who have the aptitude and
interest to pursue other roles within schools often find that there are opportunities for career shifts within
school systems. Some school psychologists move into educational leadership positions, such as pupil personnel
directors, special education administrators, and school principals. Typically, career moves of this type require
the individual to obtain additional graduate-level education in order to receive an administrative credential.
School psychologists who have particular expertise in research methods, statistics, and psychometrics
sometimes move into district-level positions as directors of research services, directors of testing/assessment
and analysis, and so forth.

USING THIS BOOK: A VISION FOR SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY

As stated in the preface, this book is designed to provide an introduction and orientation to the field of school
psychology. We especially intend for this book to be of interest to graduate students who are beginning to
prepare for careers in the field of school psychology. This book is also designed to be an exploratory resource
for individuals who are considering careers in school psychology as well as those who are currently working as
school psychologists and who are interested in a guide to this dynamic and exciting field.

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 Chapter 2 of this text provides brief overviews of the historical context of the field as well as of history and
trends in American education. Chapters 3 through 6 provide a foundation for the professional practice of
school psychology, focusing on cultural and linguistic diversity, training and credentialing issues, employment
trends and challenges, and legal and ethical aspects of practice in this field. Chapters 7 through 12 detail our
vision of best practice in school psychology and focus on the wide range of goals that we believe school
psychologists should pursue, including a data-oriented problem-solving approach to practice; assessment;
prevention and intervention; facilitation of systems-level change; and involvement as a consumer and producer
of research and evaluation. Chapter 13 provides some concluding comments regarding moving the field of
school psychology forward and mapping our own future as professionals. Together, the 13 chapters in this
book provide a comprehensive and, in our view, state-of-the-art introduction to the field of school
psychology.
You may have noted that we use the phrase “school psychology for the 21st century” in the title of this
book. Our focus on the 21st century was a very deliberate choice. In deciding to write this book, we were not
interested in simply providing an overview of the history and current status of the field, which have been well
documented in other sources. Rather, we were interested in promoting a forward-thinking vision of the
exciting and dynamic possibilities within the field of school psychology. We believe that the field of school
psychology has much to offer and that its potential is just beginning to emerge. The possibilities of this field
making a strong positive impact in schools and other settings and in the lives of children, adolescents, and
their families are simply enormous. We also believe that there are still several barriers to achieving this vision,
foremost of which are the low expectations of other professionals for school psychology, which have
unfortunately often been perpetuated by the narrow vision of some school psychologists and school
psychology trainers. We are not naive about the institutional challenges, obstacles, and barriers that many
school psychologists face in using their professional skills and interests to achieve the maximum good. Rather,
we believe that through a concerted effort over time school psychologists can individually and collectively
advance the field at all levels and that, in doing so, school psychology will make an enormous positive impact.
Although each chapter within this book is unique, they were developed through a collective vision. Some of
the “big ideas” on which this book and our vision for the field of school psychology are based include the
following:

• The general fields of psychology and education, as well as the specific field of school psychology, have
given us rich and sometimes challenging historical precedents for the present practice of school psychology.
Although it is important to have a strong understanding of these historical elements and how they have
shaped the present, we agree with the premise that the past is not necessarily the future, and we advocate that the
time has come for the field of school psychology to move forward from some of the historical challenges that
have limited it in realizing its full potential.

• American society has become increasingly diverse and pluralistic with respect to cultural background,
race, ethnicity, and language of its citizens, and it will continue to become increasingly diverse during the 21st
century. School psychologists should develop cultural competence so that they can work appropriately and
effectively with individuals and groups from a variety of backgrounds (see Chapter 3).

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 • School psychology has been and should continue to be primarily focused in school or other educational
settings. The educational setting is a main focus of our vision and of this book. However, school psychologists
have much to offer outside the context of school settings, and we encourage the practice of school psychology
in a variety of settings and contexts (see Chapters 4 and 5).

• Individual psychoeducational assessment of children and adolescents has been and will continue to be an
important activity of school psychologists. However, individual assessment activities should do more than
simply describe or diagnose problems. Rather, the most useful assessment strategies are those that are part of
the problem-solving process and provide a foundation for effective interventions (see Chapter 8).

• School psychology practice should be data oriented or data driven. School psychologists should base their
decisions on valid data and use effective data collection techniques to inform, monitor, and modify
intervention activities (see Chapter 7).

• School psychologists should be savvy consumers of research and should have the skills to engage in
research and evaluation activities within their respective settings that will help to advance practice (see
Chapter 12).

• School psychologists have historically worked with a limited segment of student populations, primarily
those who have or are suspected of having disabilities and those who are otherwise at high risk for negative
outcomes in life. We believe that there will always be a need for school psychologists to focus some of their
effort on the small percentage of students who have serious learning, behavioral, and social–emotional
problems. We also recognize that longitudinal research points to the chronic nature of such problems and the
critical need for early intervention/prevention if negative long-term outcomes are to be curtailed. Thus, we
strongly contend that school psychologists should use their unique expertise to positively affect all students in
school settings, not just those who have severe needs.

• Although assessment activities have had and will continue to have an important place among the school
psychologist’s varied responsibilities, effective prevention and intervention activities should occupy a
significant percentage of his or her time (see Chapters 9 and 10).

• Prevention and intervention activities can occur with individuals, within small groups, within classrooms,
within entire schools, and within school district or community-based contexts. School psychologists should
engage in prevention and intervention activities, including consultation, at each of these levels, so that a larger
number of individuals may be positively influenced (see Chapters 9 and 10).

• School psychologists do not typically function in isolation but instead work in consultation and
collaboration with others and as part of a system. School psychologists should strive to use their expertise to
develop a solid understanding of the systems in which they work and to help facilitate systems-level change as
needed (see Chapter 11).

• School psychology is a field with incredible potential for helping to solve the “big” problems facing
education. And yet this potential is still largely unrealized. We believe that school psychologists should play an
active, important, and essential role in this regard. This book is built on the foundation of a progressive,
forward-thinking vision of school psychology, and we are optimistic that collectively individual school
psychologists can continue to move the field forward through their efforts (see Chapter 13).

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 In sum, school psychology is a dynamic and exciting field that has incredible and still unrealized potential
for positively affecting education, psychology, and the lives of children, adolescents, and their families. It is
our hope that this book will provide a useful and engaging guide to the field of school psychology and will
help to continue to move the field forward.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS AND ACTIVITIES

1. Individuals who are being introduced to the field of school psychology are often surprised to find that the definition of school psychology is not
necessarily clear-cut and has, at times, been a point of controversy. Discuss the power of definitions and how they can shape the field of school
psychology and how it is perceived.

2. During the past several decades, the characteristics of school psychologists have changed somewhat. Characterize some of these changes, and
describe the current characteristics of those who work in the field of school psychology.

3. Interview one or more school psychologists in your area. Find out how they entered the field, what their career trajectory has been, what their
responsibilities and roles are, and how they spend a typical day, week, and month in their workplace. Ask what they like most or find most
rewarding about their work as school psychologists and what they find to be most frustrating or difficult.

4. One of the first decisions that new graduate students in school psychology make is whether to pursue a master’s/specialist degree or a doctoral
degree. How do the two levels of training differ, and what are the costs and benefits, pros and cons, to each?

5. Differentiate the training and roles of school psychologists at the doctoral level from that of the two other primary areas of professional
psychology: clinical psychology and counseling psychology. Differentiate the training and roles of school psychologists at the specialist or
master’s level from that in the fields of school counseling and school social work.

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 CHAPTER 2

The Historical Context

of School Psychology

In comparison to many other established scientific and academic fields, school psychology is relatively young.
It has been in existence for barely a century and has been a formidable organized professional entity for only a
few decades. To fully understand the field of school psychology in the 21st century, it is essential to
understand its roots. As can be inferred from Chapter 1, we agree with Reschly and Ysseldyke’s (2002)
observation that the past is not necessarily the future with respect to the field of school psychology, but we
also believe that a basic understanding of the past is essential if we are to continue to move the field forward.
This chapter provides a brief excursion into the historical context of school psychology. First, we explore its
philosophical and intellectual foundations, ranging from classical Greek to modern European influences.
Some of the major events, movements, and individuals in the emergence of the field of psychology in general,
and the field of school psychology in particular, are examined. We then detail aspects of the historical context
of American education as they relate to the development of school psychology. We provide an overview of
major events and issues in the development and professionalization of the field of school psychology and link
them to the recent history of the field, with a particular emphasis on legal developments and training and
credentialing issues that have had a strong impact on the recent history of school psychology. Ongoing
tensions or “culture wars” that have surrounded school psychology’s rise to prominence are examined,
including values conflicts within various dimensions of the field and the historical and current differences
between the two primary organizations representing the field. The chapter ends with some discussion of what
lessons and trends have been apparent in the history of the field and what these issues may portend for the
future.

PHILOSOPHICAL, INTELLECTUAL, AND SOCIAL–CULTURAL FOUNDATIONS

The most influential historian in the field of school psychology, Thomas Fagan, has stated that “no significant
aspect of contemporary school psychology, including its practitioners, training programs, or credentialing,
existed before the 1890s” (Fagan & Wise, 2007, p. 25). Thus, at first glance, it appears that there may not be
any point to tracing the historical context of the field prior to the late 19th century. However, it is important
to recognize that school psychology did not develop in a social or cultural vacuum. Rather, its emergence was
the product of a confluence of forces and timing. Therefore, it is useful to look at some of the more notable
historical forces that contributed not only to the birth of school psychology but also to the larger fields of
psychology and education in general.

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 Classical Greek Influences

Psychology is considered to be a Western discipline, given that its philosophical, intellectual, and cultural
foundations stem from ancient and modern forces flowing from the classical world of ancient Greece to
modern Europe. It has been said that there is no distinctive aspect of psychology that cannot be traced to the
philosophical world of the Greeks (Leahey, 1987). Specifically, most modern psychological thought can be
traced to the various philosophies espoused and shaped in succession by three prominent Greek philosophers:
Socrates (470–399 B.C.), his student Plato (428–348 B.C.), and particularly Plato’s student Aristotle (384–322
B.C.), a founder of the philosophy of science who was known as the “first professor.”
Socrates was an itinerant teacher whose work focused on the meaning of general ideas or constructs,
especially truth, justice, and beauty. Socrates was antagonistic toward the Sophists, a group of Athenian
teachers who espoused a worldview that we might today term humanistic relativism or postmodernism. The
Sophists proposed that “man is the measure of all things,” meaning that all experience is subjective and that it
is not possible to derive an ultimate reality because of individual differences in the way that reality is perceived.
Socrates believed that the ideas of the Sophists were dangerous and could lead to moral anarchy. By posing
provocative questions that contrasted sharply with the views of the Sophists, he promoted the notion that
ultimate general truths existed and that there were enduring laws or principles that could lead to such truth.
However, Socrates did not provide answers to most of his own questions. Rather, it was his famous student
Plato who provided answers through written dialogues based on Socrates’s questions.
Plato extended Socrates’s quest for general universal truths to encompass a quest for all forms of knowledge.
Thus, epistemology, or the study of theories of knowledge or various ways of knowing, was born. Although
Plato was concerned with ways of deriving knowledge, his focus and methods did not lend themselves very
well to the scientific study of human behavior. It was Aristotle who first promoted the philosophy of
empiricism, which ultimately became a foundation of modern psychology. Aristotle’s views were in many ways
antithetical to those of his teacher, Plato. Aristotle moved away from the somewhat mystical ideas of Plato
and firmly established a foundation for scientific thought that was based on observation. It is worth noting
that Aristotle was the first to conduct a systematic “literature review” of the works of earlier thinkers (Leahey,
1987), a technique for laying the groundwork for particular problems that later became a bedrock practice of
psychological science and a practice that is certainly familiar to any graduate student in school psychology.
The cultural, artistic, and philosophical activity of the Greek and Roman worlds began to decline noticeably
around 300 A.D. By the fall of Rome in the late fifth century, the intellectual energy characterized by the work
of the Greek philosophers had largely dissipated, and it was centuries before there was a revival of significant
cultural and intellectual life in the Western world. The Dark Ages marked a long period of retrenchment in
these areas, and it affected every level of society. However, despite the ending of the incredible
accomplishments of the classical era, an important legacy was left to influence future generations. In
particular, one of the hallmark intellectual tensions that emerged in the Greek period—the conflict between
rationalism and empiricism—carried into greater European culture and became one of the primary
foundational influences that led to the emergence of psychology.

Modern European Influences

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By the time the new discipline of psychology emerged in the late 19th century, and public education was
becoming an increasingly important aspect of American society, the Western world had emerged from
centuries of intellectual and artistic retrenchment. During the church–state-controlled medieval period,
virtually the only persons who could read and write in most of Europe were clerics, and rigid rules were
imposed regarding the development and dissemination of written literature. In addition, questions regarding
the structure, function, and meaning of human behavior, which had flowed with great energy during the
classical period, became the nearly exclusive province of the religious orthodoxy. Individuals who dared
challenge the status quo often put their liberty and even their lives at risk. A couple of famous examples
illustrate very well the rigid and oppressive hierarchical intellectual climate of those times. Italian scientist-
philosopher Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) spent the latter part of his life under house arrest because his
Copernicanistic views of the universe (i.e., that the earth and other planets revolved around the sun) were
found to be heretical. Protestant scholar and Englishman William Tyndale (c. 1494–1536) was brutally killed
and his body burned for the offense of secretly translating much of the Bible from Greek into English and
making it available to nonclerics.
Despite the restrictive and oppressive intellectual tone of the times, the new energy and ideas that began to
flow during the Renaissance period did stem from some roots that were established during the middle ages. It
is interesting to consider that the commingling of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in the Near East produced
and preserved some important written works and that Tyndale’s unauthorized translation of the Bible into
vernacular language was an important intellectual development, not just a religious issue.
By the 17th century, the modern scientific revolution had begun. Prominent figures such as René Descartes
(1596–1650) and John Locke (1632–1704) emerged and revitalized the philosophy of science and its empirical
and epistemological roots. Descartes wrote and taught regarding the process of seeking truth in a skeptical
manner, of the native physical or material structure of the world, and, importantly, of the dualism of the body
and mind of humans, which he saw as distinct elements. Descartes’s identification of thought as a central
component of human experience led him to coin his famous axiom “I think, therefore I am.” Locke, on the
other hand, dismissed the notion of innate moral and metaphysical truths and advocated discovering truth
through personal experience. An important aspect of Locke’s work for the formation of psychology and the
advancement of education was his focus on the mind and on the process of using reflection or introspection to
gain knowledge. In many ways, Locke’s work was a precursor to the science of the mind, paving the way for
theories of intelligence, learning, and cognitive processing. Other 17th-century thinkers also provided
important foundations for the emergence of psychology and the refinement of educational pedagogy. For
example, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) was the first intellectual who explored the connection between the
development of speech and the development of reasoning. He also introduced the concept of natural law, the
notion that there were regulations inherent in nature, whether or not humans recognized them. This concept
was a precursor to the psychological principle that behavior is lawful and is governed by basic principles, a
concept that became especially important in behavioral psychology.
The 18th century is considered a period of enlightenment in the Western world, with major developments
(and revolutions) in science, philosophy, art, and politics. Many of the developments of this period provided a
further foundation for the emergence of psychology during the next century. David Hume (1711–1776) was a
moderate skeptic who wrote extensively on the notion of habit or custom, the propensity to behave, think, and

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feel in customary and predictable ways. Hume desired to apply Newtonian-like laws to predict human
behavior, using the technique of introspection to generate his ideas. One particularly psychological
contribution of Hume was his development of a classification of the contents of the human mind, which
focused on perceptions and distinguished between impressions and ideas.
In opposition to the notions espoused by Hume and various other skeptics, a school of thought emerged
out of Scotland by the mid-18th century that espoused “common sense” in analyzing and understanding
human behavior. This assertion of common sense, typified by the writing of Thomas Reid (1710–1796) and
his student Dugald Stewart (1753–1828), ridiculed the claims of philosophy and posited that everyday
experience provides a better foundation for understanding human thought and behavior than the theories of
skeptics, which they considered to be absurd. The writings of both these men dissected the mind into
component faculties and advocated the practical value of the study of human behavior and thought. One of
the foremost thinkers of the century was German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Kant developed a
science of understanding humanity, which he called anthropology but which actually bears more similarity to
psychology. He studied human intelligence, moral character, the notion of self, and other constructs that
would become important within psychology. Kant’s work greatly influenced fellow German Wilhelm Wundt,
who later developed the first psychology laboratory. Another Enlightenment-era figure whose writings proved
to be highly influential in psychology (and in education and politics) was Genevois philosopher Jean-Jacques
Rousseau (1712–1778). Rousseau became known for many things, including his influence on political
revolutionaries Marx and Engel, who were intrigued with his notions of free will and of the innate freedom of
humans and with his criticism of Enlightenment-era scientific and technological advances, which Rousseau
viewed as chaining or enslaving people. He advocated for education as the means of overcoming the corrupt
state of civilization. Rousseau was one of the first intellectuals to discuss in detail the nature versus nurture
dichotomy of the influence on human behavior, and he weighed in on the side of nurture, believing that
external conditions and influences, rather than innate drives, shaped the individual. Interestingly and
somewhat paradoxically, his belief in human malleability foreshadowed B. F. Skinner’s advocacy of using a
carefully controlled society to enhance human potential (as espoused in his book Walden II, in which he
admitted to shouting at his animal research subjects “Behave damn you! Behave as you ought!” when his
predictions went awry) and also served as inspiration for “whole child” education advocates, who rejected
highly structured and sequenced teaching of basic skills as advocated by Skinner.
In sum, 17th- and 18th-century intellectual developments, which are often referred to as the Age of Reason
and the Age of Enlightenment, helped move Western thinking out of the Dark Ages and the medieval period
and provided the intellectual foundation for the birth of psychology, as well as developments in education,
that would provide an impetus for school psychology. And unlike the classic Greek philosophers, whose work
was foundational for psychology, many of the prominent intellectuals of the 17th and 18th centuries overtly
concerned themselves with issues and constructs that were distinctly psychological, regardless of the fact that
the field had not yet emerged.

THE EMERGENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY

Although the foundation of psychology had been laid in the preceding centuries, the discipline formally

39
emerged in the mid- to late 19th century, first in Europe, and then in America. Certain 19th-century
influences made a strong impression on the emerging field. One of the foremost influences was the work of
English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882), whose elucidation of a scientific theory of natural selection in
evolution revolutionized science. His 1859 seminal work On the Origin of Species broadly influenced Western
intellectual circles, and his later works on the descent of humans and the expression of emotions in humans
and animals became cornerstone literature in the fledgling field of psychology. German physiologist Franz
Joseph Gall (1758–1828) developed the science of phrenology, or the description and prediction of human
traits from bumps on the head and the shape of the cranium. Although phrenology is now relegated to a
status only slightly higher than an amusing footnote, it must be understood that it was an enormously
influential enterprise. More important, phrenology focused the seat of human behavior clearly on the brain,
correlating specific regions of the brain with specific behavioral functions. In a sense, Gall’s phrenology was
the first formal expression of physiological psychology, especially the study of brain–behavior relationships.
By late in the 19th century, the discipline of psychology became formally established and legitimized, and
three forms of psychology had emerged: the psychology of consciousness, the psychology of the unconscious,
and the psychology of adaptation. German scientist and philosopher Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) is credited
with establishing the first psychology laboratory in 1879 and establishing psychology as an independent
experimental science. Wundt’s work focused on the experimental study of individual consciousness. On the
other hand, Viennese physician Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), who is credited as being the father of
psychiatry, introduced ideas as radical as Darwin’s by suggesting that unconscious desires and motives shape
much of human behavior. Freud’s deterministic views of human behavior and the unconscious were truly
revolutionary. Although many of his theories have now been rejected even by proponents of the
psychodynamic approach he pioneered, one must not overlook the enormity of his contributions and
influence. Even today, his metaphor of the conscious mind as being the “tip of the iceberg” of human
experience is widely used, the notion of the “subconscious” mind is part of the popular vernacular, and the
influence of his work in Western cultures cannot be minimized. In addition, the psychology of adaptation,
with roots in Darwin’s theory of natural selection, focused on how the individual adjusts to the environment
and, ultimately, how the environment shapes behavior. This psychology later developed into behaviorism,
which became perhaps the most influential force of the 20th century in academic psychology.
By the end of the 19th century, psychology had moved from an emerging to an established field. American
and European universities established psychology curricula and began awarding academic degrees in
psychology. The APA was established in 1891. Seminal texts were published, and scientific journals were
established. Although the clinical or practical application of psychology was not yet established, all the pieces
were in place for that to happen. Through these events and forces, the conditions that allowed for the
development and establishment of school psychology were established.

DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICAN EDUCATION

We have tried to make it clear that the field of school psychology was hatched from a confluence of
intellectual and social developments in both psychology and education. This section provides additional
discussion regarding some of the important historical developments in American education that were

40
important in this confluence.

Colonial Foundations

Although most educational historians have identified the period of about 1825 to 1875 as the era during
which the building blocks of American public education were put into place (i.e., Butts, 1978; Calhoun,
1969), there were important historical antecedents during the prior two centuries that led to this series of
developments. During the American colonial period in the 17th century, public schools as we now know them
did not exist, but the idea of public education began to sprout, particularly in the New England colonies.
Although there was generally no public taxation for schools or compulsory education laws during this period,
the notion of education for the public good became more prominent, and the idea that formal education of
youth would serve a greater civic purpose began to take hold. Most of the formal efforts to educate young
people involved a primary component of religious instruction, and the preparation of future clerics was a major
emphasis in this regard. By the early to mid-1700s, colonial society was becoming increasingly pluralistic with
respect to religious views (albeit within the general Christian worldview, particularly the Protestant version;
see Smith, 1967). Tensions were increasing regarding the appropriate place of religious instruction and
influence within civic or public life and the legitimacy of public efforts to promote the superiority of one
religion over another (Butts, 1978). These tensions ultimately helped lead to the “establishment” clause in the
U.S. Constitution and to the weakening of legal bonds between established churches and new states following
the revolutionary period.
With the establishment of the first state constitutions in the late 1700s, some states (such as North
Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania) adopted specific provisions for public schooling, although it would be
many years before these efforts resulted in a strong system of public education. During this same time period,
there was considerable national tension between those leaders who favored a strong centralized role for
national government (the Federalists) and those who advocated for a weaker federal system and the
sovereignty of individual states (the Democratic-Republicans). Interestingly, during this late-18th-century
debate regarding the proper role of the federal government, several prominent voices argued in favor of a
strong national system of public education, including a national university, goals that never came to fruition.
Ultimately, the framers of the U.S. Constitution left somewhat vague the appropriate role of the federal
government in public education, with education considered a “creature of the states.” As the 19th century
emerged, conditions varied greatly from state to state regarding public education efforts, which had not yet
risen as a visible, identifiable entity (Butts, 1978; Calhoun, 1969).

19th-Century Steps

During the 1800s, significant steps were taken toward the development of systems of public education.
Underlying this development was the growing belief that voluntary and private efforts to formally educate
America’s young citizens were insufficient and that the new democracy could not flourish under such
conditions. As many of the cities in the northeastern United States grew rapidly with industrialization, so did
the number of poor and uneducated youth. This, along with deteriorating social conditions, led to a public
outcry to reverse the trend and improve the situation. As a result, “common schools,” the precursor to today’s

41
public schools, began to be established (Butts, 1978; Ravitch, 1974), primarily in the mid-Atlantic and New
England states but also in Virginia and the Carolinas. The growth of the abolition movement and the relative
lack of common schools in the southern states set the stage further for the development of public systems of
education.
Following the horrors of the Civil War and the end of the institution of slavery, the nation was in massive
debt, many of the southern cities were in shambles from the war, and the industrialization that had swept the
northern cities slowly began to move to the urban areas southward. Thus, the Reconstruction period saw
further expansion of the common schools, increasing efforts to ensure that African American youth received a
public education, and an expansion of compulsory schooling laws, particularly in urban centers (Best &
Sidwell, 1967; Tyack, 1967). This period of expansion was aided by the increasingly centralized power of
governments at both the state and national levels. As governmental authority became more centralized,
typically a concurrent increase occurred in efforts to promote common schools and to provide a financial base
from which to support them (Berlin, 1974).

20th-Century Developments, Persistent Issues

By the early 1900s, the combination of (1) systems of public and compulsory education in the United States,
(2) social conditions following industrialization and reconstruction, and (3) the emergence of new educational
tools and scientific technologies was becoming extremely complex. The field of public education began to
grow rapidly at the same time that the budding discipline of psychology was emerging in the United States.
Thus, the conditions were in place that allowed, or perhaps required, the incipient field of school psychology
to begin its toehold during what has come to be known as the Progressive Era in American social history
(Tyack, 1967). One of the greatest impacts of the Progressive Era on education was the combination of more
far-reaching child labor laws and compulsory education laws. By the end of the first decade of the 20th
century, all states had compulsory education laws of some type in place, and by 1920 almost all American
children attended schools, at least through the elementary school level (History of American Education Web
Project, 2010; Tyack, 1967).
Before we move into the beginnings of the field of school psychology, it is worth considering that by the
first quarter of the 20th century two persistent and significant issues in American education had developed
that would have long-lasting implications (even to the present day) for school psychology: the development of
the IQ or mental ability testing movement and the common state of racial segregation and inequality in
schools. We consider these two issues in more detail, because they both have had a major impact on school
psychology. The movers in the mental ability testing arena had, by the end of World War I, developed great
confidence in the potential of IQ tests to measure the human mind, and this confidence spread throughout
much of public education. Most of the individuals who were influential in this movement, such as Lewis
Terman and Henry Goddard, held a nativist view of intelligence, interpreting it as inherited, essentially fixed,
and difficult if not impossible to modify in any meaningful way through education. The power of the IQ
testing movement became enormous and led to what distinguished educational historian Diane Ravitch
(2000) termed “a brutal pessimism” regarding educational programming, tracking, and opportunities. In
essence, the results of IQ tests were used—initially with little criticism—to determine in great measure

42
individuals’ opportunities and future. “The intelligence testers promoted fatalism, a rueful acceptance that
achievement in school is the result of innate ability, not sustained effort by teachers and students. The cult of
the IQ became an all purpose rationale for students’ lack of effort and for poor teaching: Why study hard in
school if IQ predicts outcomes? Why work hard to teach slow learners if their IQs predict they cannot do well
in school?” (Ravitch, 2000, p. 161). As anyone familiar with school psychology knows, the development of the
field ultimately became inextricably linked to the IQ testing movement, a connection that, we argue, plagues
the field to this day despite the recent influence of the RTI approach, and that is still commonly cited as a
barrier to moving the role of school psychologists to a greater focus on prevention, intervention, and
consultation. This issue is discussed in greater detail in several other chapters of this volume. It is also worth
considering that the IQ movement influenced American education well beyond the practice of school
psychology. The practices and notions that came from this movement were often used as a basis for excluding
children with disabilities from public schools (an issue discussed in more detail in Chapter 6), for routing
students into vocational versus academic tracks, and for reducing the focus on alterable variables (such as
student and teacher effort, curriculum delivery, school structure) within schools (Ravitch, 2000).
With respect to racial segregation, tension, and inequalities in American public education, the struggle has
been long and divisive, and it has taken legal precedents from the nation’s highest courts to steer
improvements and standards that are still evolving and trying to fulfill their promise. During the colonial
period and the early years of the nation, public education efforts were aimed almost exclusively at white
children: Native Americans were essentially left out, Asians and individuals of Hispanic descent did not yet
exist in large enough numbers to develop a critical mass for advocacy, and laws throughout the southern states
prohibited educating African American slaves, who existed in large numbers. There were relatively few
exceptions to this state of affairs. By the advent of the Reconstruction era in the late 1800s, African American
children began to be offered formal opportunities for public schooling in increasingly greater numbers, but for
the most part and for many years these opportunities existed in separate systems that were operated at a severe
disadvantage, with far fewer resources than other public schools. As educational opportunities for African
Americans increased, serious debates took place among the community of black leaders regarding what
direction was best, as typified by the debates between Booker T. Washington (who advocated for a practical,
industrial education for blacks) and W. E. B. Du Bois (who advocated for an intellectually rigorous education
for blacks and derided practical education efforts as second class).
As the 20th century evolved, two forces began to merge that gradually began to chip away at these historical
antecedents. First, American society was becoming increasingly diverse and pluralistic as a result of patterns of
immigration dating to the late 1800s. Second, legal advocacy and public discourse regarding the education of
children from minority group backgrounds increased. The 1954 landmark ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court
in Brown v. Board of Education was the culmination of many years of advocacy to change inequity. This ruling
held that segregated educational environments were bad for children and that the notion of “separate but
equal” treatment in America (which became the law of the land in the court’s 1892 Plessy v. Ferguson decision)
was a cruel myth. With the passing of the 50th anniversary of Brown, it is now apparent that, notwithstanding
the substantial gains made following this and other court decisions, the full promise of equality has yet to be
fulfilled. School psychologists are currently dealing with two major issues related to race, ethnicity, and social
class: (1) The “achievement gap” (between white/Asian and black/Hispanic/Native American students) in

43
educational attainment is becoming an increasingly serious issue for educators and policymakers, and (2)
minority misrepresentation in special education programs (particularly overrepresentation among African
American youth) continues to present significant challenges. In addition, the past two to three decades have
witnessed increased emphasis on developing and using culturally and linguistically appropriate assessment and
intervention techniques. Issues related to ethnic and cultural issues in public schools are addressed in more
detail in other chapters of this volume, particularly Chapter 3.

BEGINNINGS OF SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY

Although Fagan’s assertion that no significant aspect of school psychology existed before the 1890s (Fagan &
Wise, 2007) is indeed accurate, it is important to understand that the seeds from which the field would spring
were already planted by that time. In addition to the establishment of psychology as a unique discipline by the
late 1800s, other forces paved the way for the emergence of school psychology. As we have noted, the
industrialization and urbanization of America, increased support for public education, the beginnings of the
compulsory schooling movement, and post-Civil War social changes all contributed to a need for professionals
to focus on education, child development, mental health, and other aspects of support, training, and
supervision for children in an increasingly complex society.
One of the seminal events in the beginnings of school psychology was the 1896 establishment of a
psychological clinic by Lightner Witmer at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. This clinic has
been referred to as the first child guidance clinic. Witmer’s goal was to prepare psychologists to help educators
solve children’s learning problems (Bardon & Bennett, 1974). With this contribution, Witmer has been
credited as the founder of both school psychology and clinical psychology. This clinic was clearly the first
effort of its kind in North America. However, a somewhat similar laboratory clinic had been established by Sir
Francis Galton at University College in London in 1884, predating Witmer’s American clinic by 12 years.
Although the primary purpose of Galton’s laboratory was the measurement of individual human differences
rather than direct service, one of its first endeavors was to assist local schools in selecting and classifying
pupils. Thus, some writers have argued that the birth of school psychology may be more appropriately credited
to Galton’s laboratory in England (White & Harris, 1961).
One of the events almost always mentioned in the same breath as the beginning of school psychology is the
publication of the Binet–Simon scales in 1905. We have previously addressed the impact of the IQ testing
movement on American education and school psychology, but it is worthwhile to consider the beginnings of
this movement in more detail. Psychologist Alfred Binet and psychiatrist Theophile Simon were
commissioned by the Minister of Public Education in Paris to develop a methodology for classifying and
sorting children who were not successful in the general education settings and who could not profit from the
regular curriculum for the purpose of providing them specially designed training in other settings. Together,
they developed the Binet–Simon scales, the first modern intelligence test, which was not only used in France
but also later adapted by Lewis Terman of Stanford University into an English language version for use in the
United States. Thus, the early history of school psychology became inextricably linked to intelligence testing
and individual assessment and classification. These efforts proved to be instrumental in expanding the field of
school psychology in later years and also served to entrench many school psychologists in a psychometric-

44
driven role of sorter or gatekeeper. Of course, part of the early entrenchment of school psychologists in the
psychometric gatekeeper role could also be attributed to the fact that the field of psychology had not yet
developed a technology for effective intervention selection and implementation.
In the United States, the 1890s and early 1900s marked an increasing emphasis on providing educational
and mental health services for youth whom we would today consider as being “at risk.” Many urban public
school districts in the larger cities of the eastern United States had established special educational programs
and classes by this time, aimed at assisting students with significant learning problems. In 1899, William
Healey established a clinic in Chicago for a juvenile court in the public school system, perhaps the precursor
to today’s special programs for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. The mental health field
became formally established by 1910, with the founding of the “mental hygiene” movement that year. A
primary focus of the incipient mental health field was the founding of child guidance clinics to help prevent
and treat juvenile delinquency. Although these efforts were not necessarily specific to the field of school
psychology nor conducted by individuals who were known as school psychologists, they nevertheless were
early manifestations of activity in the field.
By the 1920s, the terms school psychology and school psychologist had emerged, indicating that the field was
becoming increasingly established, with the signs of a distinct profession. Arnold Gesell became the first
person to be appointed to the position of school psychologist, and he served in that role in Connecticut
between 1915 and 1919. The term school psychologist also had appeared in the literature by this time. Thus, the
field of school psychology, although barely in its infancy and without any formal structure or specific
professional organization, had arrived.

DEVELOPMENT AND PROFESSIONALIZATION OF THE FIELD

The late 1920s witnessed the first efforts to establish training programs and credentialing for school
psychologists. During the 1930s, these efforts were expanded. The young field was beginning to grapple with
increasing regulation and recognition, a sign that it had arrived. However, the practice of psychology in the
schools was still largely unregulated, and individuals who fulfilled psychological service roles in schools had a
wide range of professional training and went by a plethora of titles, such as psychological examiner,
psychoclinician, and clinical or consulting psychologist. The first book on school psychology, Psychological
Service for School Problems, authored by pioneering school psychologist Gertrude Hildreth, was published in
1930. Interestingly, one of the features of this book was the illustration of a typical day for a school
psychologist and of the division of different activities within a work day. Hildreth’s view on school psychology
service delivery was fairly broad. Although individual testing and diagnosis played a prominent role in her
breakdown of a professional day, consulting with teachers, administrators, parents, and other individuals
through conferences appeared to be the single activity that consumed the most time.
During the 1940s and 1950s, the field of school psychology continued to expand. During this era, two
important professional conferences with strong implications for the future of school psychology were held.
The Boulder Conference on Clinical Psychology was held in 1949, shortly after the end of World War II and
during the time when the practice of psychology was expanding greatly as a result of the development of the
Veterans Administration hospitals and clinics to provide medical services to personnel who had served in the

45
military during the war effort. The Boulder Conference resulted in the articulation of the scientist-practitioner
model of psychology training and models for credentialing of psychologists. The impact of the Boulder
Conference was to further legitimize the applied professional practice of psychology, which had previously
taken a back seat in status to the academic or scientific aspect of the field. The Thayer Conference of 1954
was held for the purpose of advancing and shaping training, credentialing, and practice in school psychology.
The proceedings of the Thayer Conference provided the first comprehensive picture of the field of school
psychology and its circumstances. During this era, a division of the APA emerged (Division 16) that was
specifically focused on school psychology, and the first few state school psychology associations were started.
However, there was no strong link between national and state organizations and efforts similar to those
increasingly enjoyed by the field of clinical psychology during this time. Part of the reason for the lack of a
cohesive school psychology organizing body stemmed from the huge disparity in procedures for credentialing
of school psychologists across the various states. Many states still did not have any formal recognition or
training standards for psychologists to practice in schools. In addition, the doctoral versus nondoctoral conflict
in psychology had begun to surface, and it clearly affected the status and organization of school psychologists.
Unlike clinical psychologists, who were increasingly trained at the doctoral level and followed similar routes to
credentialing and practice across states, school psychologists were primarily nondoctoral practitioners, and
there was little consistency from state to state with regard to credentialing.
During the 1950s and 1960s, a social or demographic development occurred that had a major impact on
American education and culture and ultimately on the development of school psychology: the post-World
War II “baby boom” (children born between 1946 and 1964). Because such a large percentage of young
American men were involved in military service, and because of the war effort in general (with a large
percentage of young American women working in civilian-military roles and war-related industries),
marriages and birthrates declined substantially during this time. As the war ended, an enormous number of
young men and women, whose lives had been “on hold” during the war, resumed normal life. Most married,
many pursued higher education with the assistance of the new G.I. bill, and almost all members of this
generation began to raise their own families. Thus, a period of extensive growth in the numbers of children
and youth in the United States began. By the mid-1950s, this growth spilled into the public schools, which
began to expand at an unprecedented rate, continuing into the 1970s. At the same time, federally funded
efforts were made to improve mathematics and science education, which in part led to the expansion of school
guidance services.
As the number of schoolchildren expanded greatly, so did the numbers of students who had disabilities or
who otherwise struggled with respect to their academic and behavioral adjustment in the school setting. These
rapidly expanding numbers of “exceptional” students spurred the growth of school psychology, as parents,
teachers, and administrators looked for solutions to learning and behavioral problems. Although no federal
law for the education of students with disabilities was passed until 1975, many states and larger school
districts expanded and refined their programs for meeting the needs of exceptional children, and school
psychologists were usually a part of these efforts. The passage of new laws for the education of students with
disabilities ultimately proved to be a watershed set of events for the field of school psychology.
The era of increasing emphasis on awareness and laws for education of students with disabilities
corresponds to a great extent with the emergence of a new era of growth in school psychology. According to

46
school psychology historian Thomas Fagan, the field’s historical development can be divided into two distinct
eras: the hybrid years of 1890 to 1969, when school psychology was emerging and beginning to develop an
identity; and the thoroughbred years of 1970 to 2000 and beyond, when school psychology had clearly
emerged as a unique field with a stable professional identity. Without question, the culminating symbol of the
bridge between the two eras was the establishment of NASP, which held its first convention in St. Louis in
1969. The founding of NASP was significant not only because it signaled that the field had achieved a strong
professional identity and professional structure but also because it represented the beginnings of a shift in the
voice of the field (Fagan & Wise, 2007).
Division 16 of APA had previously served as the only national-level voice of the field of school psychology
and was the first national organization within the field (Fagan, 2002). However, after NASP was established,
its membership numbers quickly surpassed those of APA’s Division 16, giving it increased credibility and
visibility. Division 16, through its connection with APA and its advocacy of the doctoral degree as a necessity
for independent practice, positioned itself as the voice of psychology within the greater body of American
psychology. NASP, on the other hand, was a free-standing organization representing what was viewed as a
unique field and as a mission to advocate for the interests of master’s- and specialist-level school psychologists.
These differences between APA and NASP had enormous implications for some of the later tensions and
dynamics that would shape the field and that continue today.

RECENT HISTORY OF SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY

History is constantly being written and rewritten. The history of school psychology includes not only the
foundations and early period but also recent events and issues. The beginning of Fagan’s thoroughbred years
in 1970 can be considered a starting point for a brief overview of some of the recent history of the field, two
aspects of which are discussed in this section: the impact of the public law for education of students with
disabilities and the impact of the development of training and credentialing standards for school psychology
training programs and practitioners.

Public Law 94-142/Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

Some of the most important recent historical developments in the field of school psychology have been
attributable to the impact of new laws and court decisions. These legal issues and related ethical issues are
covered in more detail in Chapter 6, but they are briefly introduced here with an emphasis on how they have
been critical in shaping the field. Specifically, the passage by the U.S. Congress of Public Law 94-142 in
1975, originally referred to as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, proved to be incredibly
important in the development of school psychology; its impact cannot be overstated. For the first time, there
was a unified federal law rather than a patchwork of state laws and policies mandating a free and appropriate
public education for students with disabilities. Three areas show the immediate and continuing impact of this
law on the recent history of the field of school psychology.
First, because of the mandates for appropriate special education eligibility assessment of students, greater
numbers of school psychologists were needed. This need resulted in a significant expansion of school
psychology training programs and in the numbers of practicing school psychologists from the 1970s through

47
the 1990s. For example, it has been estimated that the number of training programs doubled from about 100
to more than 200 during this period and that the number of NASP members likewise more than doubled. In
short, the significant expansion of school psychology can be attributed in large measure to the impact of the
federal law.
Second, the legal mandate for eligibility assessment not only expanded the field but also served to further
entrench school psychologists in a gatekeeper or sorter role, a legacy that, while changing as more schools are
adopting a problem-solving/RTI model, has been highly resistant to change. Many of the generation of
school psychologists who entered the field within the few years immediately after the enactment of Public
Law 94-142 were trained with the expectation of functioning primarily as psychometricians, and their
expectations were in many cases further shaped in this direction by school administrators. The historical
entrenchment in the gatekeeper/sorter role was (and continues to be in many schools) a source of frustration
to many in the field who desired to engage in a broader range of services and to play an intervention-focused
role.
Third, some of the specific mandates of Public Law 94-142 and its successors (the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act [IDEA], 1990, 1997, and 2004) have shaped professional practice. Perhaps the
singular most important example is the original definition of learning disabilities (LDs) in the public law,
which defined LDs primarily on the basis of a significant discrepancy between a student’s intellectual ability
and academic achievement. This definition not only further entrenched the field in the psychometric
gatekeeper model but also actually resulted in day-to-day practice constraints. Two generations of school
psychologists learned to live with a standardized intelligence test kit in one hand and a standardized academic
achievement test in the other, much to the chagrin of many who believe that this type of assessment activity
not only is questionable in terms of the premises on which it is based and the results it produces but also does
little or nothing to help children and, in fact, may lead to harm if services provided following the evaluation
do not effectively address a child’s difficulties (Reschly, 2008). The most recent (2004) reauthorization of
IDEA (which allowed the use of RTI procedures as an alternative to the ability–achievement discrepancy
model for LD eligibility assessments) has reduced dependency on the ability–achievement assessment
paradigm and has generally been received in the field in a positive manner. Although it is too early to tell
whether this change will result in a significant broadening of roles for school psychologists, as discussed in
later chapters, it does appear that RTI procedures are increasingly being adopted by schools and that the role
of the school psychologist is expanding to incorporate some of the prevention/intervention work that is part of
the RTI model. A larger unknown is how the RTI processes will fit in and be used for
classification/diagnostic purposes. Will some states adopt rigid, formulaic RTI processes that simply shift the
reliance on cognitive test kits to another set of practices that don’t particularly inform interventions, or will the
promotion of RTI prove to be a watershed event? Stay tuned: We are hopeful that the latter case will be true,
and we’ve made sure that this edition discusses RTI in many places where it is relevant. But we’ve been
disappointed before. Without question, IDEA and other public laws will continue to evolve, and as they do,
they will likely affect the role of school psychologists.

Training Standards and Credentialing

48
Chapter 4 discusses training and credentialing of school psychologists in detail. As a precursor to that chapter,
it is worth noting that the recent history of the field has seen some important developments in this arena. This
section details some of the important historical developments related to training standards and credentialing
of individual school psychologists and training programs.

APA Accreditation of Doctoral Programs

Although Division 16 of APA began to pursue efforts for the accreditation of doctoral programs in school
psychology in the 1960s, it was not until 1971 that the first program was accredited (Fagan & Wells, 2000).
Before then, no nationally accredited training programs in school psychology existed at any level. In the
decade following the first accreditation of a school psychology program, interest and activity in this area
moved slowly, and most doctoral programs in the field either did not meet the minimum criteria for
accreditation or were not interested in pursuing accreditation. By 1980, there were 20 accredited doctoral
programs. However, the perceived importance of APA accreditation gradually built steam. By 1990, 38
programs had received accreditation; by 2000, this number had increased to 52. By 2010, there were 60 APA-
accredited doctoral programs in school psychology and an additional eight APA-accredited doctoral programs
in the combined professional–scientific psychology category, which list school psychology as one of their focus
areas. Although only one of these programs is in Canada, APA is phasing out of accrediting Canadian
programs and will cease to accredit them as of September 2015. Instead, these programs will be eligible for
accreditation through the Canadian Psychological Association.

NASP Approval of Specialist Programs

With respect to master’s and specialist programs (i.e., 60-semester-credit graduate programs in school
psychology), Fagan and Wells (2000) noted that the use of standards specifically for school psychology
training did not occur within the relationship of NASP and the National Council for Accreditation of
Teacher Education (NCATE) until the 1980s and that the NASP folio review for program accreditation was
implemented in 1988. By the end of that decade, NASP program approval could be gained by adherence to
the training standards developed by NASP, either through an institution’s NCATE review process for all
education credentialing programs or separately through the NASP training program review board. Like APA
accreditation for doctoral programs, NASP approval for specialist programs increasingly became perceived as
important. By 2010, 156 specialist-level programs and 63 doctoral-level programs were approved by NASP.
Currently, an agreement exists between NASP and APA that allows for doctoral programs to receive joint
APA accreditation and NASP approval within the same accreditation process. Thus, when a doctoral
program receives APA accreditation in school psychology, it may also be awarded doctoral-level program
approval by NASP.

The NCSP Credential

Credentialing of individual practitioners is another area in which recent history has witnessed significant

49
developments that have affected both training and practice. Because individual states dictate their own
standards and procedures for both psychological board licensing for independent practice and department of
education certification to practice in the schools, there has been much variation among the states, which has
sometimes created difficulties for practitioners who train in one state and then want to work in another. One
important development in this area was NASP’s establishment in 1988 of the National School Psychology
Certification System. This system leads to the granting of the Nationally Certified School Psychologist
(NCSP) credential to those individuals who are ascertained to have completed minimum standards of training
and competence. Obtaining this credential requires practitioners to have completed an NASP-approved
training program or its equivalent (consisting of at least 60 semester credits of graduate-level coursework in an
identified school psychology program plus a 1,200-clock-hour internship under the supervision of a
credentialed school psychologist) and passing a standardized national examination. The purpose in enacting
this system was to promote the NASP training standard for quality assurance and to make it easier for holders
of the NCSP credential to receive state department of education certification to practice as school
psychologists as they move from one state to another.
Initially, the national certification program took off slowly, and few states signed agreements allowing
certification or license reciprocity for holders of the NCSP credential. However, after more than two decades
of existence, it has gradually increased in visibility and influence. By 2010 the majority of U.S. states—31 in
all—recognized the NCSP credential as a complete or partial basis for awarding their own state practice
licenses or certificates. It is also worth noting that the number of practitioners holding the NCSP credential
has continued to rise steadily, with more than 11,500 individuals listed as of 2010. This figure represents
nearly one-third of the membership of NASP and a reasonably large percentage of all school psychologists.
The trend is clearly moving toward all or most U.S. states accepting the NCSP as a basis for licensure or
certification and for a significant percentage of school psychologists striving to hold this credential.

GROWTH THROUGH TENSION AND OPPOSITION

Are stress, tension, and opposition natural prerequisites to growth and development? We think they are, both
personally and professionally. If this notion is true, then the field of school psychology has had ample
opportunities for growth! Perhaps more so than the other areas of professional psychology (clinical and
counseling), school psychology has experienced not only the general tensions inherent in all of psychology but
some unique turmoil as well. This section explores some of these tensions, including some ongoing “culture
wars.”

Two Cultures of Psychology

In a 1984 study published in American Psychologist, Gregory Kimble articulated a “scientist–humanist”

dimension in belief systems and values among psychologists that has created an underlying tension in the field
for many years. The scientist–humanist dimension was his label for the dichotomy that he found through a
survey of psychologists that utilized sophisticated sampling and survey techniques. The implication is that
psychologists can be roughly divided into two distinct cultures: one representing the scientist end of the
dimension, and the other representing the humanist end. Because school psychology is part of the larger field

50
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Wardens
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Title: The Wardens of Cape Cod

The achievements of the Coast Guard Patrol

Author: Henry Beston

Release date: April 15, 2024 [eBook #73401]

Language: English

Original publication: Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page and Co, 1923

Credits: Steve Mattern. This file was produced from images

generously made available by The Internet Archive

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WARDENS

OF CAPE COD ***
 The Wardens of Cape Cod
The Achievements of the Coast
Guard Patrol
By Henry Beston
The World's Work - December, 1923
Volume 47, Issue 2
 THE WARDENS OF CAPE COD
There are two Cape Cods in the world, one the picturesque and
familiar land of toy windmills, picnickers and motorists, the other the
Cape which the sailors see, the Cape of the wild, houseless outer
shore, the countless tragic wrecks, the sand bars and the shoals.
This unknown Cape begins at Monomoy; Monomoy where the silver-
gray bones of ancient wrecks lie in mouldering lagoons; it leaps the
open waters of Chatham and Orleans, and beginning again at
Nauset sweeps on, league upon lonely league, to the hook of
Provincetown.
Beyond the broad swath of the churning breakers, lies the North
Atlantic, most masculine of seas. Now betrayed by a long smear of
churning water in the outer green, now buried treacherously under
an unrevealing tide, off-shore bars lie hid. Standing well enough in,
the greasy one-stack tramps, the fishing schooners coming and
going from the Georges, the vanishing steel windjammers with their
Mediterranean or Negro crews, the little unromantic “sugar bowls,”
and the big tugs with their solemn barges linked behind, all day pass
to and fro.
Once a sailor has picked up Nauset Light on his way north to
Provincetown, the only signs of life he will find along the beach will
be the coast guard stations and the little cottages which the surfmen
build about them for their families. Thirty miles of the thunder of the
breakers, thirty miles of Nature in the elemental mood, thirty miles
where night reveals no welcoming window light, and the world
vanishes into a darkness full of unutterable mystery, keen, moist,
ocean smells, and thundering sound.
It is the task of the surfmen to warn vessels standing into danger, to
rescue them and their crews from positions of peril, to furnish fuel
and food and water to ships in distress, and even, should occasion
arise, to navigate a ship into the nearest port.
Including the Monomoy and Chatham region, the patrols of the
outer Cape cover a length of fifty wild, breaker-beaten miles. The
little harbor openings which have been mentioned alone break the
line, elsewhere along it men go south and men go north, and station
links with station through the night.
There is nothing quite like the night patrol of the Cape in all the
seaboard world.
The stations on the Cape stand on an average some six miles apart,
and house a crew of eight men together with the life boat and life
line cannon used in case of a wreck. The men upon patrol, however,
do not walk from station to station, but to a halfway house built in
some more or less sheltered nook upon the bank. A man going
south from the Highland station for example, leaves a kind of brass
ticket to be collected at his southern halfway house by a man
coming north from Pamet River; a man going north from the
Highland exchanges tokens with a man coming south from Peaked
Hill.
In summer the night patrols go smoothly enough, though it is
something of an experience to walk the beach through a midnight
thunder squall. The wild flare of lightning upon the confused and
foaming sea, the organ-like note of the drenching rain, the echoing
of the crashes in the solitary dunes, all these are the very properties
of romance. But when the bitter northern winter descends, each
patrol is an adventure in itself. It may fall to your lot to step out of
the station door into a February night, cold as the circle of the pole
and overhung with great unsullied stars, a night when the long
crumbling line of the bank stands clear against the sky, and the
frozen sands are good walking under foot; it may fall to your lot to
force your lonely way through the full fury of a northeast storm
when the wind is blowing a gale and a tremendous sea is thundering
unseen in a dissolving dark of snow.
In the depth of winter the steep bank becomes a glare of coated ice
and sand and snow strangely intermixed. Sand covers snow till the
new surface seems a secure part of the land, and then a new snow
hides the deceit from view. It can be extraordinarily treacherous
under foot.
For days, for weeks even, if the weather is miraculously good, the
surfmen may accomplish their patrols without untoward incident, but
any night the luck is liable to change and adventures begin. A young
friend, walking the beach, head down to a bruising sleet, suddenly
finds himself trapped between the ice cliff and the tide, and with the
breakers sweeping to his encumbered shoulders, fights for his life
there alone in the tremendous dark; another just escapes the fall of
a great ice-rooted mass of the headland by running ahead of it into
the sea, and tells of it, laughing, too, at the morning’s mess; a third
slips on the fantastic path up the slope to the halfway house, and
fights his way with numbed fingers to the top. Life in Nature is far
more a matter of purest melodrama than the world believes.
There are dreaded nights when a certain north wind blows directly
down the Cape carrying everything before it, flying sand, fragments
of ancient wrecks, cobbles that have rolled out of the bank and been
caught up by the wind as they fell, barrel staves, and stinging
spume.
It was the privilege of the writer to spend a part of last winter living
and patrolling with the Coast Guards of the Cape, and on one
occasion to go patrolling “through the sand.”
THE WRECKS OF THE CAPE
The Blizzard Nor’easters that blow ships directly on the
sands have strewn the southern shoals and the off-shore
bars with wrecks which the shifting sands hide, reveal and
hide again.
 WHEN THE SAND IS FLYING
I was staying at the Race Point Station on the back shore of
Provincetown. It was close upon eight o’clock at night, the lamps
were lit, the living room was still, and at the end of the cleared and
covered dining table a surfman off duty was reading the day’s paper
and puffing a quiet pipe. It was so quiet I could vaguely hear the
scratching of the pen. Suddenly this quiet world woke to a faint
sound, the sound grew of an instant to a dull and hollow roaring; a
whirl of unseen sand swept like sleet against the northern panes.
“There you are,” called my host through his door, “the wind’s
changed, and if you go on patrol to-night you’ll find some sand
flying. Hear that?”
A fierce, crystally patter of sand was striking at the pane; the hollow
roaring had become a wintry howl. Presently I noticed that other
sand storms had given the northern windows an opaque surface of
ground glass. At the Race and several other stations there are sets
of windows which must be renewed every single year.
Then slowly, very slowly midnight came, and I dressed to go on a
patrol in an old suit with socks pulled over the trouser ends, a watch
cap, and my old navy pea jacket snugged round me with a poilu’s
army belt. The sand takes the surface from oilskins. My fellow
patrolman, Mr. Morris, was clothed in one of those excellent navy
wind proof suits which are ousting oilskins from the Cape; the
jumper has a hood attached to it and the whole suit has a kind of
polar explorer air. After looking to see that he had his flare light
signal safely tucked away, Morris threw open the station door.
The night was bitter cold and overcast, and the air was full of the
strangest dry hissing in the world. Along the frozen strand, and
through the dead beach grass of the inland dunes, loose sand was
flying, hissing as it was borne along upon the ground. The wind was
thick with sand; invisible sand that blew directly into our faces,
struck at our eyes, and set us to blinking, blowing, and weeping; it
forced its way into the nostrils, it invaded the pouches of the ears, it
gathered in the crease of one’s lips and set one to chewing out grit,
one’s eyes in gritty anguish all the while. Sand and dust of sand
began to gather like snow in all the hollow creases of our clothes;
sand sifted down into our boots, sand found a mysterious way
through our collars and down our necks, grit lodged in the eye
hollows, in the eyebrows, and in the short hairs above the ears. And
it came to us hissing and stinging, the cold, dry crystals falling upon
the face like the myriad blows of some tiny cruel whip.
We walked that night along a spectral sea. A wind had moved the
harbor ice out of the hook of Provincetown, and this ice had drifted
ashore on the outer side. Here and there a single cake lay stranded
on the beach, but the great mass of it had gathered together to
form a vague, broad band along the shore. It was afloat, and as the
outer breakers dived beneath it and coursed ashore, the ghostly
mass rose and fell, churning and groaning in the cold. Now here,
now there along it, spectral eyes and slow glows of coldest
phosphorescence, appeared, smouldered, and died, and our steps
kicked phosphorescent patches in the sand. Presently my
companion’s sharp and watchful eye saved me from stumbling over
something on the border of the floe. We stooped, sheltered our
tingling faces as well as we could, and flashed on an electric torch.
A loon crouched there in the hissing and mysterious night, its breast
feathers matted stiff with sand and fuel oil. The oil kills the wild fowl
by thousands on the Cape, for it gums their feathers together when
they have settled in a pool of it, and allows the cold to strike in
through openings of unprotected flesh. The motionless, calm ray of
the electric lamp lent an ironic serenity to the vast, wild dark, and
the dying creature lifted its eyes to the white ray, dark
uncomprehending eyes awaiting something incomprehensible and
dread.
We hurried on, and, coming to a wide turn, found ourselves exposed
to the full fury of the sand. A wind with never a lull or a whirl, a
wind with the directness of a channeled river, roared by us doubling
the tiny lashes in number and in force. But we luckily had but a little
taste of this, and soon reached the end of the first half of our patrol
by Race Point light.
The squat white tower stood close at hand, its placid and unearthly
beam glancing along a length of the bordering floe. One could see
the cakes rising and falling in great, heavy-laden curves, and the
ghostly spurts and tosses of the water in between. Then Morris and
I returned to the Coast Guard station with the sand at our backs,
shook and slapped and stamped away as much of the sand as we
could, and closed the hospitable door of Race Point upon the
strident, inhospitable world.
THE SANDS OF CAPE COD
“Beyond the broad swath of churning breakers lies the
North Atlantic, most masculine of seas.”

THE FACINATING AND DESOLATE DUNES

That furnish the stinging ammunition for the artillery of the
wind
 A WRECK UPON THE CAPE
Ever since the early days of European exploration, the back shore of
the Cape has been feared by mariners. The vast shoals to the south,
the off-shore bars to the north, the blizzard nor’easters that blow
ships directly on the land, all these have strewn the outer shore with
wrecks. To this day the sands hide and reveal and hide them again.
It is an easy enough thing to say that the day of the great wrecks is
over. Yet one of the greatest disasters in modern maritime history
occurred on the Cape as recently as the first year of the war, and the
winter of 1922 to ’23 saw wreck follow wreck upon the shore. But
coast guard crews have seldom been called to such a battle as was
theirs on that bitter winter morn of February 17, 1914.
On the night of the 16th a nor’nor’west wind, the wind which brings
the snow and cold, had been blowing squally gales, and a heavy fall
of powdery snow was blowing about upon the moors. The sea was
running high, running to the very foot of the frozen bank, and the
broad beach was but a mass of breaking waves and foam. Through
the wild night, fighting his way through the thickets of beach plum,
the bitter wind, and the snow smother whirling in the dark, went the
patrol, Joseph Francis, a surfman from Cahoons. The dawn began to
pale, and presently Francis made out a large square-rigged bark
stranded in the breakers some two hundred and fifty feet from
shore. The vessel was thick with ice, the seas were breaking over
her, flinging spray as high as the crosstrees, and this spray was
freezing where it fell. In the main rigging were the indistinct figures
of the crew.
The wreck was the Italian steel bark Castagna bound for Weymouth,
Massachusetts, with a cargo of fertilizer from the Argentine.
An ill chance of the sea had dogged her. Twice had she picked up
Boston Light, twice had nor’west gales blown her out into
Massachusetts Bay. Lying off the coast bewildered in the flurrying
gale, her barefooted Italian crew exhausted and ill-prepared for our
northern weather, the second storm had wrecked her on the Cape.
Her anchors and anchor gear were iced solidly in, her rigging was a
mass of ice, and the sails she displayed were but glassy gray sheets
of ice solid as so many boards.
Doomed, and so tragically helpless that she made neither sign nor
sound, the great bark lay in the thunder of the breakers, now
vaguely glimpsed, now lost in the snow squalls blowing from the
moors.
A little after five o’clock the news of the disaster reached Cahoons,
and from there the tidings were telephoned to the Nauset station
eight miles to the south. The Castagna lay at the southern end of
the Cahoons patrol, close to the halfway house used by Nauset and
Cahoons. Realizing that the life-saving apparatus would have to be
carried overland along the moors, Captain Tobin of Cahoons and
Captain Walker of Nauset arranged to divide the load. The wreck lay
a good four miles from either house, four miles of nor’west squalls,
and deep, unbroken snow upon a wild, uneven waste.
Each station kept a horse to pull its heavier apparatus to the beach,
and these poor creatures were presently harnessed to their loads
and urged to their hard but necessary task. Tugging, pushing and
trudging on as best they could, the crews arrived by seven at the
wreck. The snow squalls were petering out, but the buffeting wind
still shrilled under the ragged sky, and the ebbing sea was still a vast
width of rollers, seething white with foam. Fierce currents of tide,
stirred by the long-shore wind, were moving underneath the surface
fury; it was a sea in which no boat could be launched, or being
launched could live.
Sea after sea burst and poured from the Castagna’s deck. There
were faint yells from aloft as the greater seas swung in out of the
storm and came rolling down upon the ship.
Working as fast as they could in the tumult, the coast guards set up
their life-saving apparatus on an edge of the beach left bare by the
ebbing tide. Then, like the opening crash of a battle, the life-saving
cannon fired its first thin line across the width of sea.
The shot was a good one and passed well aboard, but the men in
the rigging strangely made no attempt to get the cord. The fact was
that the barefooted men on the mast were clad only in cotton
trousers, shirts, and thin coats, and that the hands and feet of those
who were not dead were but lifeless and unwieldy clods of ice. With
the sailor’s instinct “to get out of the water,” the crew had scrambled
aloft the minute their vessel struck. A second charge remained
likewise unattended. Two men suddenly dropped “like ripe plums”
into the confusion of the sea.
A figure moved in the rigging and a great powerful giant of a young
seaman, Nils Halverson his name stands on the book, was seen to
work off his coat, and wrap it round the mess boy who was dying in
the cold.
The cannon now crashed a third defiance at the sea, and this third
line fell nearer to the men. Frozen as they were, the giant and one
or two others descended to the breaker-beaten decks, and managed
to secure the line. But knots cannot be made with frozen fists big as
boxing gloves, and all stood as it did before.
More than ever now all depended upon the guards. The crew of the
wreck were unable to help themselves in any way.
It was now nine o’clock and the sea had dropped enough to permit
an attempt at the launching of the boat. The task was one of crudest
difficulty, and it was only after several hard battles and a show of
finest courage and boating skill that the coast guards’ vessel was
tugged to the Castagna’s pouring side. Two of the crew of thirteen
had perished overside, two were dead in the rigging, their faces and
bodies glassing over in strange mummy shrouds of ice, a third lay
dying in the racing waters of the deck. The eight left alive, forlorn,
swarthy Giovannis, Giuseppes, Angelos, and Carlos were in terrible
condition. But to this day they tell of how the big man, refusing aid,
walked to the near shelter on his frozen feet, his great frozen hands
held out a little from his sides. The lad he had tried to help was
dead.
After receiving skillful first aid from their rescuers, the crew of the
Castagna were hurried to a Boston hospital, one to die there, others
to suffer amputations. And from the hospital and the kindly care of
the Sisters of Mercy, these tragic children of the sea disappear into
the world again, Heaven alone knows where.
On the following morning those who went aboard the ship found the
Captain’s cabin to be reasonably secure and dry. Had the crew taken
refuge there, instead of in the rigging, they might possibly have all
been saved. The fire was out in the stove, but a tiger cat was
waiting for its rescuers, and a silent, wet canary stood in a tarnished
cage. The bird soon died, but the cat lived out the rest of its eight
lives on a Truro farm.
The captain of the vessel had been one of the two figures to drop
into the sea. His body, curiously preserved in some unaccountable
manner, suddenly appeared two years later, twelve miles away in the
marshes of Orleans. And this is one of the mysteries of the Cape.
The rescue of the men of the Castagna by the crews of Cahoons and
Nauset does honor to the great traditions of the guard. It was a feat
which called not only for daring and skill, but also for
resourcefulness, perseverance and endurance. Toward the end of
the struggle Captain Tobin of Cahoons, overcome by the long strain,
toppled into the waves and was himself in gravest danger. At low-
course tides, the wreck may still be seen. Being built of iron, her
sides have rusted and fallen in, but bow and stern rise twisted and
black above the waves. Her steep spars lie beside her where they
fell. On a sunny summer day when the rollers advance up the beach
in the face of a southwest wind, and the sharp, musketry-crack and
deep-voiced roar of the breakers travel down the empty sands,
nothing remains to tell of the Castagna and her men.
THE LAST STAND
Old wrecks that finish out their lives resisting the
cannonading surf
A sandspit of marshland and low dunes, some twelve miles long and
scarce two thirds of a mile wide, runs south into the Atlantic from
the elbow of the Cape, its seaward rim continuing the line of the
great beach to the north. East of it and south, far flung into the sea,
lie the great shoals of the Cape, Bearses, the Stone Horse, the
Handkerchief, Great and Little Round, Shovelful, and Pollock Rip. No
tide uncovers them, but on clear, sunny days, from the watch house
at Monomoy Point, their place is marked by vast, vague mottles of
yellow-green lying on the water with fierce blue-black rivers of tide
running high between.
At the end of the dunes, on a table land of sand that might be the
very end of inhabited world, stands the Coast Guard Station of
Monomoy Point, watching over ship and shoal.
There are strange regions in the world where a brooding melancholy
dwells, regions where much that is tragic in the lives of men seems
linked with a tragic something in the world. The ancient Roman
towns of the Adriatic, now far from the shrunken sea, and slowly
sinking into marshes that once were ports, are haunted thus, but in
our own new land, this sense of ruin in a ruined world is all
unknown. Yet you will find precisely this at Monomoy. The dreadful
lonely quiet of the place, the haunting memory of the great wrecks
of the shoals, the thin piping of sea birds in the scummy marsh, the
endless cataract chatter of the shoaling seas, all these weigh with a
strange solemnity upon even an unimaginative mind.
Tales of wrecks upon the shoals have something of this uncanny
character. I recall a story which my friend Mr. Tarvis of the Highland
Station told me as I sat talking with him one quiet winter night. He
had spent some time at Monomoy Point.
There was a schooner called the Mary Rose, and she was missing.
There had been a storm on the shoals about the time she was due
to go through, but nobody at the station had a sight of her, though
we kept a sharp lookout on what we could see of the shoals. When
you can see off in stormy weather, all the shoal water to the east
and south is one big boiling smother of white. When the weather
cleared, I had the morning watch, and I was up in the watch house,
standing at the open window, looking over the shoals through the
telescope. Pretty soon I saw something sticking up out of the water
that looked like a schooner’s topmast. The captain was with me so I
said to him to come and take a look, and he thought we ought to go
out there and see what it was. So the Captain and I took the big
dory and rowed out there, and it was this missing schooner, the
Mary Rose. She was sitting right on the bottom on even keel, just
the topmast of her showing above the waters, her hoisted sails
moving a little down below there in the sea. The water was clear
and you could see her deck and her dories all lashed in. They never
found what had happened to her, never found even one of the
bodies of the crew. Pretty soon she began to settle in the sand, her
topmast broke off or went under the water, and that’s the last we
saw of the Mary Rose.
A land of utter loneliness, a land of lagoons opening and closing to
the sea, of marshes sunken in the dunes and afloat with scum thin
and black as watery tar, marshes in which the hulks of ancient
wrecks are slowly rotting with the years, a No Man’s Land of the long
and endless war of the ocean with the earth. Strange things lie in
those shifting sands, wreckage washed up from the shoals; the
carcasses of innumerable birds killed by the fuel oil and ravined by
the skunks; great, queer Southern-looking shells.
In the summer time there is a tiny settlement of Chatham fishermen
at the point, but when winter comes, the dozen weather-beaten huts
and shacks are deserted and the men of the station are left to their
own pursuits. All along the Cape they regard Monomoy Point as “the
end of creation,” and surfmen, married men in particular, do not like
to be sent there. But youngsters of the gunner and roustabout type
seem to get accustomed to life there, and make out very well.
A RUM RUNNER ASHORE
The Cape takes its toll from all kinds of ships that sail the
sea from the old-fashioned coal cargoes to the new style of
rum cargoes
 LAUNCHING THE LIFE BOATS
I used to discuss the method of landing the life boats with my
friends at Nauset who keep a dory on the beach in which they go
through the surf to the off-shore fishing grounds. Mr. Henry Daniels,
surfman number one at Nauset, is known along the great beach as
one of the crack boatmen of the Cape.
And this is the way they do it.
When there is a wreck in the surf and the lifeboat must be used, the
first thing to do is to watch for a favorable opportunity and a
favorable spot. The big waves break upon the beach in threes. This
is not a superstition but a fact. When the third giant wave has
thundered ashore and there is a small sea as far out as possible,
then watch for the good moment and seize it when it comes. The
three elements of success, once you have left the beach and are in
the surf, are headway, speed, and strength. It is tremendously
important to have powerful, skillful men in the bow. The captain
steers. The difficulty lies in holding the boat bow on to the breakers,
the undertow and the sweep of the surf tend to make the boat
broach too, and if this happens over she goes. Sometimes just as a
big wave looks as if it were about to crash down into the boat,
headway and strength will save the day. Landing? Oh, there’s the
hard part of it; landing a lifeboat is much more difficult than
launching it. The thing to try to do is land as naturally as possible. If
you let the sea run away with you, there’ll be a spill. If a boat is
badly handled, the surf will rush her in with her bow tilted up in the
air, and then tip her clean over when she strikes the sand. You see
once you are under way coming ashore, you have got to go
somewhere. A well handled boat comes ashore with the sea about
amidships, then your bow is neither tilted up or down but lies in a
natural position. And in coming ashore, just as in going out, you do
your best to pick a favorable time.
There was recently a rather amusing case at Pamet River. A steamer
journeying to New York from a port on the Great Lakes had suddenly
and mysteriously developed boiler trouble while off the Cape, and
sent a crew ashore to summon a tug. The ship was slowly drifting
along, for her shallow length of anchor chain was never meant for
the old ocean, and her anchors were trailing like fish hooks overside.
Boiler trouble? These innocent lake folk, accustomed to filling their
boilers with water from the lakes, had been taking in water from the
salt sea. They had been taking it regularly, and the salt in the boiler
tubes had done the rest.
And this is remembered as a very good joke on fresh water sailors
all over the Cape.
“The service is not what it used to be,” says the voice of the Cape.
“Because recruits do not present themselves, less important stations
have been practically closed and their crews distributed among
vitally important posts, casual ‘substitutes’ are to be met with
everywhere, and the guard has had to accept young boys who
hardly know one end of an oar from the other. Everybody here
knows that if things keep on getting worse, it will be the end of the
guard.”
This local impression is a just one. The great service of the Cape is
in genuine danger, a danger which deserves close national attention.
Let us survey conditions.
To begin with, the coast guard service of Cape Cod is not one for
which any casual good lad will do. If you want a real surfman, you
must begin with a man who is used to seeing surf, and knows what
to expect in the morning when a northeaster has been howling
through the night. I do not aim at being melodramatic when I say
that the sight of the violence of the surf in a big storm is one which
takes the heart out of a stranger. Moreover, a surfman should be one
who has grown up with boats, and has a kind of instinct for their
ways.
A second point awaits consideration. The coast guard cannot enlist,
use, and discharge its men in the free manner of the Army and the
Navy. It takes years for a man to know his work and the conditions
at his station. The endless tricks of the wind and tide, the behavior
of the sea in various storms, the mysteries of the undertow, all these
are learned only through long experience. Your good surfman is no
casual recruit, here to-day and gone to-morrow, but a sensible,
steady family man who has made a fine and honorable life-work of
his service in the guard. The guards of whom I have written are of
this type; they are men who have been in the guard for years, and
are standing by it because they are full of grit and courage.
The men whom the service needs are to be had. There are many
men who would like to go into the guard if they could do so and
take care of their families. But how can a married man expect to
bring up a little family according to American standards on a salary
averaging between seventy and eighty dollars a month? Moreover,
the service is hard on clothing, while the allowances for uniforms
and warm apparel are scant.
Your steady man will not enlist because he cannot enlist. You cannot
get the right man for the wrong amount of money. The surfmen
have a subsistence allowance, it is true, but food is dear these days.
At all the great stations you will find the old-timers trying to make
the best of it in the most gallant way. Most of them have families,
and it is a hard, hard fight. And little by little, the old-timers drop
out, the casual substitute comes, and the roustabout youngster. Of
some of the latter class, the less said the better.
The service of patrol upon the Cape is genuinely heroic, and its fine
traditions are rich in honor. Surely a great Nation will not allow a
great national service to fall into the pit of evil days? “The laborer is
worthy of his hire.” If cities and towns can pay firemen and
policemen adequate salaries, the Nation ought to be able to pay
such salaries to a handful of surfmen!
Through starlight or buffeting storm, the yellow lantern will shine to-
night along the beach. The man who carries it is well worthy of aid.

Transcriber's Notes:
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.
Obvious typographicaly errors have been silently corrected.
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