The Thoroughbred Years (1970–Present) 425By 2000, the NCATE, with the NASP as a constituent mem-
ber, was the largest accreditor of nondoctoral programs,
although the APA maintained a stronger presence among doc-
toral programs and related internship and postdoctoral train-
ing sites. The Thoroughbred Years were characterized by
much greater consistency in training curricula, the standards
for which were increasingly interlocked with the credential-
ing expectations of the state education and psychology
boards.
Doctoral programs offered subspecializations (e.g., neu-
ropsychology, preschool) to coincide with the broadening in-
terests and practices of school psychologists and their diverse
practice settings. Many subspecializations were represented
in special-interest groups within the NASP and the APA.
Some even had their own publications. As the number of
subspecializations expanded, there was concern that the tra-
ditional specialties of clinical, counseling, and school psy-
chology might lose their identities because subspecialization
often merged the interests of two or more specialty groups
(e.g., school and child-clinical psychology along lines of
pediatric applications).
Credentialing Development
By the mid-1970s, all states had credentialing for school psy-
chologists from their respective state departments of educa-
tion (SDE) and/or state boards of examiners in psychology
(SBEP). The two credentialing structures had standards that
differed along lines of doctoral and nondoctoral preparation,
titles, and practice settings. The differences created several
state-level skirmishes over practice privileges in nonschool
settings. Some states (e.g., California, Connecticut, Illinois,
Ohio) achieved nonschool practice privileges for nondoctoral
practitioners as an outcome of state-level legislative skir-
mishes. Nevertheless, by the end of the period, credentialing
for school-based practice was almost entirely regulated by
SDEs with nondoctoral degree training requirements,
whereas nonschool practice was almost entirely regulated by
SBEPs with doctoral degree requirements. Nonpractice
recognition credentials continued to be available from the
APA in the form of the diploma from the American Board of
School Psychology (ABSP) and from the NASP in the form
of National Certification in School Psychology (NCSP).
Practice Characteristics
Concern for the appropriate roles and functions of school
psychologists was a dominant theme in the literature of the
Thoroughbred Years. Throughout the twentieth century,
school psychology practitioners expressed concern at being
identified as “gatekeepers” for special education by virtue
of their expertise with psychoeducational tests. Calls for
change, even reform, of the school psychologists’ roles per-
meated the Thoroughbred Years. In the early 1970s, the thrust
was for school psychologists to become more system focused
and to be child advocates within the system. This thrust was
related to the general zeitgeist of the 1970s to “change the
system,” whether it was the system of our schools, special
education, school psychology, or government. It was a rebel-
lious period in American history, and school psychology was
no exception. The systems and organizational psychology
approach to school psychology was popular (see e.g., Maher,
Illback, & Zins, 1984), but the historical legacy of school
psychology was reaffirmed in the service expectations re-
quired by federal legislation for children suspected of being
eligible for special education. In retrospect, this legislation
and its reauthorizations, although creating thousands of new
school psychology jobs, pitted the field against itself: The
longtime desire to expand roles and functions clashed with
the need to provide mandated traditional services for job
survival.
Local, state, and national surveys of how school psycholo-
gists spent their time consistently revealed that half to
two-thirds of their time was devoted to psychoeducational
assessment related to eligibility for special education. These
results were observed even during a period of public education
and school psychology reform in the last two decades of the
century (Reschly, 1998). Comparisons are uncertain, but the
psychoeducational assessment role during the Hybrid Years
was probably more intense than recent studies have revealed.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the assessment role dominated
practice throughout the twentieth century. Of course, unifor-
mity of practice was never observed. Evidence for consulta-
tion, intervention, research and evaluation, and other roles has
always been available. The Thoroughbred Years were fraught
with literature, expert opinion, and organizational positions
that did broaden the roles of school psychologists, even if not
to the extent many desired. For its part, the assessment role
was broadened through improved technical adequacy of nor-
mative tests, an emphasis on criterion-referenced methods,
nondiscriminatory practices, team approaches to service de-
livery, and mandatory reevaluations.
The model of child study continued to evolve and
broaden. Throughout the century, a gradual but persistent ex-
pansion of the factors involved in referrals is discernible
(Fagan, 1995). In addition to the long-standing focus on the
child, assessment and intervention functions expanded in
the Thoroughbred Years to more consistently include class-
room and teacher variables, parental and family variables,
and broader theoretical perspectives on traditional testing