The WISC may not be a valid predictor of school performance for primary-grade minority children.

In the present investigation we studied the validity of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) for predicting several criterial teachers' ratings for primary-grade black, Anglo, and Mexican-American children. The results were rather striking: although validities for the combined groups were good (rs near .6), the validities calculated within each group presented a different picture. Validities were good for the Anglo children but near zero for the black and Mexican-American children. These results suggest that the WISC may be of little value in the assessment of the educability of minority children. The implications of these results for educational placement and the heredity-environment controversy were discussed.