This essay examines the mechanisms used by the public school for socially adjusting an underclass of Italian, Polish, and southern black children who immigrated to Buffalo, New York, in the 1920s. It describes in some detail the activities and goals associated with the institutionalization of mental testing and tracking programs in those public schools serving these young members of an underclass. This essay suggests that as a tool of social control, testing and tracking into special education classes may have discriminated against the unassimilated newcomers who teachers and administrators feared were destined for a life of crime. Finally, the essay illustrates the reactions of interest groups to the school's tracking program, in order to show that members of and advocates for this underclass did not all passively accept the school's treatment of these pupils.
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