Lee J. Cronbach, 1916–2001
Abstract
In Memoriam Lee J. Cronbach, 19162001 Lee J. Cronbach, the Vida Jacks Professor of Education Emeritus at Stanford University, died of congestive heart failure in his Palo Alto home on October 1, 2001. One of his children, Janet, was at his bedside. Lee made major contributions in the fields of educational psychology, psychological testing, and program evaluation throughout a career that spanned over five decades. Harbingers of his career in testing were evident at an early age in Fresno, California, where he was born on April 22, 1916 to a homemaker and salesman. According to his sister, Lee was overheard at age 4 in a grocery market calculating the unit price of potatoes, drawing the conclusion that the market his mother shopped at charged far more than the market he was in with a babysitter. The eavesdropper reported this feat to Blanche Cummings, a school psychologist and disciple of Lewis Terman, who gave him an IQ test in 1921, publicized his test score (200), used him in Binet demonstrations, and enrolled him in the Terman gifted program. His mother was eager for him to begin school and enrolled him in the upper second grade just as he turned