Stephen P. Klein

1938 - 2019

January 22, 1938 - July 29, 2019 Steve Klein passed away peacefully after a long, brave journey with Parkinson's. He was a loving, and very loved husband and partner of Gail Abarbanel. A longtime, avid sailor, he also loved exploring our country's beautiful national parks, hiking and long outdoor walks. Steve was a scientist, a statistician and a highly respected researcher. He applied his analytic skills to examining many important social issues, always striving to develop standards and practices to help ensure "fairness and equity" in the administration of diverse and complex processes such as bar examinations, teacher testing, college admissions, administration of the death penalty, the United States census, and health care programs for disadvantaged children. After earning a PhD from Purdue University in 1965, he worked as a Research Psychologist at the Educational Testing Service (ETS) where he developed tools for measuring creative accomplishments in the arts and sciences. He came to Los Angeles to work at UCLA in 1968, where he chaired the Research Methods Division in the Graduate School of Education and introduced students to the science of problem-solving. He later served as the Associate Director of the UCLA Center for the Study of Evaluation. In 1975, he became a Senior Researcher at the Rand Corporation where he designed and led studies in the fields of health, education, and criminal justice, including a major, longitudinal study of the costs and benefits of school-based dental care for children which was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In 1974, Steve established his own consulting firm, GANSK & Associates, which worked extensively with Bar Associations throughout the United States, both on the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) and state-specific Bar Examinations -- tests which determine an individual's admission to the Bar. This research focused on issues of validity, reliability, bias and fairness. He was also an expert in assessing the impact of unexpected events on testing results, such as earthquakes occurring during the administration of licensing examinations. He served as a consultant to many other entities, including the National Science Foundation, the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, the American Board of Dental Examiners, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, and the Attorney General of the State of California. Steve testified as an expert witness in state and federal courts and in legislative hearings in matters related to employment, teacher testing, licensing examinations, voting rights, criminal justice system decisions, and business practices. He served as an expert witness in the landmark Serrano v. Priest case that dealt with equality of opportunity in K-12 education, and the relationship between school finance and student performance. To illustrate a point in his testimony, Steve gave the judge the same written test that students were being given and the judge did not pass the test. Steve also generously lent his knowledge and skills to support his wife's work as the Founder and Director of the nationally recognized Rape Treatment Center at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center. Together, in 1979, they developed the first national training program on hospital-based treatment for rape victims. The training materials were disseminated by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to health care professionals in communities throughout the United States. He authored over 250 articles that appeared in Science, Chance, American Journal of Public Health, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Journal of Educational Measurement, The Bar Examiner, and Research in Higher Education, amongst other publications. One of Steve's most unique accomplishments was training his cat, Zeke, to do tricks. Steve and Zeke appeared in a special segment on KABC News. In accordance with his wishes, there will be no memorial service.