Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 20, 1994 TAG: 9405200053
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: |By JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As a result, girls lose millions of dollars annually in Merit Scholarships provided by the prestigious program.
The reason for the gender gap? A biased test?
Yes, says the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, a nonprofit education advocacy center based in Cambridge, Mass.
Bob Schaeffer, director of the center, said girls are cheated out of scholarship money that should rightfully be theirs.
Schaeffer said there is bias in the preliminary Scholastic Assessment Test/National Merit Qualifying Test, taken by about 1 million high school juniors, who are screened down to 15,000 semifinalists.
On average, females score lower than males. Fifty-six percent of the students taking the test this year were females.
A state-by-state count of the semifinalists disclosed that 57.1 percent were boys and 38.6 percent were girls, Schaeffer said. The gender of the remaining 4.3 percent could not be determined from the students' names.
In Virginia, the ratio was 54.4 percent boys, 42.7 percent girls and 2.9 percent unknown.
In the second phase of screening, the 15,000 semifinalists are reduced to 6,700 finalists, who receive about $25 million in scholarships.
Statistics on the gender of scholarship winners this year are not available, Schaeffer said. But in past years, the percentage of male and female winners has been very similar to the semifinalist ratio, with about three-fifths of awards going to boys, he said.
The National Merit Scholarship Corp. denies the fair-test center's allegation of bias.
"We have confidence that the test is fair and accurate," said Elaine Detweiler, public information director for National Merit Scholarships.
"We are concerned that girls are not making as high scores as some boys," Detweiler said. "Rather than attacking the messenger, we need to try to find out why girls are scoring lower.''
The College Board and the Educational Testing Service, which sponsor and produce the test, also dispute the bias charge.
"The difference is in the preparation of the students, not in the test," said Fred Moreno, public relations director for the College Board.
Moreno said boys tend to take more math and science courses in high school, especially difficult higher-level courses.
"There is a lot going on with young women at this stage, and there may not be as much emphasis on schools," Moreno said.
In the Roanoke Valley, the national ratio for the gender of National Merit finalists did not hold true this year, however. There were seven finalists in the valley - four girls and three boys.
In Roanoke, the finalists were two girls and one boy. In Roanoke County, there were also two girls and one boy; Salem had one boy.
Gary Kelly, director of guidance and testing for Roanoke County, said he hasn't noticed any unusual pattern in the gender of the National Merit finalists in the county..
"Locally, it has been fairly balanced. Some years, there are more boys, and the next year there might be more girls. It balances out,'' Kelly said.
The National Center for Fair and Open Testing has filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education charging the College Board and the Educational Testing Service with violating federal law by assisting gender discrimination. The office is investigating the complaint.
"The test-makers know their exam is flawed, but they have done nothing to change it," Schaeffer said.
"Reliance on standardized test scores as the sole factor in choosing National Merit semifinalists will again cheat girls out of tuition they have earned by their superior academic performance," Schaeffer said.
But the test is carefully designed and the questions are chosen to prevent gender bias, Detweiler said.
In selecting the finalists and awarding scholarships, she said, a committee of college admission officers and high school counselors consider many factors, including grades, difficulty of school courses, community work and the recommendation of the finalist's high school principal.
by CNB