Gender Bias in Scholarship Test Charged

Although studies show girls get better grades in high school and college than boys, only about 35% of National Merit Scholarship winners are girls, according to a new report that raises questions about the fairness of the nation’s most prestigious scholarship program.

According to FairTest, an organization striving to keep bias out of standardized tests, more than 60% of semifinalists in the 1993 competition are boys. In none of the 50 states were more girls than boys selected. The results are consistent with the pattern that has emerged over the years, the organization said.

The choice of semifinalists is based entirely on results of the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test. More than a million juniors nationwide take the PSAT to help them prepare for the Scholastic Aptitude Test, which many colleges and universities use in their selection process. More girls than boys take the PSAT test.

The content and form of the test clearly favor boys, and by using the test, National Merit is living in the “Dark Ages,” charged Cinthia Schuman, executive director of FairTest, whose organization has worked with such education groups as the American Assn. of School Administrators and the National Education Assn. as well as civil rights groups.

“It is simply unfair for young women to receive a smaller portion of awards when they consistently earn higher grades than young men in both high school and college,” she said, arguing that the “inequity is due solely to gender bias in the test used to select eligible students.”

But National Merit officials argued that the test simply demonstrates that more boys than girls are among the top students nationwide.

“To blame the test for the difference between how boys and girls perform is like blaming a yardstick that boys are taller than girls,” said Elaine Detweiler, spokeswoman for the National Merit Scholarship Corp., based in Evanston, Ill.

“We don’t really know why girls do worse,” she added. “But we think they should be trying to rectify whatever is causing the difference, rather than blasting the test.”

FairTest did not challenge individual questions as unfair, but rather relied on statistical evidence. In 1989, a federal District Court in New York lent some credence to arguments of bias in the tests. In striking down New York’s sole use of the SAT scores to award state scholarships, the court concluded: “(T)he probability, absent discriminatory causes, that women would consistently score 60 points less on the SAT than men is nearly zero.” PSAT tests are shorter versions of the SAT.

A study published in the Harvard Education Review by members of the Educational Testing Service’s own staff concluded that the math portion of the SAT “favors men.” Women also score slightly lower on the verbal portion of the test.

Some experts suggested that women do worse on the tests because of social and historical factors that give boys an edge in test-taking.

“It goes to the roots of how we raise children,” Timothy J. Dyer, the executive director of the National Assn. of Secondary School Principals, said. “We raise boys to be outspoken and aggressive and we raise girls to be passive.”

National Merit, which is funded by corporations, colleges and individuals, selected 15,850 semifinalists--0.5% of the graduating seniors in every state--in 1993 and will give 6,500 of those students scholarships of $2,000 each, Detweiler said.

“It’s a lot of money, and girls are not getting their fair share,” Schuman said.

FairTest has suggested that National Merit use a variety of criteria--grades, class rank and extra-curricular activities--in choosing semifinalists, as it does for finalists and scholarship winners.

Some testing specialists argue, however, that using grades would be unfair to boys.

“There is a lot more accumulated evidence that grades are biased against boys than that tests are biased against girls,” H.D. Hoover, the author of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, argued.

For instance, teachers pay less attention to girls, and textbooks ignore or stereotype women and girls, the study found.

Officials at the Educational Testing Service, which produces the PSAT, defended their test, but stressed that its purpose is not to be a measure for scholarships.