HUNTINGTON BEACH : Gender Stereotypes in Testing Discussed

Public high school students in Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley and Westminster are doing better in college-entrance exams, and wiping out gender stereotypes has been one key to the success, an education official said.

Dorothy Crutcher, director of pupil personnel services for the Huntington Beach Union High School District, said results of college-entrance tests in years past had indicated that boys did better in math and girls excelled in verbal skills. She said test results in the high school district a decade ago tended to show such a gender disparity.

But Crutcher said that when the district launched an extensive effort to get more girls into math classes and more boys into verbal-skill subjects, the disparity on tests started leveling off.

That effort has done more than just improve college-entrance Scholastic Aptitude Test composite scores, Crutcher said. The move has also made students more academically enriched, she said.

“We are turning out very well-rounded students,” Crutcher said.

Crutcher spoke to the district board at its meeting Tuesday night. She analyzed 11 years of Scholastic Aptitude Test scores in the high school district. The 1994 composite test score was particularly good, she said: It was 985, compared to a national composite of 902 and a statewide score of 895.

Three candidates for the school board, who were in the audience, later addressed the board and said the district should not be complacent about the rising scores. The candidates, Jim Ball, Joe Wagner and Leon McKinney, said the district needs to improve even more.

“The scores are good, but they’re not that good,” Ball said. “There’s a lot of room for improvement.”