High school girls who compete for National Merit Scholarships are facing gender-biased exams that favor boys, a test watchdog group says.
The charge was leveled by The National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest) based in Cambridge, Mass, which has lodged a discrimination complaint with the government.The scholarship tests are sponsored by the National Merit Scholarship Corp. of Evanston, Ill., which had no immediate comment on the FairTest allegations.
Bob Schaeffer, Public Education Director for FairTest called the tests "flawed." He said in an interview that the multiple-choice exams are slanted toward boys.
Boys, he said, generally do better in the "fast-paced, multiple choice" tests taken by students to qualify for possible scholarships.
He said that, for example, generally girls take more time to answer questions and guess less than boys.
Girls, Schaeffer said, get overall better grades generally in high school courses yet fare worse in reaching the semifinals to qualify for possible scholarships ranging up to $2,500.
FairTest estimated some $15 million of the $25 million in college scholarships handed out to Merit scholarship winners this spring will go to boys.
Schaeffer's organization has been monitoring academic testing procedures for nine years.
Some 1.1 million high school juniors took the tests this year and 15,800 were selected semifinalists for "Merit Scholarships." From that group, final winners are selected for financial awards based on their high school scores, principal recommendations and other factors.
But Schaeffer said that nearly three out of five of the semifinalists were boys this year who got an advantage and will get most of the money. In the past, this ratio has been the same, he said.
"Reliance on standardized test scores as the sole factor in choosing National Merit semifinalists will again cheat girls out of tuition aid they have earned by their superior academic performance," said Schaeffer.
"The test-makers know their exam is flawed, but they have done nothing to change it," he added. "As a result, girls continue to lose millions each year in college scholarships that rightfully should be theirs."