It is often stated that statistically females score lower on standardized tests such as the SATs and ACTs. This leads to a disadvantage in being accepted to schools with a minimum SAT requirement and can also lead to a disadvantage in receiving scholarships based on test scores. Statistics are the largest factor in this argument and always seem to feed the fire of those wishing to abolish or change standardized testing. Year after year the amount, race, gender, and resulting scores of students taking standardized tests are analyzed. At the forefront of the issue are the SATs which are often thought of as the most influential test the average student will ever take. Statistically females score lower than males do on most standardized tests. On the 1998 SAT boys were 35 points ahead of girls in math and 7 points ahead in English (Sommers 32). However, the controversy concerning achievement levels on standardized tests soars far beyond gender. The most common groups said to be at a disadvantage due to the social inadequacies of standardized tests are African Americans, Latinos, and Mexican Americans. Minority groups are often said to be severely lacking when it comes to high-stakes testing. Many people blame this on cultural flaws in the test. In an article discussing literacy skills of minorities Julie A Washington states:.
The value of standardized instruments is that they provide a normative sample to which a child's performance can be compared, providing a helpful quantified measurement of the child's performance compared to the "norm." The danger is that these comparisons do not consider the differences that a minority child brings to the assessment context, often resulting in underestimation of the child's abilities. Because these instruments often test knowledge and skills that are not part of the African-American child's world knowledge, we are often left with a clearer picture of what the child doesn't know, and very little information about his or her existing core of knowledge, reducing the diagnostic usefulness of these instruments (6).
