Failing at Fairness: Why Our Schools Cheat Girls

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Failing at Fairness Why Our Schools Cheat Girls

• Diana Vizcaino and Crystal Foster

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Pre Activity

• Before we begin, please complete the following
  questions to the best of your ability
• What is gender bias?
• How does gender bias effect both sexes?
• Do you believe gender bias exists today?

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Hidden Lessons

• Teachers interact with males more frequently, ask
  them better questions, and give them more precise
  and helpful feedback.
• Most people are unaware of the secret sexist
  lessons and the quiet losses they engender.
• Even after two decades of research we still find
  gender discrimination is still an issue in our
  nations schools.

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History of Womens Education

• For more than two centuries, women were denied
  education in America.
• During the 1700s only one third of women were
  able to sign their names.
• Very often girls were smuggled into schools for
  an hour of lessons.

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Missing in Interaction

• Many classrooms consists of two worlds one of
  boys in action, the other of girls inaction.
• Teachers are most likely to question, praise, and
  correct boys, which allows them to enhance their
  thinking. For girls the lack of interaction does
  not promote the same quality of learning.

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The Self-Esteem Slide

• As girls develop their form of thinking changes
  from self-confident to self-conscious.
• In elementary school more than half of the girls
  are considerably happy about the way they are, in
  middle school only one fourth of the girls were
  satisfied with themselves and in high school less
  than one third of girls exhibited high
  self-esteem.
• Hispanic and African American girls exhibited
  more self-esteem issues than Caucasian girls.

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H.S. In Search of Herself

• In H.S. girls number one priority is popularity.
• To be popular they think they must, wear just
  the right things, date older boys, get fairly
  good grades, but dont be too smart, flirt with
  boys, and be cooperative on dates.
• Ninety five percent of bulimics and anorexics are
  women, and the majority of these are adolescent
  high school girls in their quest for popularity.
  

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The Test Drive

• From middle school to medical school, girls and
  women face a testing gender gap that denies them
  the best educational programs and prizes
• Lowest test scores block females in
  disproportionate numbers from the most
  prestigious graduate schools

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Standardized Testing SAT, GRE, LSAT, GMAT, MCAT

• Boys typically receive scores that are 50-60
  points higher on the SAT. The SAT is biased like
  most Standardized tests.
• Boys score so much higher than girls on the PSAT
  that two out of three Merit semifinalists are
  male since colleges and states use the PSAT for
  awarding National Merit Scholarships

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Colleges Realize the Importance of Standardized
Tests

• Less women enter law school due to the LSAT or
  Law Admissions Test. The scale of scoring is 10
  being the lowest and 48 being the highest. Men
  averaged 33.3 and women 32.4 therefore a man with
  a low GPA in college will be admitted into law
  school before the women with a high college GPA
  and a low LSAT score.

• The GRE or Graduate Record Examination is a test
  to enter graduate school. In 1998, the last year
  information was published about the scores, males
  scored 80 points higher than women on the verbal
  section and 26 points higher on the analytical
  section. This makes men accepted into graduate
  school more frequent than women.

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Colleges Realize the Importance of Standardized
Tests cont.

• On the MCAT or Medical College Admissions Test
  the typical female score is 22.5 while the
  average male score is more than 24 on a scale
  from 3 to 45. This test is designed for males to
  achieve higher than females.

• The GMAT or Graduate Management Admission Test is
  used for business school admission. The score
  scale is 200 to 800 and 500 is average. In 1991
  women were below average with 477 while men were
  above at 504.

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Gender Gap Male Percent Advantage on Graduate
School Admissions Tests.

• OAT Optometry Admission Test
• DAT Dental Admission Test
• LSAT Law School Admission Test
• MCAT Medical College Admission Test
• GMAT Graduate Management Admission Test
• GRE Graduate Record Exam

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Do you Realize the Paradox in Schools? Are
Females Being Cheated?

• Girls enter school with a standardized testing
  advantage, yet their lead mysteriously vanishes.
• Girls are the winners on report cards and later
  on college transcripts, yet boys attain higher
  scores on the standardized tests. Why the
  contradiction?
• When teachers are asked to remember their best
  student boys names dominate the list. When a
  teacher asks who is the most disrespectful,
  unruly, and misbehaved student, the teacher would
  usually say one of their male students.
• These paradoxes are some of educations most
  persistent puzzles
• Girls are being cheated and schools and
  universities are failing at fairness. Most of
  the time these biases are hidden so society does
  not no about it. We must educate our females the
  same as the males.

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Reflection Scenario

• A small group of parents has contacted the Board
  of Education in your school district and your
  school principal. The principal has come to you
  as a teacher. He/she explains that the girls in
  your class feels you are devoting most of your
  attention to the male students. However, you
  feel you are being as fair as possible to all of
  your students. How would you come about showing
  the students, the parents, your principal, and
  the Board of Education you are not discriminating
  the girls? What would you change? How would you
  change it?

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Closure Now class you can complete column three
of your KWL chartWhat did you learn?Your
Instructors,Crystal Foster and Diana Vizcaino
Failing at Fairness
How Schools Cheat Girls