I realize I talk a lot on this blog about class bias, really to the exclusion of other kinds of bias. I do this generally not because I don't think gender bias is important in education/standardized tests, but because I see it as less prevalent than class bias. And perhaps more often discussed, as well. For a change of pace, though, here's the sample nonfiction EOG passage on the NC Public Schools website for the 6th grade. If you click through, you'll see that it's a passage about Lou Gehrig playing for the Yankees. What really surprises me is the degree to which it's taken for granted that the kid reading the passage has specific knowledge about baseball terminology, and in fact knows who Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth were.

The passage starts: "Lou Gehrig was the classic case of playing in Babe Ruth's shadow."The first paragraph talks about a baseman and the NY Yankees, but if you aren't familiar with baseball (and here I'm thinking of ESL students more than of girls), you don't find out that that's what the passage is talking about until the next paragraph. The rest of the passage uses terms such as "line drives," "drive in runs," "batting average,"and  "homer."  I don't know what a line drive is, and I'm not totally sure what it means to drive in runs. I think this is a passage American boys are likely to have an easy time with, that American girls are likely to have a harder time with, and that students from other countries are likely to have a very hard time with, especially if baseball isn't popular in their home countries. Does any curriculum you know of include a section on baseball terminology? I didn't think so.

I realize that this kind of post leaves me open to someone saying "But EVERY passage has some kind of content. All content requires some kind of background knowledge. If you have to take into account every kid's lack of background knowledge, how can you test reading?" But I'm starting to think that that's exactly the point. Low income schools in many places have slashed the subjects that used to teach kids content knowledge that they didn't get at home (like social studies and science). Such schools are teaching reading as a mechanistic skill, but the standardized tests after 3rd grade test reading comprehension, which does always involve some sort of content knowledge. Interestingly, educational literature refers to the "4th grade slump," which is widely viewed as the point at which low income kids often start scoring low on standardized tests. If you think about it, that really makes sense. Fourth grade is when they stop being tested on the curricula they are being taught and have access to (mechanistic skills and familiar concepts), and start being tested on reading comprehension which requires middle class white American background knowledge, which NCLB and similar laws prevent them from having access to. As my stepkids would say, it's not rocket science.

To return to gender bias, though, I have to wonder what would happen if the EOGs had a passage on Miss America, or some other stereotypically feminine event. What do you think? Could it happen?