Do low average scores for some groups reveal problems in education and society, or test bias?
Faced with unpleasant news, it is human nature to seek a scapegoat or kill the messenger. Those who claim that score differences are the result of test bias must ignore the group differences cited above and the unequal educational opportunities that reporters, educators, and researchers have documented for decades in barrios, inner cities, and isolated rural areas. How can you be sure the SAT is fair? Every SAT question must pass eight rigorous steps before it can appear on an operational form of the SAT. Test development is handled for the College Board by the Educational Testing Service. At every stage, ETS’s professional test developers review all questions and each test for fairness. They follow detailed guidelines to ensure cultural, racial, and ethnic diversity, and sensitivity to the changing connotations of certain words and phrases. Reviewers are on the lookout for stereotyping language, inflammatory materials, language with inappropriate tone, and inappropriate underlying ass
