9/2/08

Plain Dealer

Scott Stephens

Scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test generally held steady this year, moving up slightly in Ohio and falling a whisker nationally.

Unfortunately, the performance gaps between different groups of students taking the popular college-entrance exam also continued, according to data released last week.

The gap between the wealthiest and the poorest student was 356 points. The largest gap - 387 points - was between those students whose parents have the most and least education. Girls continued to trail boys on the math portion of the exam, although they narrowed the gap.

Critics of the exam, which is designed to predict college performance, say those gaps make tests unfair to girls and some minority students.

“It under-predicts for females, discouraging them from careers in math and science, and for many minority groups,” said Bob Schaeffer of the Na tional Center for Fair & Open Testing in Cambridge, Mass. “Because average SAT scores dramatically rise as family income increases, its use in the admissions process gives another leg up to children from wealthy households.”

Officials at the College Board, the test’s sponsor, say similar racial and socioeconomic gaps exist with other tests and even with the grades students receive in high school.

A Ford in their future: Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights is one of only five private schools across the country to receive a $250,000 grant from the Edward E. Ford Foundation.

The school will use a portion of the money to host a lead ership summit in 2010, with the focus on educational inno vation for public and private schools.

“Hathaway Brown School is among the most potent schools for young women in the country today,” said Bob Hallett, executive director of the foundation, which is based in Maine.

Helping hands:

Everything costs more this school year.

Even school supplies.

That back-to-school rite was made a little easier for the families of 2,500 children who received backpacks and school supplies from Charter One Bank and the Salvation Army.

The drive ended Friday when folks from the two organizations distributed hundreds of backpacks stuffed with supplies to students at Glenbrook Elementary School in Euclid. The program has also helped elementary school youngsters in Cleveland, Lakewood and Parma.

The giveaway was made possible by a four-week drive during which Charter One employees, customers and local residents dropped off all kinds of new school supplies at bank branches in Cuyahoga County. The bank’s charitable foundation bought the backpacks.

Plain Dealer reporter Edith Starzyk contributed to this column.