4 ms·

No Girls, Blacks, or Hispanics Take AP Computer Science Exam in Some States

3 points by wallflower 13y ago

cgriswald 13y ago
This is a strange article. It leads with a somewhat incomplete headline and misleading intro paragraph, but eventually "comes clean" with a bit more explanation. Yes, Wyoming had no female, hispanic, or African-American test takers. It also had no test takers of any kind. Mississippi had only one test taker. Yet, according to the article, Ericson was "surprised" that none were African-American since African-Americans make up 37 percent of the population (still making them a minority). She was apparently not surprised that the White majority was not represented in the tests. The sole test taker was hispanic. Montana also had no hispanic or African-American test takers. Yet, it only had 11 test takers and stastically one would expect 0 hispanic and African-American test takers given the demography of Montana. Basically everywhere the exam was taken in reasonable numbers, females were respresnted, but underrepresented in terms of demographics. Ericson does not specificy if the numbers had grown from previous years. Interestingly, many were from girl-only schools. (To me this suggests in the absence of certain social pressures, girls are more likely to take computer science courses.) And unsurprisingly, in places where relatively few hispanics live (at least in terms of offical demographics), few or no hispanics took the test. What I find disappointing about the article is that by excluding "interesting facts" about white male test takers, we don't really know the significance of the passing rates of the hispanic test takers (although we do learn that African-Americans had the lowest pass rates). The "interesting" thing about Mississippi is that Mississippians are underrepresented, regardless of race or color. And I'd go so far as to say that's really the only interesting thing for any of the states which had fewer than 100 people take the test.

3 points by wallflower 13y ago

This is a strange article. It leads with a somewhat incomplete headline and misleading intro paragraph, but eventually "comes clean" with a bit more explanation. Yes, Wyoming had no female, hispanic, or African-American test takers. It also had no test takers of any kind. Mississippi had only one test taker. Yet, according to the article, Ericson was "surprised" that none were African-American since African-Americans make up 37 percent of the population (still making them a minority). She was apparently not surprised that the White majority was not represented in the tests. The sole test taker was hispanic. Montana also had no hispanic or African-American test takers. Yet, it only had 11 test takers and stastically one would expect 0 hispanic and African-American test takers given the demography of Montana. Basically everywhere the exam was taken in reasonable numbers, females were respresnted, but underrepresented in terms of demographics. Ericson does not specificy if the numbers had grown from previous years. Interestingly, many were from girl-only schools. (To me this suggests in the absence of certain social pressures, girls are more likely to take computer science courses.) And unsurprisingly, in places where relatively few hispanics live (at least in terms of offical demographics), few or no hispanics took the test. What I find disappointing about the article is that by excluding "interesting facts" about white male test takers, we don't really know the significance of the passing rates of the hispanic test takers (although we do learn that African-Americans had the lowest pass rates). The "interesting" thing about Mississippi is that Mississippians are underrepresented, regardless of race or color. And I'd go so far as to say that's really the only interesting thing for any of the states which had fewer than 100 people take the test.