@Coloradomama You are welcome to believe what you want. How can there be gender bias on a written test? Now if you were to state the girls are locked out of the higher math classes by gender bias ( teachers emphasizing boys skills and giving them extra opportunities) or more importantly parents not getting their girls into math at a young age and making them compete on the same level. Another thing is, maybe not all are going for the Putnam or whatever other award maybe some are going into math related things? It does seem to be an issue with the Math Olympiad team being all male. Most of these kids are coached from a very early age, many have parents not born in the US and many of the kids coached are boys. I do NOT think that whether you are male or female matters one bit. You need the math background to succeed. I know this as a fact as we have family members who are national and world leaders in this category. and they are FEMALE. Then again, we don’t emphasize boy/girl just competency.
And I think the bias is the girls not wanting to be in a room filled with boys/men who are rude in various ways. Girls need to learn to stand up to this type of behavior. Test scores do not lie. Girls and women come across this ALL the time how they deal with it is what matters. It’s funny that very few men can push a woman out of the conversation if she is the smartest in the room. Again, the knowledge matters.
@Coloradomama said:
As @CanuckGuy explained in post #47, standardized tests have shown the ability to predict the relative accomplishments more than 15 years after the test was given among very high performing kids. The key to this was that the test was hard (SAT test given to kids under 13 years old, at a time when the SAT was considerably harder). The SAT is less predictive now precisely because it is too easy, and that is before superscoring further inflates scores.
While Pitzer and Reed are fine colleges (I know nothing about Rollins), so are the all the ones that require standardized tests, including all the very top universities and liberal arts colleges. Are you really suggesting that they don’t know what they are doing?
What does “who is good at math” mean in your case? Are you top 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, 0.001%, or 0.0001%? Because there is a massive difference in terms of ability as you move from one category to a more selective one, and it is really only the last one that is competitive for top honors at the US and international level. We know some students in that last category, including a recent student in our HS that was an IMO gold medalist. Without seeing someone that level first-hand, it is hard for mere mortals to understand how far ahead they are.
I try not to get drawn into these because anyone who thinks there isn’t gender bias in written tests has never done serious research on the matter. I think proponents of standardized tests need to spend a day in a university library researching the implications of culture, gender, and race in testing. Of course, they would say that the researchers had an agenda because ultimately all position is political rather than reasoned, researched, or testable. I actually have faith in the ability of smart people to analyze, given time and commitment to nuance and truth (small t) or evolving knowledge.
Anecdotally I learned about gender bias in tests in my teens. When I took the SAT in 1967 or so, boys did better on math and girls on verbal. Then a year or two later, SATs changed their format and type of reading questions, and boys did better on both. At the time, I was just puzzled and annoyed, but over time, I have come to learn that such garbage has gone on for decades, if not generation.
Read
The current problem:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/27/us/tutors-see-stereotypes-and-gender-bias-in-sat-testers-see-none-of-the-above.html
AND/OR
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2016/07/01/is-the-college-board-making-the-sat-more-difficult-for-women/
Here’s a start of research:
http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1158&context=yjlf
https://cepa.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Poster-Fahle.pdf
https://history.aauw.org/files/2014/02/HSSG4-Part3.pdf
Old bibliography:http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~wmnmath/Publications/Bibliographies/SAT.html
@mamalion You can find bias anywhere you want just as you can see an elephant in a cloud and someone else sees nothing. If you look for bias you can find it for sure. IF you have girls and boys and you raise them to be people and treat each other as humans then your kids will laugh this stuff off. The worst thing you can do is raise your kids to be so highly sensitive that a passage on the SAT knocks them off their game. This wouldn’t even make one of my kids blink. But if I had raised them to be enraged by every nuance that offends them they may lose precious minutes thinking about that instead of answering the question.
hebegebe You are correct. At this level ( above top .1%) , people are so skilled that nothing matters except brainpower. Some training is necessary to see if the innate ability is there but if it is, these folks will compete on the basis of skill. I agree some people think they are good at math because they got a 700 on the SAT, others think they are good at math because they won the Fields medal. Not the same thing at all. I also agree with your point about SAT's. They have made them far too easy. When I was in high school tests were much harder and a high score was much less common. This allowed colleges to easily discern the most nimble minds in test taking. I won't argue here about testing vs. final result ( I personally think you need a strong innate ability and stronger work ethic to succeed).
I personally would like to see more girls in the highest level math and science championships. There are many today though. It starts in the home. Moms and Dads need to make sure their elementary school girls are prepared in math and science and keep the interest alive. Get your math kids tested and give them what they need to succeed. Or chose the “blame society and tests path” or whatever else you want to hang your hat on. Tell them girls get lower scores in math and see what happens. Or tell your daughters they are great in math and push them to excel. It’s your choice.
Just don’t try to convince us (people with strong math women in their families) that you are correct. You are not and women in my family have the scores ( and medals) to prove it. So do the boys. Not because they are male or female but because we have emphasized the importance of math and science.
In our family math, science and technology matter and we support it from an early age. Gifts are usually technology based or demonstrate cool science. There are 12 cousins and all are excellent in this field. Nature vs. nurture ( honestly it is both) but the strongest among all the cousins is a girl (world championship level) and another girl ( national level) and one at State level. All cousins are top 5% in standardized math scores. Most are top 1%. Why? Focus. And hard work. In our family math and technology are paths to great careers. Most of the adults in the family raise their family on salaries paid in math and science. We have had companies sold (multiple families) and many people hired. So as a family, we have created our own path. If I told any one of the men in the family that girls face bias in testing they would laugh and talk about our own little math kids. No bias here.
@Happytimes2001 The reason for research is to have evidence for what is real. What I see in a cloud is very far from what is real. Staring at clouds is not the same as years of study of standardized testing.
You are welcome to stare at clouds, but it doesn’t help your argument. I prefer fact gathering, analysis, thoughtful deliberation, peer review, publication.
@mamalion That is fine but your analysis is not based on facts hence my analogy to clouds. I read the article you cited and it was flawed as is your analysis. Thoughtful deliberation does not create fact, nor does peer review. They can add to the discussion but in no way can you prove your thesis. Perhaps your good efforts would be spent on something more useful. I am sorry you have spent years doing so 
This is not either/or. You can encourage your daughters to do well AND prepare them for the reality of a possibly hostile-to-girls environment.
However, telling them “girls get lower scores in math” is not preparing, it’s the very example of the sort of assertion that makes girls test lower, according to the earlier cited studies.
@Happytimes2001 You wrote that you read “the article you cited,” but I posted links to 5 articles. Which one did you read? What was wrong with the scholarship from Yale and Stanford and the AAUW report?
@OHMomof2 Yes, you can prepare them. You didn’t read my post correctly tell them girls get lower scores in math and see what happens… as in self fulfilling prophecy. Tell them that and nothing good happens in other words. If you tell them that there are people who are "hostile as you state and “there is a possibly hostile environment” then you are setting up a stage. Kids who are told there are lots of different people out there with lots of different opinions, don’t let anyone stop you are not going to have hang ups about a hostile environment. I would never raise my kids to think that STEM is a hostile environment.
@mamelion I read one article and that was enough. I cited the one I read. Still I don’t think any article, book or citation would let you consider another opinion than your own. That’s too bad. I learned something great yesterday from an article whose premise was directly opposed to my own. I even talked about it with my kids. I think you are married to the opinion that there is bias in testing and the bias is against women, I don’t agree and never will.