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Girls Outnumber Boys in City's Kindergarten Gifted Programs

By DNAinfo Staff on June 1, 2010 5:37pm

Kindergarten boys might be at a disadvantage taking the admissions exam for public school gifted programs.
Kindergarten boys might be at a disadvantage taking the admissions exam for public school gifted programs.
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Flickr/woodleywonderworks

By Olivia Scheck

DNAinfo Reporter Producer

MANHATTAN — The age-old gender battle between boys and girls continued this week as the New York Times reported that the number of girls in the city's kindergarten gifted programs has far surpassed the number of boys, with some experts blaming gender-biased testing.

Females make up 56 percent of New York City's gifted kindergarteners, while comprising only 49 percent of public school students overall, the paper noted.

Some experts blamed an admissions test adopted in 2008 for the gender gap, the Times said.

The Otis-Lennon Ability Test, which makes up 75 percent of the gifted program's entrance exam, is “more verbal than some of the other tests,” David F. Lohman, a testing expert who teaches at the University of Iowa, told the paper.

Since boys' verbal abilities tend to develop later than girls', the boys are at a disadvantage, Lohman told the Times.

Terry W. Neu, who studies gifted education for boys as an assistant professor at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, told the Times that the problem extends beyond verbal development. According to Neu, focusing on a written test is also more difficult for boys, the Times said.

“Sitting still, that’s where a lot of our gifted guys get into trouble,” he told the paper. “If they are not moving, they are thinking about moving.”

Although the news is not good for New York City boys entering kindergarten, the future for these young males is still bright: The trend is reversed for the city's gifted high schools, including Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech, where male students outnumber female students, the Times noted.