Being Special at Age 5
The NYT had a piece yesterday that looked at the gender gap in the kindergarten gifted programs in New York City. If you guessed that the girls outnumber the boys you are correct.
The article looks at some possible reasons for the imbalance. Bias in the tests that determine eligibility for the program, the observation that girls have greater verbal skills at an early age, and the inability and/or disinclination of boys to sit still and be quiet are all considered.
Richard Whitmire at Why Boys Fail weighs in here.
I think one question that we need to ask– quite aside from the matter of of bias against boys in school — is whether there should be gifted programs for kindergartners in the first place. I suspect that whatever is being offered in those programs would benefit any five-year-old child.
