Letters To The Editor

To the Editor:

My article ( "Where the Boys Are," June 12, 1996) argued that, contrary to popular opinion, it is boys rather than girls who are on the weak side of the gender gap. If you look at most relevant data on gender differentials--grades, college attendance, engagement with school, self-destructive behavior, etc.--boys show up as the "gender at risk." David Sadker ( "Where the Girls Are," Sept. 4, 1996,) who believes that our biased system has been "failing at fairness" to girls, counters by reciting poorer girls' scores on the SAT and the Graduate Record Examination. But SAT scores tell you about the higher end of the school population. Far more boys than girls are at the low end.

To get a balanced picture, you need to look at tests that measure all our children--not just the top two-fifths that take the SAT. One relevant inclusive test is the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and it shows that girls are slightly behind boys in math and science, while boys are way behind girls in reading and writing. If anything, NAEP may be understating the deficit for boys: Boys are overrepresented in programs for the learning-disabled, and children in these programs are often excluded...