Female Supremacy Articles - Page 21

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Averaging all four subjects, girls were 70 percent more likely than boys to reach state goals on the Connecticut Academic Performance Test. In reading and writing, girls were more than twice as likely to hit the marks.

Girls' performance relative to boys' in Waterbury has improved steadily since 2001, when they were barely half as likely to hit the goal in science and 60 percent as likely in math.

The growing gender divide here mirrors a larger pattern being noticed by educators in Connecticut and nationwide.

Elementary and middle school girls statewide trailed boys slightly in math on the latest Connecticut Mastery Test, but trumped boys in reading and clobbered them in writing.

"Girls definitely do better than the boys, and that's becoming a national trend," Assistant Superintendent Paul V. Sequeira said. "I really and truly believe that when it comes to education, academics, that girls take their work a lot more seriously."

The CAPT is administered every year to sophomores in public high schools statewide. About 1,100 students in Waterbury's four high schools took the test in March. Results help determine whether schools are meeting the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind education reform law.

The tests are scored on a five-point scale; the state goal is a four.