'Explosive'

In addition to trying to figure out how to better address the needs of boys, "We are considering whether it makes sense to have gender weighting in the [college prep] admissions process," Duncan told the Chicago Sun-Times.

"I've asked staff to look at both the legal and educational ramifications."

Duncan was reacting to a college prep gender analysis performed by the Chicago Board of Education at the Chicago Sun-Times' request. That analysis follows a new University of Chicago study reflecting a gender gap across the city's high schools in grade point averages, ACT scores and eventual college success.

The college prep analysis, however, indicates the gender gap isn't just surfacing among poor, low-scoring kids, said Michael Gurian, author of the book The Minds of Boys: Saving our Sons from Falling Behind in School and Life. It's apparently reaching into Chicago's top-echelon eighth-graders -- some of them from private schools -- who apply to one of the largest networks of public high schools for smart kids in the nation.

That's "explosive," said Gurian, who contends boys are disadvantaged by classrooms that favor girls' strengths and punish male weaknesses. "It's a big deal."

Judy Kleinfeld, director of the Boys Project, a new not-for-profit group formed to address the male gender gap, agrees.

"The best and the brightest children of both sexes should get an equal crack at the best the city has to offer," said Kleinfeld, a professor of psychology at the University of Alaska and author of a paper "The Myth that Schools Shortchange Girls."

"Instead, you're getting a system where the girls are getting the best shot at the best education."

By the numbers

At the Sun-Times' request, Jeffrey Gray, who oversees CPS college prep admissions, looked at the gender of eighth-graders who took the system's college prep admission test this year. He found a gap in several areas.

The kids Gray analyzed were all at least average-scoring in math and reading, a prerequisite for taking the admission test.

Gray found that although 55 percent of admission test-takers were girls, nearly two-thirds of those accepted -- 63 percent -- were girls.

In addition, nearly one of every three girls who took an admission test was accepted by at least one college prep, compared to almost one out of every four boys.

A gap also was evident among the very cream of the college prep crop. Of the 10 percent highest-scoring kids accepted at any college prep this year, 62 percent were female and 38 percent were male.

And, get this: At the state's best-scoring public high school for several years running -- Northside College Prep -- the 10 highest-scoring kids accepted were all girls.

At Payton College Prep, No. 2 statewide, only six of the 20 highest-scoring kids accepted were boys, Gray said. At No. 3 Whitney Young and No. 8 Jones, only five of the 20 highest-scoring kids accepted were boys.

Big change from 2004

A disparity also was apparent in the overall admission scores of rejected students. Rejected girls averaged a 656 out of a possible 1,000 in the college prep scoring system, compared to 625.5 for the average rejected boy. In grade point averages alone -- worth up to 300 points in the scoring system -- rejected girls averaged a 2.82 GPA, compared to 2.45 for rejected boys.

"One is closer to a B and the other is closer to a C," said John Easton, director of the University of Chicago's Consortium on Chicago School Research. "It seems like a meaningful difference."

The percentage of girls accepted this year was only slightly higher than the percentage of girls accepted last year. However, CPS data showed, both years represent a marked change from 2004, when slightly more males than females were accepted.

Mother-daughter split

Pasteur Elementary eighth-grader Erin Hederman, 13, was among the girls accepted at Jones College Prep this fall -- and she's proud of it.

"I'm actually a little blown away," she said of the girl-dominant statistics. "Usually you hear boys are more superior to girls, but I think now we're proving that girls shouldn't be looked down on because they're girls.

"I think it's pretty cool that more girls are going to these tougher high schools."

Hederman said she would favor gender weighting, as long as only "minor adjustments" are made to keep enrollments "closer to 50-50." She'd accept boys whose overall score is 15 to 20 points lower than girls to help the gender balance.

At college preps, she said, "there's a certain number of each race. I think there should be a certain number of boys and girls accepted."

Her mom, Colleen Hederman, disagrees. She said Erin was offered a "pretty lucrative scholarship" at an all-girls Catholic school, but chose Jones instead.

College prep girls "are not there for the boys," Erin's mom said. "That's not the reason Erin is going. She's going to Jones because of the programs that it offers and the challenges she will face."

Principals weigh in

Top administrators at Jones, Whitney Young and Brooks all said they favor opening a discussion of whether to start gender weighting in the college preps.

Jones Principal Donald Fraynd said he even asked to do gender weighting this year but was told only adjustments for race are allowed.

However, Fraynd said, if CPS is forced to create a new admission system for magnet schools -- as it may be, depending on the outcome of a pending court case -- gender should be one of several factors considered at admission.

"I taught at an all-boys school. I have experience with single-sex schools. I think it can be right for some kids, but you miss out on a whole spectrum of things when you become too much of any one group," Fraynd said.

"For a citywide school, we ought to as much as possible reflect the city we serve."

Some girls might worry about the effect on their social life of a heavily female school. But at Brooks College Prep, where nearly 70 percent of accepted students are girls, Assistant Principal Robert Kobylski raised another concern: the impact on boys sports.

"We'd like to have 30 male freshmen on the football team. That becomes problematic if you're only bringing in 60 boys to begin with," Kobylski said.

"We want to be as diverse as possible, and we can't achieve those aims without a diverse population that includes gender and ethnicity," Kobylski said.

Because students can be accepted at up to four college preps, Whitney Young Principal Joyce Kenner noted that the gender ratio of accepted kids may be different than that of those who ultimately walk in the door. However, she said, Young's accepted ratio seemed "pretty unbalanced" this year and "if that trend continues, we need to look at how to bring more equity" to accepted-student ratios.

Northside Principal James Lalley, however, says he hopes the system doesn't move to gender weighting.

"It would be another target we'd have to look at, in addition to special education and race," Lalley said. Pretty soon, he said, "We're going to have to have so many red-heads, so many blue-eyed kids."

"If it were 75-25, I suppose I'd say there's something goofy going on here," Lalley said. "What's the magic number that makes it coed? And when do you stop [gender weighting]?"

Girls do their homework

Chicago's college prep gender gap doesn't surprise Thomas Mortensen, who's been warning for years of a similar gap on college campuses across the nation in his newsletter, called Postsecondary Education OPPORTUNITY.

For every 100 girls born, Mortensen said, there are 105 boys -- and that's been true for about the last 40 years. For every 100 girls enrolled in elementary grades, he said, 107 boys are enrolled.

Erin Hederman, 13, holds her acceptance letter to Jones College Prep. “I think it’s pretty cool that more girls are going to these tougher high schools,” she said. (KEITH HALE/SUN-TIMES)

But by the time both groups reach college age, 74 men are getting bachelor's degrees for every 100 women.

"The numbers reflect the hemorrhaging of boys from conception to bachelor's degree," Mortensen said.

That doesn't mean more girls are smarter than boys; they are just more successful academically because "they are more focused and more organized and they actually do the homework so they have higher grades," Mortensen said.

"The girls are always going to get the better grades because they are out-and-out better students. They are more socialized, more cooperative and more responsive to teachers," Mortensen said.

Developmentally, girls are 18 months ahead of boys, Kleinfeld said. On top of that, they walk into classrooms -- often headed by female teachers -- that play to their strengths.

"The big issue is writing, both neat work and verbal skills," Kleinfeld said. "No matter what the subject, if the test requires writing, girls are at an advantage. More and more schools require students to write about their answers, even in mathematics."

What to fix first?

Meanwhile, many boys' strengths -- such as "innovative, out-of-the-box thinking where you don't follow the rules" -- are ignored, Kleinfeld said.

Back in the 1950s, Kleinfeld said, "girls would hide their intelligence because it wasn't feminine." But today, girls may be overtaking boys because "what's changed is that girls are giving it their all. . . . They are trying their hardest. . . .

"For girls, especially in the 21st century, all the messages they get say, 'Go, girl, go.' "

In contrast, male peers often reject bright boys as "nerds or dorks unless they are athletic," Kleinfeld said.

"The result is that guys very often, including the bright boys of every race, think it's cool not to work hard. It's easy for them to get absorbed in video games and turn off from school."

Gurian recommends rearranging classrooms to allow those males who need it room to pace back and forth, enjoy recess and even doodle or play with a squeeze-ball to prevent boredom. Teachers need to learn the different ways the two sexes learn, he said.

Even so, Gurian predicts gender weighting at Chicago's college preps is inevitable.

"I believe it will go on in Chicago, and it will go on all over. You can't have 70-30. Parents are not going to live with a 70-30 gap. They are going to start pressuring these prep schools to let in more guys," Gurian said.

To Kleinfeld, such gender weighting is "a terrible idea."

"It will just do what affirmative action generally does. It will make everyone suspicious of the achievement of the group," Kleinfeld said. "What we need to do is teach boys better so they actually learn more."

Julie Woestehoff of Chicago's Parents United for Responsible Education said the first mission should be to make sure Chicago is using the fairest -- and least gender-biased -- measuring stick to pick college prep kids.

"To me, we shouldn't game the system. We should fix the system," Woestehoff said.

"Everybody hates this system and how many times it's changed and how confusing it is and how scary it is. So I don't think changing it more is going to make anybody comfortable," Woestehoff said.

"Gender weighting would only increase the likelihood that the kids who will get in will be the kids that somebody [with clout] sent.

"After all, this is Chicago."

rrossi@suntimes.com