more qualify for kindergarten gifted programs the number of children qualifying for gifted kindergarten programs in new york city public schools rose by percent this year even as the number of students taking the test dropped by about onesixth according to statistics released friday by the department of education pdf this means that about percent more of the children who took the gifted test passed it this year than did last year among the students who qualified the number of students with top scores skyrocketed nearly a third more children than last year scored over the th percentile nationally on the admissions test up from students need to score over the th national percentile to gain admission to one of five prestigious citywide gifted programs but there are only kindergarten seats in those programs meaning the competition for them this year will be even more fierce the cause of the higher passing rates was not immediately clear but increased preparation may have been a factor as the times has reported hundreds of students citywide had professional tutoring before taking this years admission test a mixture of the otislennon school ability test a reasoning exam and the bracken school readiness assessment the citys wealthiest districts had higher passing rates than last year in district which includes the upper west side a full percent of students who took the test qualified for district gifted programs by scoring over the th percentile in district which includes most of manhattan south of th street except the upper west side east village and lower east side percent of the test takers qualified on staten island by contrast only percent of the children who took the test qualified the jump in high scorers was even more striking in district percent more students than last year scored over the percentile a total of students compared with last year in district students got top scores a percent increase in all about onequarter of the testtakers in those districts scored over the th percentile the number of kindergartners qualifying for gifted programs citywide has been rising steadily since and this year children qualified up from the percentage of testers scoring above the th percentile has also increased each year from percent in to percent in and now to percent this year the city has been trying to raise the number of children taking the test especially in poor districts to make programs for gifted students more racially diverse and accessible but this year appeared to bring a reversal in that effort with the number of testers dropping back to levels after a surge last year it was not initially clear why the numbers of test takers dropped to around the citys school districts used to use diverse criteria for admissions into their programs for gifted students but the city made the test the sole factor in gifted admissions in in part to address the stubborn overrepresentation of white children being admitted into the programs the citys gifted programs have been criticized as a bastion of privilege but are also seen as a way to keep middleclass new yorkers in the public system yet the programs for gifted students have remained nearly the mirror image of the school systems racial composition as a whole according to city statistics released earlier this spring while percent of the citys school children are black and hispanic they make up percent of the kindergarten gifted classes whites and asians are percent of this years gifted kindergarten classes though are just percent of the total school population the problem may be exacerbated this year by the drop in test takers though that data will not be available until next fall the south bronx saw the largest decrease in the number of children tested with numbers in district down percent and in district percent district also saw the number of passing students go down by percent