That thorny issue of girls and math, and what it ignores

Debate over why the best-educated girls do worse at math than the best-educated boys exploded 35 years ago when researchers at Johns Hopkins suggested a "superior male mathematical ability," writes Eduardo Porter for The New York Times. Yet amid the din over girls' math achievement, boys are falling behind in everything else. Six out of 10 of those who lack baseline proficiency across OECD tests in math, reading, and science are boys, including 15 percent of American boys. More boys than girls underperform overall in every country tested except Luxembourg and Liechtenstein. At the bottom, the gap is enormous: The worst-performing American girls -- worse in reading than 94 of every 100 peers -- scored 49 points higher than bottom-ranked American boys. And the dismal performance of boys in well-developed countries suggests development alone will not lift their educational prospects. Data indicate it won't reduce girls' math deficits, either. Girls outperform boys in math by the widest margins in relatively poor countries like Malaysia and Thailand, and in nations like the United Arab Emirates and Qatar that have few women's rights. Strategies premised on the belief that gender gaps in education merely reflect discrimination in society have not closed longstanding deficits for the best-educated girls, and have done nothing for boys, Porter writes. More

Source:  Public Education News Blast

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