Girls, on average, find more success at school than boys.
The data are clear; the reasons behind it, less so. Are boys today simply less likely than girls to see the value of succeeding academically? Or do boys find school and the way educators deliver learning to be uninspiring?
There’s no simple answer to these questions. The good news is that the problems that plague boys at school are beginning to get attention—from child advocates, mental health professionals, educators, and even policymakers.
Education Week, too, has explored the issue in-depth, through a months-long enterprise reporting project, School Isn’t Working for Boys. Solutions Are in Reach. The project includes evidence-based, practical ways to help boys succeed at every grade level.
But, as with any problem, an awareness of its breadth must precede a solution. The following data points illuminate some of the gaps between boys and girls throughout, and beyond, their K-12 education journey.
Academic Achievement
Boys are far more likely than girls to repeat kindergarten
For every 100 girls who repeat kindergarten, 145 boys repeat the grade. Students who are retained often exhibit behavioral problems, perform below their peers in literacy skills during kindergarten, and, on average, continue to lag behind their peers academically by the end of 1st grade, research shows.
Girls outpace boys in literacy skills
On average, girls in 3rd grade outperform boys in reading and writing by roughly half a grade level. By the end of 8th grade, girls are almost a full grade ahead. That’s according to a 2018 study from Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis that tracked assessments from 10,000 districts across the nation.
Girls are closing in on the math achievement gap
Historically, boys have outperformed girls in math throughout K-12. But over the past 30 years, a growing body of evidence shows girls catching up to boys in math performance. (Math learning loss during the pandemic did appear to hit girls harder than boys, as evidenced by a recent international test of 4th and 8th graders.)
Boys continue to outscore girls on standardized math assessments like SAT tests. Even so, girls in high school tend to have higher math GPAs than their male classmates.
More girls than boys take advanced courses in high school
Girls, in addition to being more likely to take advanced courses in high school, tend to earn higher grade point averages than boys in high school. In one statewide study of public high school students, 51 percent of graduating female students earned a high school GPA above 3.0, compared to 36 percent of male students. Girls were 1.9 times more likely to be in the top 5 percent of graduating GPAs, and boys were 1.6 times more likely to be in the bottom 5 percent of GPAs.
Graduation and Beyond
Girls outpace boys in on-time high school graduation rates
Among 28 states that captured on-time high school graduation rates in 2021, 89.1 percent of girls graduated in four years, compared to 82.9 percent of boys.
Impact of race on graduation rates
On-time high school graduation rates in Michigan in 2021, one of the largest states for which this data was available:
*Pandemic could have affected data
Available data show that Black boys generally graduate from high school at lower rates than students of other races. There are no national data to report, but one recent study of residents from 15 counties across the country found low high school graduation rates among Black male students in the following locales: Detroit (54 percent); Philadelphia (59 percent); Baltimore (65 percent); Minneapolis (65 percent), and Oakland, Calif., (71 percent).
That same study, from the Schott Foundation for Public Education and the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools, found graduating from high school to be a key factor in improving life expectancy.
Women are more likely to earn a college degree
Nationwide, 47 percent of U.S. women ages 25 to 34 have a bachelor’s degree, compared to just 37 percent of men. This wasn’t always the case: In 1995, men and women earned bachelor’s degrees at an equal rate of 25 percent. In 1970, men outpaced women in college enrollment and attainment.
What differs today isn’t just that women are more likely to earn a college degree. One-third of men who don’t have a degree say they don’t want one, according to the Pew Research Center.
Special Education
Boys make up about two-thirds of all special education students
About 7.3 million students in the nation’s public K-12 schools have disabilities that qualify them for special education, a number that has trended upward in recent decades.
Boys make up the majority of students in special education (65 percent). The most common type of disability for students in prekindergarten through 12th grade involves “specific learning disabilities,” such as dyslexia, according to federal data.
Rates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Boys are approximately four times more likely than girls to be diagnosed with ADHD. Boys’ and girls’ ADHD symptoms tend to differ. In boys, primary symptoms include hyperactivity and problems with impulsive control. In girls, the main symptoms include inattentiveness and lack of focus, according to medical journal The Lancet.
Teachers’ perceptions of ADHD differs along gender lines
In a nationally representative survey by the EdWeek Research Center, 82 percent of educators said they think ADHD is more prevalent in boys. Forty-two percent of educators said disrupting class was the most common problem among boys with ADHD, compared to only 9 percent of respondents who said the same about girls with ADHD.
More than half of educators surveyed (56 percent) said they had received little to no training about ADHD.
The main symptoms that boys with ADHD present at school, such as disrupting class and general behavior problems, correspond to factors commonly associated with disciplinary measures.
Disciplinary Measures
Boys, especially Black boys, face a disproportionate percentage of suspensions and expulsions from preschool
Data show that boys get punished more frequently than girls as early as preschool. Drilling down, researchers found that preschool-age boys who are Black or bigger than most of their peers were more likely to be disciplined than their peers.
Black boys made up 9.6 percent of total enrollment in public preschools during the 2017-18 school year, but represented 34.2 percent of total suspensions.
Gender/race disparities related to disciplinary measures continue throughout K-12
Gender disparities in exclusionary school discipline—in-school and out-of-school suspensions and expulsions—continue throughout K-12 education, and apply most frequently to boys who are Black, white, or of two or more races.
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This story is part of a special reporting project exploring why boys, overall, are doing worse in school than girls—and what can be done to reverse the trend.
Why school isn’t working for many boys: Teachers report in a new survey that boys are less motivated and focused than their female counterparts.
The data are clear: Girls, on average, find more success at school than boys. Explore key data points highlighting these disparities.
Reimagining what schools can look like: Find out how four schools get boys excited about learning.
Student-teacher relationships matter: The key to inspiring boys in the classroom is a strong student-teacher relationship, experts say. Here’s how to make it work.
Why boys don’t want to become teachers: Boys would benefit from more male role models in the classroom. Here’s what schools can do about it.
A downloadable tip sheet: Boys are relational learners, experts say. Here are eight key strategies on how to reach them.
