I've been hearing lately how boys can't keep up with girls in the school system, "male advocate" Richard Reeves even suggesting "red-shirting" boys by a year to allow them to catch up.

However, even if boys are on average getting worse grades than girls in school, nation wides standardized tests show they don't lag as much behind in ability as suggested. In fact they even are on average doing better at Math (albeit with a greater standard deviation), despite the fact girls generally getter better grades and are more likely to advanced Math courses.

This is very important and I wish more people are aware about this, it's more about the schooling not boys' ability.

2024 SAT Results

971,405 (49.21%) Male and 990,760 (50.19%) Female students took the SAT Test in 2024. Since more Females students took it, its very likely a high amount of male students are not represented, most of these are expected to be on the lower end of the tails, considering boys are predominantly the poorer performing students and more likely to drop out.

There are some states where it is mandatory to take the SAT and/or 95%+ of the graduating high school class took it, so I've analyzed their SAT Suites I got from the CollegeBoard website (https://reports.collegeboard.org/sat-suite-program-results) .

Territory SAT Math SAT ERW Overall
DC (100%) Boys +19 Boys +1 Boys +19
New Mexico (100%) Boys +8 Girls +6 Equal (0)
Indiana (100%) Boys +11 Girls +10 Boys +1
Rhode Island (99%) Boys +6 Girls +15 Girls +9
Connecticut (98%) Boys +10 Girls +12 Girls +2
Delaware (97%) Boys +6 Girls +15 Girls +9
Michigan (96%) Boys +7 Girls +15 Girls +8
Illinois (96%) Boys +5 Girls +10 Girls +9
Florida (95%) Boys +5 Girls +13 Girls +7

Boys were more likely to meet the Math Benchmark as well as meet both the Math and ERW benchmark in all states. Girls were more likely to meet the ERW benchmark in all states/territories except for DC. Boys were also more likely to meet none of the benchmarks implying greater male variability (diversity) in capabilities.

Math

https://preview.redd.it/49txxd83yb5f1.png?width=1456&format=png&auto=webp&s=a199e1084f47f817c1c190362d12199f79bed925

  • Boys on average had a higher mean in Mathematics in all the states but had a greater standard deviation (diversity) as well.
  • Boys are overrepresented amongst the top scorers in all states (600-800), but are also generally equally represented amongst the low scorers (200-390), though in some states there are a bit more males in the lowest scores (200-290), the low scorers are quite gender balanced.

Reading

https://preview.redd.it/a4bmylq3yb5f1.png?width=1456&format=png&auto=webp&s=9a5a18614164abae4fa6bd32dd33246d5a4eab11

  • There is a greater standard deviation for males in the Reading section as well.

  • DC is generally an exception since it’s the only state where boys outperform girls on the ERW as well, so we’ll ignore it.

  • Boys and girls are generally equally represented amongst the top scorers in Reading (30-40), however, when it comes to lowest scorers (10-19), boys are overrepresented in all the states (generally by about 5%).

Writing

https://preview.redd.it/m7sg5uc4yb5f1.png?width=1456&format=png&auto=webp&s=c7da4418bfdf7955e4151320f2359b26b57e2eb3

  • In most states the top most boys are generally able to keep up with the girls in writing (35-40), however, girls are overrepresented in the top scorers (30-40).
  • Boys, however, are highly overrepresented in the lowest scorers (10-19) in all the states by an average of 6-8%.

Conclusion

Boys on mean have better ability at Math but greater variance. So while the brighest students in Math will be male, an equal amount of boys and girls will strugle.

While it comes to verbal ability, girls are on average better, but boys have a greater standard deviation. So the top boys will be able to keep up with the top girls, but there is a great overrepresentation of boys among the bottom scorers.

These differences are present in all states, and are even present in most countries as seen in PISA assessments. So, these are most likely biologically driven.

Nowadays most of schooling is heavily based on verbal ability, memorization, and regurgitating, hand-writing, neateness, and also sitting down for many hours together. These are things which girls are advantaged in, which might explain poorer grade performance of boys while still doing decently in standardized testing.

My suggestion for this is sex segregated schooling to address this.

Further Reading

Susbtack Post (under Edit).