The California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) was established on January 1 2014. All students at the designated grade levels in the U.S. state of California are required to participate with certain exceptions[1].

My primary purpose is to "disprove" the notion that boys can't keep up with girls in terms of academic ability. As compared to their GPAs, these provide a more accurate assessment of their true abilities without any grading bias or other classroom related issues.

English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics (2023-24)

Mean differences in the scores. Math and ELA were on the same scale.

Math

Meet the standard (L3 + L4)

Boys generally maintained a slim lead in mean score in Maths all the way from Grade 3 to Grade 11 (Note: Grade 9 and 10 were not tested), however, it seems girls seemed to have neutralized it by Grade 8 and 11.

Boys were overrepresented amongst those who exceeded the standards (L4) by about 2-3% constantly and were more likely to meet the standards (L3 + L4) as well, however, they are equally represented amongst the lower scorers that did not meet the standards as well (this also seems to increase by Grades 8 and 11 which isn't a good luck).

English

Meet the standard (L3 + L4)

What's worrying is the English gap keeps increasing drastically and boys lag behind quite a lot by Grade 11. Boys are about ~10% less likely to meet the standards as compared to girls. There is also a disproportionate amount of boys amongst the lowest scorers (L1) further bringing down the mean.

California Science Test (2023-24)

Boys and Girls got the almost exact same mean in all the grades tested: 5, 8, 11, and 12.

https://preview.redd.it/ywgq0c8j596f1.png?width=989&format=png&auto=webp&s=22267b9df7b6c8a9e25c12b7d041700e940411f9

Note: The subsets of Science: Physical, Earth & Space, and Life, have only three standards: Above, Near, and Below.

Boys were more likely to meet the standards for Science (L3 + L4) but were also overrepresented among the lowest scorers (L4) as well as highest scorers (L1).

Similar trends were seen for the subsets, boys were more likely to be above standard in Physical Sciences, Earth and Space Sciences, and about equally likely to meet the standards in Life Sciences. By grade 12. Greater variability is seen here as well.

Conclusion

This replicates the previous finding that was done by looking at SAT scores in States where nearly all of the graduating high school class took the exam (95%). Once again in this sample, boys had a slight mean advantage in Math but a greater variance as well. Similarly in English, girls had an advantage while boys had a greater variance there as well.

This also completely aligns with OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022 done across 61 countries, where boys had a slightly higher mean in Math by 9 points, girls did better in reading by 24 points, whereas Science was equal. Boys also had greater variation in all three just as in this one.

Since these differences in boys' mean ability and the variances seem present across all states and globally, I personally believe these have to be biologically driven.

The main cause of worry for boys would be definitely be reading and writing skills, which along with possible grading biases and issues with classroom, could be the reason why their GPAs often don't match with their actual ability. There is a significant overrpresentation of boys amongst the lowest scorers in Reading/Writing that seems universal, it could be a result of dyslexia, which affects boys disproprotionately.