Chalkbeat Ideas is a section featuring reported columns on the big ideas and debates shaping American schools. Sign up for the Ideas newsletter to follow our work.
New results from a long-running set of federal exams show a striking, persistent, and unexplained duality: Girls’ scores have fallen more sharply than boys’ and then have been slower to recover. In some cases, they haven’t recovered at all.
In math, among both 9- and 13-year-olds, boys’ advantage over girls is higher than at any point since 1978, which is as far back as the data goes. In reading, 9-year-old boys have reached parity with their female peers for the first time on record, largely because girls’ scores have declined.
This pattern has also emerged on a battery of other assessments. To date, researchers have not reached any consensus on what explains this. The latest results suggest this gender gap in learning is not simply a pandemic-induced blip.
To be clear, we should not see this as a battle of the sexes, but as a warning sign that something is going wrong academically for girls. In other words, America’s “learning recession” has hit girls hardest. Understanding why may be a key part of addressing this national challenge.
Soon after the pandemic upended American schooling and life, researchers began showing that learning rates fell most sharply among children whose school buildings were closed longer. Students from low-income families and those who started at lower levels academically were also particularly affected.
Few experts predicted or even noticed the gender disparities that were beginning to emerge. If anything, in recent years there has been growing attention to boys’ struggles in school. There are good reasons for this: Boys as a group are more likely to be suspended and less likely to finish high school or college.
I first noticed the gender gap in learning loss in late 2024 when it showed up on an international math and science exam. I assumed this was a fluke, but just in case I started looking into it. Sure enough, on virtually every U.S. test, girls’ scores had fallen faster than boys. This has occurred in other countries too, at least on certain exams.
The latest federal NAEP results, which track scores all the way back to the ‘70s, confirm that this gender gap in learning has persisted through at least last year.
(One caveat worth keeping in mind: We’re talking about averages across a massive population here. This doesn’t tell us much of anything about an individual girl or boy.)
Experts I’ve talked to have offered a handful of hypotheses to explain these surprising gender disparities:
- Girls have previously performed better in school by some metrics, so removing typical school structures, as occurred during the pandemic, may have harmed them more.
- As children spent more time at home during the pandemic, girls might have borne more responsibility including caregiving for younger children. This could have limited their attention to schoolwork.
- The growth of social media and screens might have harmed girls more than boys.
- Even post-pandemic, girls may have been more likely to quietly internalize their academic struggles, which could have caused teachers to overlook their needs.
None of these strikes me as terribly satisfying, though. The pandemic is in the rearview mirror, and if anything the gender gap has continued to widen. Social media is unlikely to explain trends that are affecting 9-year-olds.
Broader theories meant to elucidate disappointing test scores don’t seem especially helpful here either. Less accountability for schools, for instance, wouldn’t obviously affect girls more than boys.
Officials at the Education Department, who released the latest scores, are loath to speculate about what’s driving trends, including the emergent gender gap. “Researchers, policy leaders can do that digging under the hood,” said Matthew Soldner, head of the department’s research arm. Such digging is indeed necessary here.
For the moment, though, there’s no end in sight for the remarkable and unexplained gender divide in learning loss and recovery.
Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.
