Girls and boys in the school district achieve similar test
scores, charging past stereotypical trend
Encouraging data shows that the Gilroy Unified School District bucks a rather stereotypical trend: boys significantly outperforming their female counterparts in mathematics.
Even in an age witnessing the first woman running for president, some Americans were disheartened when Harvard President Lawrence Summers sparked an uproar by purporting that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in math and science careers and Mattel Toys stocked shelves with a talking Barbie who declared “math class is tough” – two incidences that are a throwback to the days of old when women stayed in the home and men were the breadwinners.
Myriad studies over the years point to a significant gender gap in math scores which paves the way for females gravitating toward certain career paths and males to another. The results of those studies do not ring true in Gilroy’s public schools, however. While the standardized test scores for the 2006-2007 school year show that girls trump boys in the way of language arts scores, by up to 10 points at some grades, girls’ math scores rarely stray too far from boys’ scores, sometimes beating them.
Although GUSD looks at scores in terms of gender – they often break the numbers into subgroups of ethnicity or socioeconomic class. Where vast differences exist in those categories, GUSD Data Systems Manager Rob Van Herk noticed little difference when comparing the scores by gender.
“Overall, no one does better than the other,” Van Herk said. “During a data analysis session, I tried to find different angles and started playing with the data. I was very interested to see whether there was a difference. But there seems to be none. There’s no data there that can help us improve student learning by gender.”
While a higher percentage of boys scored at the advanced or proficient level in the lower grades, girls’ test scores pulled ahead in the fifth grade, until dropping back in the sixth grade to trail the boys’ scores by three points. A slight gap is present, but diminishing.
“By high school, a lot of those differences go away,” Superintendent Deborah Flores said. At the beginning of her career, she remembers seeing very few girls in advanced high school math classes. “You don’t see what you used to see anymore – very few girls in higher level math and science.” Gender equality has been a major focus in the last 10 years, she said, and school districts receive grants and implement initiatives to increase female enrollment in math and science courses.
“It’s paid off,” she said. “We’re doing a better job in K through 12.”
Additionally, 132 girls and 130 boys were enrolled in advanced math courses at Gilroy High School last school year, according to a DataQuest, a directory of school data provided by the California Department of Education. The data shows similar enrollment totals and test scores.
“Still, there are many fields where women are vastly underrepresented,” Flores said, citing astrophysics and cardiology as examples. While math scores tended to follow a similar course, almost three times as many boys were enrolled in physics at GHS. However, advanced science course enrollment evened out at the county level with 3,284 females and 3,814 males enrolled in first-year physics – still a discrepancy, but less pronounced.
Even back in the 1999-2000 school year, girls were keeping pace with boys in math. And why wouldn’t they be, asked Dale Russell, the director of standards and assessments at the Santa Clara County Office of Education.
At the county level, Santa Clara County’s students are performing similarly to Gilroy’s. The gender break down is a factor the county office considers every year, Russell said. Although there is a slight difference in favor of girls in language arts and boys in math, other factors create much more significant polarizations.
“Issues that are related to the other factors, like socioeconomic status, create real gaps that need to be closed by giving attention to kids that need more support,” he said. “There’s no doubt about it, the gender gap is closing.”
“As a teacher and a leader we have to be careful to think about how we teach,” said Assistant Superintendent of Student Services Basha Millhollen. “We can’t let the way we were taught influence our own teachings. If we can show there is not a gender bias in our district, that’s a strong plus for us.”
Math proficiency by gender
Percent of boys and girls who scored proficient or advanced on the Algebra II exam, usually taken in 11th grade, during 2006-07 state testing
District
Boys: 39 percent
Girls: 37 percent
County
Boys: 42 percent
Girls: 37 percent
State
Boys: 29 percent
Girls: 25 percent
