Math Scores Show No Gap for Girls

A piece in today's Times covers a new NSF-funded study that compares standardized math test scores for girls and boys and finds no difference. These studies are important in that there is a fair amount of evidence that the perception that women underachieve in some subjects becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Although boys in high school performed better than girls in math 20 years ago, the researchers found, that is no longer the case. The reason, they said, is simple: Girls used to take fewer advanced math courses than boys, but now they are taking just as many.

Poor Larry Summers can't catch a break, though - he's portrayed as suggesting that women achieve at lower levels. In actuality, he was talking about differing levels of variance in test scores (and posited equal means in his infamous lecture). The article doesn't discuss second order statistics, but I'd hope that the actual study does.

What I found particularly interesting:

The study also analyzed the gender gap on the math section of the SAT. Rather than proving boys’ superior talent for math, the study found, the difference is probably attributable to a skewed pool of test takers. The SAT is taken primarily by seniors bound for college, and since more girls than boys go to college, about 100,000 more girls than boys take the test, including lower-achieving girls who bring down the girls’ average score.

College populations are becoming more and more skewed female. Before long I imagine people will be worrying about the intrinsic aptitude of *my* gender.