For years, public debate has centered on whether schools may be disadvantaging young boys. Boys, on average, have worse outcomes in school across a range of indicators, including grades, reading scores, behavioral skills, suspension/expulsion rates, high school graduation, and college enrollment. Recently, scholars and educators have identified kindergarten as a period where boys may uniquely struggle, contributing to poorer outcomes later in school and life. One prominent criticism argues that the mismatch between academically oriented kindergarten classes and boys’ slower cognitive maturation contributes to boys falling behind academically once they enter school.
If this theory held true, we would expect boys to fall further behind girls over the course of the school year as instruction accumulates. However, when we look closely at a novel data set of K-5 student achievement, a different story emerges—particularly in math.
In a recent paper, I examined MAP® Growth™ data from nearly 12 million students across nine kindergarten cohorts (2016-17 through 2024-25) to understand how math achievement differs for boys and girls from the moment they enter school through the end of fifth grade. The findings challenge widely held assumptions about how schools disadvantage boys and reveal a consistent pattern: Boys start school on a mostly even footing with girls in math, and by the end of elementary school, they hold a clear advantage.
In kindergarten math, increasing gender parity at entry with boys climbing ahead during the school year
Figure 1 shows the math gender gaps in the fall (blue circle on the left) and spring (orange circle on the right) of the kindergarten year for students. Each line represents a different cohort of kindergarteners, from those who entered school in 2016-17 through those who entered in 2024-25. Historically, girls held a small edge in math at school entry (e.g., fall gender gaps shown in Figure 1 favor girls in most years). That was true for the 2016-17 kindergarten class, where girls outperformed boys by 0.08 standard deviations (SDs) in the fall of kindergarten. But this advantage steadily shrank across subsequent cohorts, disappearing entirely for the 2024-25 kindergarten class.
In other words, boys and girls now start kindergarten on essentially equal footing in math.
The most striking shift happens during the kindergarten year itself. While girls’ early advantage has faded over time, boys consistently gain ground during the nine months of kindergarten (shown in Figure 1 as the rightwards shifts from favoring girls in the fall to gaps favoring boys in the spring of kindergarten).
This pattern is evident both before and after the pandemic disruptions. Kindergarten, far from disadvantaging boys, appears to be a period when boys benefit academically in math relative to girls. This finding is consistent with prior research using the ECLS-K data.
Elementary school: A growing math advantage for boys
The gender gap continues to widen throughout elementary school (see Figure 2). By the end of first grade, boys’ advantage in math averages 0.08 SDs across these cohorts. It grows to 0.13 SDs by the end of fifth grade. These gaps are not the product of an unusual cohort or a pandemic-era anomaly. Rather, these trends were remarkably consistent across nine cohorts spanning nearly a decade, regardless of whether the students entered school before, during, or after COVID-19 disruptions.
What about reading?
Across all the years of our study, girls have a sizable advantage over boys in reading skills at school entry (ranging from 0.12 to 0.17 SDs). During the kindergarten year, the gap narrows slightly with boys catching up marginally (improvements of 0 to .03 SDs, as shown in the full paper). However, these gaps stay mostly consistent from school entry to the end of fifth grade (see Figure 3). In other words, gaps in reading favoring girls are largely “fully baked” at school entry and remain stable through elementary school, suggesting that schools neither widen nor close these disparities.
What this means for educators and policymakers
These findings suggest that the narrative of early schooling being mismatched to boys’ academic needs does not hold when it comes to math (where boys pull ahead over time) or reading skills (where girls’ advantage is maintained but not widened throughout elementary school). If anything, the time spent in elementary math instruction tends to favor boys’ skill development over time. While our study is unable to look at similar seasonal trends in social-emotional and behavioral skills, the test score trends we observe do not support the theory that boys are uniquely being disadvantaged academically within elementary school.
Our study points toward a more nuanced reality that is often missed in the “boys crisis” framing: Boys and girls face different challenges in school, and both need targeted support. Girls may have a head start in reading and social and behavioral skills, but they are more likely to face challenges with mental health issues later on and may need extra support and role models in science and math areas. Boys’ behavioral challenges and lower graduation rates highlight that there are still aspects of schools that do not adequately serve boys’ needs.
Given the unique challenges faced by boys and girls, we recommend:
- For boys:
- Addressing negative stereotypes about boys’ reading skills held by many students and teachers
- Intervening early if boys are off-track to read by third grade
- Boosting boys’ motivation and time spent reading for enjoyment
- Increasing male teacher representation in the early grades (the research is mixed on the academic benefits of teacher-student gender match, but representation is important nonetheless)
- For girls:
- Providing role models and mentorship for girls in science and math
- Training teachers to recognize math gender stereotypes and girls’ math anxiety
The goal is not to erase differences but to ensure that all students—regardless of gender—have equitable opportunities to thrive.
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