Study shows gender gap has vanished in math scores - Santa Cruz...

So, how are the boys doing in language skills?

I am sure that this is a cultural thing. If one travels to foreign countries, they will not see the same situation that has existed in this country. My son lives in Moscow, Russia now and there are as many female math students and engineers as men. This is just an aberration from the curriculum of the colleges in the past. It takes a long time for some things to change.
These schools that embrace diversity and multiculturalism are some of the slowest institutions to change anything.

It is great that they are finally wising up about the girls.

Dave, you don't need to go to Russia to see that.

When I was in high school (1960s) in the eastern US, the community was run by the Irish, as were many eastern towns at the time. Before that, it was run by the English, but that was long ago.

At any rate, the Irish liked to get into civil service jobs. So, if you were of Irish descent and not too dumb, the school tended to steer you into courses that were pertinent to future City Hall kinds of jobs. Those stressed language skills and history. But if you were not of Irish descent, the school tended to steer you into "science and math," which really meant future plumbers and nurses. Understand that in that era, it was not a white collar community, and many of the parents were school dropouts.

Being Irish is not gender-specific. So, the "science and math" courses had plenty of girls. Few of them were of Irish descent. It was the same when I started in the local college, before I transferred out: about two-thirds of the math majors were female, because about two-thirds of all students were female.(The local college did not have much by way of big-time programs.)

Many years later, I was briefly in the Midwest, and happened to teach at a high school for a short time. That community did not have much ethnic polarization; most students were indistinguishable, even within white people's nationalities. In that case, "science and math" was indeed heavily male. But once again, it referred to future plumbers (not so much nurses). The girls were in "business" courses (future typists).