Young women are taking more honors classes, getting better grades and have a higher overall GPA than their male peers, according to a report compiling SAT Test data.
The report, released by the College Board, looked at the test scores of college-bound seniors in 2016, and reviewed high school data demographics. Girls, it turns out, are doing much better in high school than boys. In a chart compiled by American Enterprise Scholar Mark Perry, it’s clear that girls are outperforming boys on nearly every level in high school.
A majority (56 percent) of those in the top 10 percent of their class were girls, and most As and A+s were obtained by girls. Just 40 percent of A+s went to boys. Further down the grading scale, boys earned the majority (63 percent) of grades D and below. The overall GPA in 2016 was 3.45 for girls and 3.30 for boys. Girls also took more AP and honors classes, even in math and science.
Don’t expect to hear calls for helping boys perform better in school. Activists have focused so heavily on girls for years now that boys have gotten the message that they no longer matter. It’s what Christina Hoff Sommers wrote about in her book “The War Against Boys” nearly two decades ago.
What Perry noted in the chart above isn’t new for this year, it’s been a trend since before Hoff Sommers’ book. Yet the focus is still on girls.
It is curious, however, as we look at the SAT data, that despite getting better grades and taking more difficult classes, boys still get better SAT scores in math than girls. In 2016, boys slightly outperformed girls on critical reading, with a mean score of 495. The mean score for girls was 493. On the math portion, the mean for boys was 524, compared to 494 for girls.
But on the writing portion, which has only been around since 2006, girls outperform boys, with a mean score of 487. The mean score for boys was 475.
More girls than boys are attending college and getting master’s and doctoral degrees. It’s time to recognize that both sexes have strengths and weaknesses and need some help in education. We can no longer ignore the many problems for boys in favor of helping girls. If we continue down this path, there won’t be equality of the sexes; boys will be the underperforming sex.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
