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For Immediate Release: 15 September 2008

Gender Achievement Gaps Among Vermont Students Reflect National Trends

Boston, Mass. — A new report from the Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands (REL-NEI) finds that gender achievement gaps in reading, writing, and math assessments among fourth- and eighth-graders in Vermont are generally no greater than those of similar grade students in the United States as a whole.

Using publicly available data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP), researchers addressed two questions of interest to Vermont state education leaders:

1. Do gender gaps differ significantly between Vermont and U.S. NAEP scores?
2. How do gender gaps differ between Vermont’s NECAP (the state assessment) scores and its NAEP scores?

The report, titled “Gender Gaps in Assessment Outcomes in Vermont and the United States,” shows that from 2000 to 2007, fourth- and eighth-grade girls in Vermont and the country as a whole consistently outscored boys in reading and writing on standardized tests, while boys typically outscored girls in math. These findings are consistent with previous research. The differences between these gender gaps in Vermont and in the nation, both aggregated and disaggregated by poverty and by disability status, were statistically insignificant in almost all cases. The study found that:

• In reading, girls outscored boys on the NAEP from 2002 to 2007 in both Vermont and nationwide by an average 5–8 points (or 7–10 percentiles) in grade 4, and 9–13 points (or 11–16 percentiles) in grade 8.
• In writing, fourth-grade girls outscored fourth-grade boys on the 2002 NAEP by an average 21 points (or 23 percentiles) in Vermont and 18 points (or 19 percentiles) nationwide. The average eighth-grade gap was 24 points (25 percentiles) in Vermont and 21 points (22 percentiles) nationwide.
• In math, boys outscored girls on the NAEP from 2000 to 2007 in both Vermont and nationwide by an average of 5 points (or 8 percentiles) or less.
• In all but a few cases, gender gaps in reading and math scores on the Vermont NECAP differed from those on the Vermont NAEP by 5 percentile points or less.

“Although some Vermont education leaders were afraid that gender gaps in test scores within the state have been larger than those in the country as a whole, NAEP data suggest that Vermont and U.S. gender gaps have been very similar,” said Josephine Louie, a research associate at Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), a global nonprofit organization that administers REL-NEI. “At the same time, comparisons of Vermont and U.S. test-score data have raised a number of interesting questions for further investigation.”

For example, the report finds that in both Vermont and the United States, gender gaps in reading and writing, where girls outperform boys, increase from grade 4 to grade 8, while gender gaps in math, where boys outperform girls, shrink from grade 4 to grade 8. These patterns may reflect the same phenomenon—as students advance in grade level, scores may increase more for girls than for boys. Studies that examine data from other grade levels and states could test this hypothesis.

Louie and her fellow researcher, Stacy Ehrlich, also found that the degree to which girls outperformed boys in reading and neared boy’s performance in math was greater on the 2006 NECAP than on the 2007 NAEP. The authors suggest that future research might examine why gender gaps on the NECAP appear to favor girls.

The report details gender gaps for reading, writing, and math among all students, and controlling for poverty and disability status. It includes additional findings and describes limitations to the analyses and publicly available datasets, as well as ideas for further inquiry. A full text of the report is available at http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects.

For more information about this report, contact agaddis@edc.org.

The Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands (REL-NEI) is run by Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), the American Institutes for Research (AIR), and WestEd’s Learning Innovations program. REL-NEI is one of 10 Regional Educational Laboratories funded by the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education. REL-NEI provides rigorous research that is relevant to national education priorities, responsive to local needs, and usable for policy and practice. Visit www.edc.org/relnei.

This project has been funded at least in part with federal funds from the U.S. Department of Education under Contract Number ED-06-CO-0025. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Education nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

Education Development Center, Inc.(EDC) is a global nonprofit organization that develops, delivers, and evaluates innovative programs to address some of the world’s most urgent challenges in education, health, and economic development. Celebrating its 50th year, EDC manages more than 300 projects in 35 countries. Visit www.edc.org.