4 Girls hold their own in math and science. The 1999 NAEP long-term trend math assessment shows that there is no statistically significant difference between scores for girls and boys on all three tests. Gender gaps favoring girls in history and biology are much higher. Boys are twice as likely to be enrolled in special education programs. Boys are more likely than girls to be diagnosed with disabilities such as dyslexia, autism, stuttering, and language disorders by a factor of three or four to one.
Boys are less likely to graduate from high school than girls.
They are also less likely to graduate from college with an Associate, Bachelors, or Masters degree. The objective of education reform should be improvement in academic performance for America's children, regardless of race, gender, or national background. Thus, programs and policies should be framed to promote accountability to parents in the education of their children, flexibility in the administration of such programs, and an insistence on academic performance and results. The President's reform proposal is a serious effort to realize these goals, and reformers in Congress are attempting to consolidate ineffective and duplicative programs while establishing mechanisms to get positive results. All children should benefit from education reform.