But looking at grades and scores is just one way to measure how well the schools are doing for each of the sexes. There are other things at work, like biology. When aging men were given testosterone to assist their sexual functioning, they also scored better on visual-spatial tests. Males and females are biologically programmed to excel at different subjects. It is an undisputed fact, for example, that males outnumber females at the very top and the very bottom of the ability scale.
Girls tend to be clustered closer to the middle.
What this means in math and science in particular is that the true superstar academics, the geniuses of math and science, are almost exclusively male. It's nothing the schools did or failed to do. It's gray matter. But other boys pay a price. They outnumber girls in special education classes by 4 to 1.