“In 2019, the average girl scored a 517 on the assessment, which is measured on a 1000-point scale, and boys scored a 514, just a three-point difference. In 2023, boys’ scores had dropped 19 points on average, while girls’ scores dropped an astonishing 36 points on average.
“Since 2019, girls’ test scores have dropped sharply, often to the lowest point in decades. Boys’ scores have also fallen during that time, but the decline among girls has been more severe,” writes education reporter Matt Barnum. “Boys now consistently outperform girls in math, after being roughly even or slightly ahead in the years before 2020. Girls still tend to perform better in reading, but their scores have dropped closer to boys.”
Why is this happening? Researchers aren’t sure. One theory is that girls may have taken on more domestic tasks than boys during pandemic lockdowns (for example, taking care of younger siblings) and thus may have missed out on more learning. Another is that girls tend to have fewer behavioral issues, meaning that struggling girls weren’t called to educators’ attention in the same way many boys were.”
https://reason.com/2025/01/09/girls-may-have-been-hit-hardest-by-pandemic-learning-loss