Girls fell behind boys in math during the pandemic. Schools are trying to make up lost ground

IRVING Texas AP Crowded around a workshop table four girls at de Zavala Middle School puzzled over a Lego machine they had built As they flashed a purple card in front of a light sensor nothing happened The lecturer at the Dallas-area school had emphasized that in the building process there is no such thing as mistakes Only iterations So the girls dug back into the box of blocks and pulled out an orange card They held it over the sensor and the machine kicked into motion Oh Oh it reacts differently to different colors mentioned sixth grader Sofia Cruz In de Zavala s first year as a choice school focused on science machinery engineering and math the school recruited a sixth grade class that s half girls School leaders are hoping the girls will stick with STEM fields In de Zavala s higher grades whose students joined before it was a STEM school particular elective STEM classes have just one girl enrolled Efforts to close the gap between boys and girls in STEM classes are picking up after losing steam nationwide during the chaos of the COVID- pandemic Schools have extensive work ahead to make up for the ground girls lost in both interest and performance In the years leading up to the pandemic the gender gap nearly closed But within a inadequate years girls lost all the ground they had gained in math test scores over the previous decade according to an Associated Press analysis While boys scores also suffered during COVID they have recovered faster than girls widening the gender gap As learning went online special programs to engage girls lapsed and schools were slow to restart them Zoom school also emphasized rote learning a technique based on repetition that particular experts believe may favor boys instead of teaching students to solve problems in different strategies which may benefit girls Old practices and biases likely reemerged during the pandemic announced Michelle Stie a vice president at the National Math and Science Initiative Let s just call it what it is Stie reported When society is disrupted you fall back into bad patterns The pandemic upended progress toward closing the gender gap In bulk school districts in the - school year boys had higher average math scores on standardized tests than girls according to AP s analysis which looked at scores across years in over school districts It was based on average test scores for third through eighth graders in states compiled by the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University A decade later girls had not only caught up they were ahead Slightly more than half of districts had higher math averages for girls Within a scarce years of the pandemic the parity disappeared In - boys on average outscored girls in math in nearly nine out of districts A separate analysis by NWEA an schooling research company exposed gaps between boys and girls in science and math on national assessments went from being practically non-existent in to favoring boys around Studies have indicated girls released higher levels of anxiety and depression during the pandemic plus more caretaking burdens than boys but the dip in academic performance did not appear outside STEM Girls outperformed boys in reading in nearly every district nationwide before the pandemic and continued to do so afterward It wasn t something like COVID happened and girls just fell apart mentioned Megan Kuhfeld one of the authors of the NWEA assessment Initiatives to boost girls confidence in STEM lost traction In the years leading up to the pandemic teaching practices shifted to deemphasize speed competition and rote memorization Through new curriculum standards schools moved toward research-backed methods that emphasized how to think flexibly to solve problems and how to tackle numeric problems conceptually Educators also promoted participation in STEM subjects and programs that boosted girls confidence including extracurriculars that emphasized hands-on learning and connected abstract concepts to real-life applications When STEM courses had large male enrollment Superintendent Kenny Rodrequez noticed girls losing interest as boys dominated classroom discussions at his schools in Grandview C- District outside Kansas City Girls were significantly more engaged after the district moved selected of its introductory hands-on STEM curriculum to the lower grade levels and balanced classes by gender he explained When schools closed for the pandemic the district had to focus on making remote learning work When in-person classes resumed a few of the teachers had left and new ones had to be trained in the curriculum Rodrequez noted Whenever there s emergency we go back to what we knew Rodrequez mentioned Bias against girls in STEM persists Despite shifts in societal perceptions a bias against girls persists in science and math subjects according to teachers administrators and advocates It becomes a message girls can internalize about their own abilities they say even at a very young age In his third grade classroom in Washington D C mentor Raphael Bonhomme starts the year with an exercise where students break down what makes up their identity Rarely do the girls describe themselves as good at math Already a few say they are not a math person I m like you re years old he reported What are you talking about I m not a math person Girls also may have been more sensitive to changes in instructional methods spurred by the pandemic stated Janine Remillard a math learning professor at the University of Pennsylvania Research has ascertained girls tend to prefer learning things that are connected to real-life examples while boys generally do better in a competitive surroundings What teachers recounted me during COVID is the first thing to go were all of these sense-making processes she revealed A school district renews its commitment At de Zavala Middle School in Irving the STEM effort is part of a push that aims to build curiosity resilience and problem-solving across subjects Coming out of the pandemic Irving schools had to make a renewed financing in training for teachers explained Erin O Connor a STEM and innovation specialist there The district last year also piloted a new science curriculum from Lego Learning The lesson involving the machine at de Zavala for example had students learn about kinetic potential Fifth graders learned about genetics by building dinosaurs and their offspring with Lego blocks identifying shared traits It is just rebuilding the way of life of we want to build critical thinkers and issue solvers O Connor disclosed Mentor Tenisha Willis in recent days led second graders at Irving s Townley Elementary School through building a machine that would push blocks into a container She knelt next to three girls who were struggling They tried to add a plank to the wheeled body of the machine but the blocks didn t move enough One girl grew frustrated but Willis was individual She sought what else they could try whether they could flip various parts around The girls ran the machine again This time it worked Sometimes we can t give up Willis stated Sometimes we already have a response We just have to adjust it a little bit Lurye shared from Philadelphia Todd Feathers contributed reporting from New York The Associated Press guidance coverage receives financial backing from multiple private foundations AP is solely responsible for all content Find AP s standards for working with philanthropies a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP org Source