2 + 2 = Progress

Posted by helen at 9:12 AM

Today's Times highlights a National Science Foundation study on gender differences in math -- and despite the diatribes of Ivy-bound thinkers like Dr Lawrence Summers, the news is good: A review of 7,000,000 students in 10 states shows no gender split in math achievement scores.

In a related report on NPR, high school teachers say that their advanced-math classes enroll about 50:50 girls and boys, a sea change from a generation ago. But one math-loving girl put a real-world perspective on the study's findings: Patricia Li, a San Jose, CA, high-school senior summering at MIT, says it's not that more boys like math than girls -- more like, everyone dislikes math in equal measure, which is its own kind of progress.

See the article in Science magazine for all the number-crunching, math-laden details.