Fourth grade males had higher average math scores than females

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has released Findings From the Fourth-Grade Round of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010–11 (ECLS-K:2011), providing a first look at the overall fourth-grade reading, math, and science achievement of the students who attended kindergarten for the first time in the 2010-11 school year and were in fourth grade in the spring of 2015. The ECLS-K:2011 is a longitudinal study that followed students from their kindergarten year to the spring of 2016, when most of the students were in fifth grade.

Key Findings From the Fourth-Grade Round include:

• About 88 percent of children enrolled in kindergarten in 2010-11 were in kindergarten for the first time in that school year and were in fourth grade in the spring of 2015.
• In the spring of fourth grade, males had higher average math scores than females, while no significant differences by child's sex were detected in children's reading and science knowledge and skills.
• In reading, math, and science, White students, Asian students, and students of Two or More Races had higher average scores in the spring of fourth grade than did either Black students or Hispanic students. In math, Hispanic students had higher average scores on the spring assessment than did Black students.