A study by five women researchers has concluded that nowadays girls are as good as boys in No Child Left Behind math tests. The study allegedly uses data from 10 U.S. states. However, the gender gap still persists in one important test, the pre-college Scholastic Aptitude Test.

While most of the media rushed to allege that the gender gap is gone, one should take a closer look at the actual article and see what exactly the researchers have found. Apparently there is a lot of confusion regarding the actual data used, which is the No Child Left Behind test results, and not the pre-college Scholastic Aptitude Test where significant gaps still remain, which were unsatisfactorily explained by the research team by the fact that more girls take it. Statistical information from No Child Left Behind in 10 states was included in the study, including California, Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Also, there is still a significant gap between white boys in the 99th percentile and white girls. While now, finally, girls have matched boys in their preference for math and science classes and college majors, there are still some differences which should not be easily overlooked for an easy sensationalism and far-fetched claims of gender gap bridging.

The fact still remains that women and men, and thus boys and girls, are different and they have different strong and weak areas. The whole movement to match them up in every category is foolish and shows lack of professionalism and disregard for the actual human reality and the complexity of human nature and mind.

There's also an issue which was highlighted by psychologist Janet Hyde of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who led the study published in Science. The No Child Left Behind tests lack for the most part questions that involved complex problem-solving, an ability needed to succeed in high levels of science and math which is known from earlier studies that puts boys, especially in high school, at an advantage.

The fact is that there are a lot of girls and women good at math, but they will always be fewer than men and boys good at math, for reasons which escape our current understanding of human development.