We estimate male-female test score gaps in math and English language arts (ELA) for nearly 10,000 U.S. school districts using state accountability data from third- through eighth-grade students in the 2008–2009 through 2015–2016 school years. We find that the average U.S. school district has no gender achievement gap in math, but there is a gap of roughly 0.23 standard deviations in ELA that favors girls. Both math and ELA gaps vary among school districts; some districts have more male-favoring gaps and some more female-favoring gaps. Math gaps tend to favor males more in socioeconomically advantaged school districts and in districts with larger gender disparities in adult income, education, and occupations; however, we do not find strong associations in ELA.

Prior research suggests that males outperform females, on average, on multiple-choice items compared to their relative performance on constructed-response items. This paper characterizes the extent to which gender achievement gaps on state accountability tests across the United States are associated with those tests’ item formats. Using roughly 8 million fourth- and eighth-grade students’ scores on state assessments, we estimate state- and district-level math and reading male-female achievement gaps. We find that the estimated gaps are strongly associated with the proportions of the test scores based on multiple-choice and constructed-response questions on state accountability tests, even when controlling for gender achievement gaps as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) or Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessments, which have the same item format across states. We find that test item format explains approximately 25% of the variation in gender achievement gaps among states.

At least one co-author has disclosed a financial relationship of potential relevance for this research. Further information is available online at http://www.nber.org/papers/w24450.ack NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

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This paper provides the first population-based evidence on how much standardized test scores vary among public school districts within each state and how segregation explains that variation. Using estimates based on roughly 300 million test score records in math and English Language Arts (ELA) for Grades 3 through 8 from every U.S. public school district during the 2008–09 to 2014–15 school years, we estimate intraclass correlations (ICCs) as a measure of between-district variation. We characterize the variation in the ICCs across states as well as the patterns in the ICCs over subjects, grades, and cohorts. Further, we investigate the relationship between the ICCs and measures of racial and socioeconomic segregation. We find that between-district variation is greatest, on average, in states with high levels of both White-Black and economic segregation.