The study by University of Alaska-Fairbanks Professor Judith Kleinfeld notes that over time, boys have actually improved their performance in many areas.

But while that is true, Kleinfeld says the performance of high school seniors on the 2002 National Assessment of Educational Progress still shows that, compared with girls, a larger percentage of boys scored in the lowest quartile, below basic, on reading and writing tests.

That trend, notes Kleinfeld, is not isolated to low-income students or ethnic minorities. Even among the sons of white, college-educated parents, the girls fared markedly better than their male peers on reading and writing assessments.

Kleinfeld says her findings come at a time of national discussion on the issue of boys’ academic achievement.

The national controversy focuses on this question: Is there a boy problem at all or is there just a males-of-color problem or a poverty problem, said Kleinfeld. These findings show that boys are in trouble across the board, not just boys of any particular group.