Chapter 12: Education in Middle Childhood

The introductory text reads, only 20 years ago, gender differences in education around the world were stark, with far fewer girls in school than boys. Now girls have almost caught up. However, many of today’s children suffer from decades of past educational inequality: Recent data find that the best predictor of childhood health is an educated mother.
A subheading reads, Worldwide primary school enrollment, 1978 to 2018, followed by a text that reads, This graph shows net enrollment rate, which is the ratio of enrolled school-age children to the population of children who are the same school age. Progress toward university education and gender equity is evident.
A double bar chart plots years on the horizontal axis and the number of enrolled school age children on the vertical axis. The two bars at each year on the horizontal axis represent the population of school age girls and boys enrolled. A line passing through every year represents the total population of same school age children. The line continues to increase from 1978 to 2018. The bar representing girls is lower than the bar representing boys in 1978 and continues to increase till both bars almost reach parity in number in 2018. The years and corresponding population are as follows,
1978: Girls, 65; Boys, 81.
1988: Girls, 75; Boys, 83.
1998: Girls, 79; Boys, 82.
2008: Girls, 83; Boys, 85.
2018: Girls, 84, Boys 85.

A text below a clip art of a globe reads, Worldwide concerns now focus less on the existence of school and more on its quality. International tests usually find the United States is middling. Improvements are evident, but many other nations have improved even more!
A subheading reads Worldwide, Basic elementary education, leads to, followed by a table that shows two columns which depict the outcomes of less basic elementary education and more basic elementary education. The outcomes are as follows,
Less: Child and maternal mortality, transmission of H I V, Early marriage and childbirth, and War
More: Better paying jobs, Agricultural productivity, Use of medical care, and voting
A subheading reads, How U. S. Fourth-Graders Are Doing. An introductory text reads, Primary school enrollment is high in the United States, but not every student is learning, as these percentages from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (N A E P) show. While numbers are improving, less than half of fourth-graders are proficient in math and reading.
Another subheading reads, N A E P Proficiency Levels For U.S. Fourth-Graders. Two pie charts labeled Mathematics and Reading. Mathematics pie chart shows the following labels and values, Below basic level, 20 percent; Basic understanding, 40 percent; Proficient of Better, 40 percent. Reading pie chart show the following labels and values, Below basic level, 30 percent; Basic understanding, 33 percent; Proficient or better, 37 percent.
A graph titled Change In Average N A E P Scores For Fourth-Graders plots years on the horizontal axis and N A E P scores in the vertical axis. Two sections under Mathematics and Reading are shown. The Mathematics scores are as follows: 1990, 213; 2013, 242; 2017, 240. The reading scores are as follows:
1990: 217; 2013: 222; 2017: 222.