The , released Tuesday morning, used data from 1,419 educators who took the . It found that female teachers 鈥� who make up 75% of American educators 鈥� are more likely than males to experience challenges that make it harder to juggle work and their personal lives. 

Nearly three-quarters of female educators said it was somewhat or very difficult to change their schedule to accommodate personal matters, compared with 62% of male teachers. About 63% of female teachers and 48% of male educators reported it was hard to take a personal phone call during work hours.

More than half of female teachers said they were frequently or always too tired for activities in their private life because of their job. Only 27% of male teachers reported the same. About 44% of women said they worry about work when they aren鈥檛 at school, versus 33% of men. 

A main factor that could contribute to the gender gap is the number of hours spent on household duties, including caring for children, according to the survey. Female teachers with children reported they spend 41 hours on chores and child care, versus 30 hours for male teachers with kids. The men also reported having more time for themselves, spending 45 hours on leisure activities. Female teachers with children clocked only 33 hours.

鈥淥ne of the really big drivers of challenges with job flexibility and its relationship to well-being is the amount of time that teachers, particularly female teachers, spend on household duties, particularly child care, outside of working hours,鈥� said Elizabeth Steiner, a survey co-author.

The RAND study also compared teacher data with findings from the , which polled 507 adults who have a bachelor鈥檚 degree and work similar hours. The nonprofit found that educators experienced a worse work-life balance than the other adults. 

More than 70% of educators said changing work schedules to accommodate personal or family matters was somewhat or very difficult, compared with 22% of similar working adults. Educators spent on average 25 hours per week on household duties, while other adults used only 16 hours. 

Teachers also got the short end of the stick with benefits, according to the survey. More than half of educators and a third of adults with other careers said they received average benefit packages 鈥� paid sick leave, retirement, health insurance and personal time off. But only 29% of teachers received above-average benefits, compared with 49% of similar working adults. 

鈥淲hen teachers reported better benefits packages 鈥� things that included, for example, paid parental leave or slightly more days of paid time off 鈥� they reported fewer work-life balance challenges and better well-being,鈥� Steiner said.

Paid parental leave is a key benefit that could boost job satisfaction for educators, she said. Only 30% of teachers with children said their schools offer paid parental leave that was separate from other time off.

鈥淢ore districts are offering it and paying attention to how important it is, but it is not universal,鈥� Steiner said. 鈥淲hen paid parental leave isn’t available, teachers tend to use the paid leave that they have access to [for] time off to care for their new children, which leaves them with little to no paid leave when they return to work to address things like their own mental health or doctor’s appointments.鈥�

The survey results link insufficient work-life balance to poor well-being for teachers. RAND research found that 2 out of 3 teachers experience job-related stress, and more than half feel burned out. 

In an open-ended survey question, teachers were asked to describe what their school or district could do to help them balance work and home responsibilities. More than half said they couldn鈥檛 come up with an answer because 鈥渢heir school or district did not provide any support to help them achieve this balance.鈥� 

The rest said job flexibility could improve work-life balance. Respondents suggested that schools consider mental health or wellness days, adjustable work hours and opportunities for using planning periods to address personal matters. Some said taking days off in smaller increments or allowing occasional remote work hours would help.

鈥淭eachers said that it was helpful when school leaders helped them set work boundaries, such as limiting meetings and minimizing administrative work, and messaged an expectation that teachers keep work at work,鈥� the report said. 鈥淸These] could be a low-cost way for school leaders to help improve teachers鈥� work-life balance.鈥�

A by the testing company NWEA shows a gender gap in eighth grade STEM achievement has returned following the pandemic.

Historically, boys have tested better than girls in math and science in middle school, said Megan Kuhfield, one of the NWEA report鈥檚 authors. But the gender gap disappeared in 2019, according to results from (TIMSS), an assessment administered across dozens of countries every four years. For the first time since 1995, girls outperformed boys in eighth grade math and science that year.

But TIMSS scores released in December 2024 showed that girls’ performance substantially declined more than boys’ in eighth grade science and math. The study showed the same trend was found in two national tests: assessment and the (NAEP). 

Across all three tests, gender gaps in math and science went from almost nonexistent in 2019 to favoring boys starting in 2022. The MAP Growth assessment 鈥� which is administered annually 鈥� shows that the gaps widened mainly between 2021 and 2024, when students returned to classrooms.

Kuhfield said the research is concerning because decades of progress in for STEM achievement was wiped out in four years. 

鈥淚t’s really hard to say definitively what’s happening here,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the million-dollar question 鈥� why did we see these gaps close by 2019 and then reopen during the last five years?鈥�

Researchers discovered that girls suffered more during COVID-19, but Kuhfield said if that was the main cause, reading test scores would have followed a similar pattern. Girls still outperformed boys in literacy on the latest NWEA and NAEP assessments, according to the study.

鈥淭hat kind of led me to two other theories that are going on kind of in my head,鈥� she said. 鈥淥ne being: Maybe there’s something about how teachers are interacting with students in the classroom 鈥� reinforcing old stereotypes of pushing boys [more] towards advanced math. We don’t have evidence of this.鈥�

Kuhfield said her other theory is that there鈥檚 been a shift in education to focus on boys鈥� academic achievement as researchers have found they are .

The NWEA study includes recommendations for schools to improve the equity in STEM education. Researchers suggest examining classroom dynamics and instructional practices to ensure boys aren鈥檛 receiving more teacher attention, and providing academic and emotional support 鈥� particularly to girls 鈥� to improve math and science skills.

Yes, it鈥檚 that serious, which is why Kamala Harris urgently needs to do something she should have done months ago: seize what appears to be a 鈥渞ed鈥� issue and run with it. Make it her own. Send a message to those right-leaning independent voters who still see her as a San Francisco liberal.

Harris has the perfect issue staring right at her: the indisputable fact that in K-12 schools, lag far behind in earning college degrees and enter the workforce frightfully ill equipped for a modern economy.

Many of those failure-to-launch boys turn into failed-to-thrive adults, who today wear red 鈥淢ake America Great Again鈥� baseball hats.

Talking up the problem is a win-win for Harris. Yes, it will anger teachers unions and groups such as the American Association of University Women, who persist in denying the obvious, that boys, not girls, are in trouble.

That public anger is pretty much the point. The louder they protest the better. Besides, most of those teachers and activists already voted early for Harris. And it might help to recenter a race where men are rapidly shifting red while women move into the blue camp. 

Will talking about the boy troubles lose female voters? Not necessarily. College women, for example, can look around their campuses, where they make up as much as 60% of the student body, and sense that imbalance as detracting from their own fuller experience of young adulthood. 

But it just might sway some independent male voters, who clearly worry about Harris鈥檚 true allegiances. Weighing in on the boys, an issue implausibly seen as a red cause (mostly because so many progressives insist that boys don鈥檛 need help) can only help. 

The final win-win: The hardest hit among all males are minorities, the very group Harris is having trouble reaching.

Other than revealing she owns a Glock, Harris hasn鈥檛 sent out any firm signals that she鈥檚 not a San Francisco progressive. And appearing on air with Howard Stern, toying with an interview with Joe Rogan and sitting down for some tense exchanges with Fox鈥檚 Brett Baier doesn鈥檛 cut it.

The boy troubles, an ideal choice for Harris, is not a new issue. My book, was published in 2011, one of several books around that time to lay out the problem.

My research focused on schools failing to teach literacy skills to boys 鈥� in part by pushing literacy at early ages when boys aren鈥檛 ready. Thus, by third grade boys were made to feel like academic underachievers. Understandably, they lost interest in school and dug into video games. Other books focused on the rising rate of fatherless families and the increasing confusion over what it means to be a man, all important contributors to the problem.

Today, the best updates on the gender problems come from author Richard Reeves, who formed the . If anything, the boys’ issues have deepened since my book. Some examples he cites:

• In high school, two thirds of the highest GPA students are girls; two thirds of the lowest scorers are boys.

• In 1972, men were 13 percentage points more likely than women to earn a college degree. Today, women are 15 percentage points more likely to earn a bachelor鈥檚 degree.

• In 1979, the weekly earnings of the typical American man who completed high school was, in today鈥檚 dollars, $1,017. Today it is $881.

• Deaths among working-class men, what鈥檚 often called 鈥渄eaths of despair,鈥� have risen from 60 per 100,000 in 1991 to 191 per 100,000 by 2022.

So how does Harris seize this issue? I鈥檒l leave that to the political pros, but some obvious options include showing up at a college with lopsided gender gaps to demand answers. 

Or, she could visit a rural county health office in a Trumpy state where the suicide rate among working-class men has soared. Unfortunately, that won鈥檛 be hard to find. Again, demand answers. 

Done properly, with gusto, she鈥檒l have her against-the-grain moment, but Harris better act fast. We are two weeks away from what will likely be the closest presidential race in U.S. history and its outcome could turn on whether Harris can reach these disaffected boys-to-men.