By The Women's Sports Foundation
Published: October 22, 2007
As we celebrate 35 years of Title IX, statistics show there has been enormous progress for women and girls in sports. One important result is in high school girls' varsity sports participation, which shows in increase from 1 in 27 girls in 1972 to 1 in 2.5 girls in 2006-- an all-time high of more than 3 million girls playing high school sports.
However, despite this fact, girls still receive 1.3 million fewer participation opportunities than boys at the high school level. According to a recent Women's Sports Foundation study, girls comprise 49.0% of the high school population (National Center for Education Statistics, 2005-2006) but only receive 41.2% of all athletic participation opportunities. (National Federation of High Schools, 2006-2007). In this study that examines high school girls' and boys' varsity sports participation in the aggregate by state, no state is providing athletic opportunities to its female athletes in numbers that are proportionate to their enrollment in school. If you want to know how any public high school is doing, most states have “open records” laws that require schools to give you that information upon receipt of a written request.
See where your state ranks!