The gender gap - what is it? After all these years of gender equity in schools, does the gap still exist? Can it be closed? The answers to these questions are both simple and complex. For instance, there are still gender gaps between girls and boys in various aspects of achievement and other performance outcomes in schools. In some areas, girls once performed consistently lower than boys on standardized math and science tests, while recently that is no longer the case. But, in middle and high school, when science, math and computer courses are elective courses, girls tend to take fewer of them than do boys (National Science Foundation, 2003). Such courses as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics have commonly become labeled as "STEM." The development of "passages" to reduce the gender gap in these courses is described. [This document originally appeared in the "IDRA Newsletter", however some accompanying charts and graphs may not be provided here.]