What once was a playground taunt has turned out to be true: Girls are better than boys. Girls have eclipsed boys on state and national tests, reports Staci Hupp. They are more likely to stay in school and to graduate, and they demand less special attention than boys, data show. That marks a dramatic turn from the time when schools were urged to nurture girls' brains instead of their baking skills. School officials and experts now fear the effort to pull girls up to an equal footing had an unintended consequence. "Boys are lagging, and in my view we are seeing the tip of a very serious national problem," said Judith Kleinfeld, a psychology professor at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. A U.S. Department of Education study last month noted the academic edge that boys once held has vanished, and "the issue now is that boys seem to be falling behind," said Education Secretary Rod Paige. "We need to spend some time researching the problem."