Read the book. Your view of what is going on in the education system may once have been the real world. It is no longer. Christina Hoff-Sommers "The War Against Boys." The stats and information presented are chilling and compelling.
It is no longer an attempt to help girls, who today succeed in the education system today at a far greater rate than boys by any measuring stick you can use. It is an attempt to push boys down and make them fail and to make them start behaving like girls. If you think my previous sentance is a good idea for public policy, then don't read the book. It won't convince you.
It's the principal reason we homeschool our boy. I don't want to let him anywhere near the education establishment.
Interestingly, a recent study found a persistent gap at virtually every grade level between boys and girl--this applied across public and private schools. In one subject, for one year out of 12, the boys were equal. The only case for which that is NOT true is homeschoolers (and the homeschool girls did at least as well as their public or private school compatriots).
What does that tell you about the education establishment's treatment of boys?
Finally, I agree "we should not throw away any of our talest." I would suggest that is exactly what we are doing. We are making sure that half of our population is coming out of school poorly educated and screwed up. We are doing that to satisfy the anger of women who make decisions about how to educate our children who resent men for good or bad reasons. Bottom line, you are talking about a lot of middle aged women working out their revenge fantasies on 3rd grade boys. It sucks.
>We are making sure that half of our population is coming out of school poorly educated and screwed up<
Break out the violins!
Somehow, all these poor, poor, poor victimized boys still manage to come out ahead in endeavors not dependent on physical strength!
Care to speculate how that happens? They hire each other. They give each other bigger raises. They don't have to be any good! They'll whine all the while about how all women are stupid and useless, and how none of them would be hired for anything save for affirmative action...
I get really fed up with people seeing themselves as victims--especially in the case of white males. Heck, I've witnessed groups of white males bemoaning their Cruel Fate As White Males-in groups of 10 or so with an additional 2 women (who DID belong on merit, work ethic, dedication). Poor dears.
When I went through elementary school and high school, girls were TOLD their inherently could not do math well. I could have been a victim, and gone into an area 'suited' to my soft and mushy feminine brain, like art history or womyn's studies or womon's studies (no idea what that is about, but it's laughable)but instead I went into hard sciences and went through 4 quarters of calculus for engineering.
One does not have to be a victim.
I don't recall discipline being an issue for boys in the 1950s. Maybe mum and dad should instill some manners in their kinder. Maybe they should throw them outside so they do something other than sit in front of video games all day in the summer [I've known contemporary boys who whined if they had to spend a few minutes outside of AC. Think they'll ever resemble adult men? I doubt it, and I also doubt that evil, evil, middle aged women with weird personal agendas are responsible for such attitudes. I recall authentic boys having no qualms about heat, dirt, sweat, or getting up off their rears and running around. I think the parents create faux boys who are fearful of bugs, dirt, plants, etc.]
One does not have to be a victim, or to raise victims.