The New Gender Gap: From kindergarten to grad school, boys are becoming the second sex

BusinessWeek ^ | May 26, 2003 | Michelle Conlin

[Timesink]

Lawrence High is the usual fortress of manila-brick blandness and boxy 1960s architecture. At lunch, the metalheads saunter out to the smokers' park, while the AP types get pizzas at Marinara's, where they talk about -- what else? -- other people. The hallways are filled with lip-glossed divas in designer clothes and packs of girls in midriff-baring track tops. The guys run the gamut, too: skate punks, rich boys in Armani, and saggy-panted crews with their Eminem swaggers. In other words, they look pretty much as you'd expect.

[Alberta's Child]

In the long run, the grades don't really count. In your workplace, do you even know which of your fellow employees were honors students in school? Do you even care? Do you think your employer cares?

In my mind, there is a difference between "slacking off" and "being bored," though it may be hard to tell the difference.

[Tribune7]

Yes, they believe it is mostly BS, but it is still very, very foolish of them to just to slack off or to act as if grades don't count.

Young people are by definition foolish and that foolishness is expected and forgiveable. What unforgiveable is our public schools for going out of their way to discourage boys and to provide a very much inaccurate understanding as to how the world works especially concerning human nature, economics and our government .

My prediction is that our future leaders will be men who have been home-schooled.

[adx]

What will the future Delta Forces look like?

Likely just fine. I've always figured that schools should use the military's methods when teaching boys: namely, instruction first followed by a PRACTICAL EXERCISE. There's many times I wanted to scream at my engineering profs and the dean about this. Generally, the classes I hated were the ones that had no labwork (ie. the "practical exercise" portion). Of course, the labwork itself was frustrating because half the equipment never worked, since we got hand-me-downs from the grad students (familiar lament of hard science and engineering students everywhere). But even so, you could generally see for yourself the real-world example/application of what you were being taught in the classroom.

Bone-headed curriculums didn't help either. For example, the electrical engineer students had to take two classes that in content were, for all practical purposes, exactly the same. One class was an engineering core class (meaning all engineering disciplines had to take it) that was basically an intro to electronics, and the ones that the EE students took after that was exactly the same in content. In other words, the EEs had to take the same class twice. Pretty much every EE student I knew hated this setup, since that meant that one classs was wasted. When I asked what should be put in its place, they all said "Something practical!" with "practical" ranging from FPGA programming to printed circuit board layout, neither of which you get until you get on the job.

As for me personally, I never much cared for homework, and I never much cared for classes that didn't have a practical aspect clearly shown to it. Strictly lecture classes just didn't do much for me.

I guess what I'm saying is that organizations that use the "learning by doing" approach, such as the US Army, won't have problems with the quality of their male recruits, since such methods work a lot better for guys, myself included. So the Deltas will still be able to kick al-Quaeda or anybody else's ass for the forseeable future.

[arthurus]

There is a simple solution to all this-separate schools with the male non homosexual teachers staffing the boys' schools as much as possible. Both sexes learn better when they are separated and there is no problem of the women teachers preferring the girls in the class and the onset of puberty does not keep the boys and girls discombobulated.

I never understood that assertion that boys got all the notice in the classroom, got asked all the questions. I had the reverse of that experience throughout the 50s up to 64 when I graduarted HS. I attended public and private schools in many states and overseas and it was always the same. Every classroom had 1 or 2 girls who knew all the answers and question and answer exchanges always 50-75% involved those girls. Much of the rest of the questions were directed at the shy girl that teacher wanted to get to open up. That was only different in some of the classes taught by men who tended to focus on the brightest kid of whichever sex and in those days that was usually boys in math class.

[KellyAdmirer]

Adds Macalester's McPherson: "It would be dangerous to even out the gender ratio by treating women worse.

Uh, under this reasoning, Title IX has to go. And, good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. But I'm sure this woman would defend Title IX to the death. And that's part of the problem men face in liberal academia.

[stand watie]

YEP!

[nightdriver]

Could be a sign of the times.

".....a woman shall compass a man." Jer 31:22

[MikeAtTheShore]

"When my sons went to public high school, most practical matters seemed to have disappeared from the curriculum. High school juniors are now treated like third-graders, and it is not surprising that girls, who have always "ruled" third grade now rule high school as well (at a time in their lives when they have other advantages over boys).

"Boyness" does not lend itself to "soft" regimentation, which is now the purpose of public education."

Great insight. Neat and concise. How very male of you. You get a "C". LOL

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

The feminist smackdown of schoolboys has triumphed. My five-year-old son is ready for kindergarten, but as long as I have my wits about me, he will never go to a public school.

We started homeschooling Daniel in parallel with his preschool, and we intend to continue doing so once he 'graduates' from preschool later this month. :-)

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

But, what you are describing would be a good idea, "practical exercise", is exactly what is NOT happening in our schools, beginning in Kindergarten. Rather than having "hands-on" experiences that engage a young boy's mind, femi-Nazi teachers are coercing through Ritalin and disapproval, the feminizing and softening of all males to "sit still and listen". They want Alan Alda, not Mel Gibson. Imagine Alan Alda on Delta Forces.
Of course, in reality the femi-Nazis want the end to all Delta Forces and war, because they are no longer living in reality. And, as our former President (their favorite boy) has recently said, the U.S. will not be a super power in 30 years (THANKS TO HIM!! - Klintoon).

[EdReform]

BTTT for later...

[GOPrincess]

Two paragraphs in this article struck a real chord with me:

"It may still be a man's world. But it is no longer, in any way, a boy's. From his first days in school, an average boy is already developmentally two years behind the girls in reading and writing. Yet he's often expected to learn the same things in the same way in the same amount of time. While every nerve in his body tells him to run, he has to sit still and listen for almost eight hours a day. Biologically, he needs about four recesses a day, but he's lucky if he gets one, since some lawsuit-leery schools have banned them altogether.

The "earliness" push, in which schools are pressured to show kids achieving the same standards by the same age or risk losing funding, is also far more damaging to boys, according to Lilian G. Katz, co-director of ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education. Even the nerves on boys' fingers develop later than girls', making it difficult to hold a pencil and push out perfect cursive. These developmental differences often unfairly sideline boys as slow or dumb, planting a distaste for school as early as the first grade."

My oldest son is quite bright but far different from his older sister, who entered Kindergarten reading; he moves forward steadily but is ready for things at different ages than his sister was. There is a big "earliness" push now in which subjects are taught 1-2 years ahead of where they were when I was in school (and CA schools, incidentally, were more successful then, perhaps in part because subjects were taught when more students were developmentally ready?). The K teachers were so stressed that by Christmas he didn't know half a dozen of his "letter sounds," and communicated that to him and us...at the time we were stressed that our son was "slow" but now I wonder why did it matter how quickly he learned them? He was ready when he was ready, and reads fine now. They start teaching multiplication tables in 2nd grade...he struggled with that for a couple of years, but at the start of 4th grade knew them "overnight." Why did he really need to know them at 7 instead of 8 or 9? It's not going to make any difference in how he does in high school, and in fact, doing it later might well be better. There is so much repetition over the years anyway!

In 4th grade the teacher arranged a meeting because of her deep concern he could not take lecture notes in cursive. (He concentrated so much on forming the letters he couldn't also listen to what she was saying and keep up. And did any of you take "lecture notes" in 4th? I didn't!) A harder curriculum was instituted that year without any "bridge" work between "too-easy" math and *algebra* (in 4th grade!). The principal helpfully told us "Sink or swim!" (So many kids struggled they finally ended up doing after-school tutoring all spring.) When we questioned the elimination of morning recess the vice principal and other parents looked at us as though we were nuts thinking that the children might learn more efficiently if they had a few minutes to get the blood pumping and "get their talking out," and thought we should appreciate the increased emphasis on academics. (Don't get me wrong, I'm a Phi Beta Kappa university grad who definitely appreciates academics -- big grin -- I just think the CA schools are going about things all wrong.) The neatnik, uptight teacher would reprimand my son for squirming in his chair and sitting on his knees to reach the still-too-high "4th grade size" table. 34 students in the class, and there had been only 18 in 3rd grade (lower grade class size reduction). I came to realize public school is mostly about crowd control and pushing as many children as possible through the same paces, rather than the needs and timetable of the children as individual learners.

Very long story short, we pulled our son out at Christmas and put him in private Montessori school, where he flourished (and doubled his SAT 9 scores within months). What's interesting to me is that his Montessori school does manage to meet the needs of children working at their own pace and adapts to their own learning styles, with a low student-teacher ratio...also teaches them to manage their own time and lets them move around the room at will -- and at *far lower cost* than the "per-pupil" cost of CA public school, though it's at *great* personal cost to us. So it *is* possible to do a better job. But the public school system is too far gone with huge bureacracies, teachers unions, etc., to be easily fixable at this point, I believe. Vouchers, please...!!!!!

My 5-year-old son is also about to graduate preschool, and he is going to be homeschooled, along with his 8-year-old sister who is leaving public school when 2nd grade ends. If it goes well my oldest son will join us when he's middle school aged. I'm not ready to take on high school for my oldest, though I hope I will be able to come up with a way down the road; we've been terribly disappointed by the quality of teaching at the local high school in our "nice district," even in the "honor" classes.

One mother's experience...

Thanks much for posting this article.

[Leisler]

Tie in the commercial with what you are watching. Most programming is for women. Notice the differnce with say, the History channel, ESPN, Tech TV.

[Mark17]

All thanks to the liberal PC agenda.

Yup.

[american spirit]

Had to bump for reading later but the message to men across this country should be clear by what this article delves into plus the unprecedented amount of crime and mayhem committed by young men, regardless of race. In my estimation, the solution to this nonsense is for all mature men is to get off our collective a$$es, cut back on refining our golf games, push away from the TV and computer and get more involved with the lives of young men whenever possible and in the process educate them about the truth regarding these paradigm shifts in our country. It could be through coaching, youth group mentors, Boy scouts, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, etc. We should all be ashamed that we've been so self-absorbed for the last 2-3 decades that this idiocy has happened right under our noses and all we can seem to do is wring our hands and mutter under our breath.

[austinTparty]

Well, not exactly. Check out www.mariegryphon.com and this post she wrote on the subject. Hysteria sells better than facts:

Last week Glenn Sacks and Phillip Cook published the most recent of a growing number of panicky columns about the "mystery" of the alleged gross decline in men’s academic performance. Titled “Mysterious decline – Where Are All The Men On Campus?” the article cites such terrifying statistics as “Men earn only 43% of college degrees” as proof that women as a group are sailing ahead of men in terms of academic accomplishment.

“We have thrown the gender switch,” AEI scholar Christina Hoff Summers warns, “What does it mean in the long run that we have females who are significantly more literate, significantly more educated than their male counterparts?” The article rattles on feverishly about the “loss in national productivity that this trend [of male ‘decline,’ presumably] portends.”

Thus, according to Cook, Sacks and Sommers:

1) Men are in “decline” academically;
2) The fact that women form more than 50% of college students indicates indisputably that women as a whole are outperforming men; and
3) The above are new and disturbing trends.

But in fact there is a very simple alternative explanation for the recent college gender imbalance that makes it seem pretty benign to anyone not seeking to secure a date in freshman econ. Men are over represented at the extreme ends of most measures of intellectual or academic achievement, both good and bad. Women, by contrast, tend to be over represented near the middle. This is not a new phenomenon; it’s been true as long as empiricists have bothered to notice.

And so it appears to be today. True, the young ladies have been making slightly better high school grades, of late, but boys still outscore girls just a little on most standardized tests. Thus, you can probably graph male and female overall college preparedness about like this:

Women form the higher, narrower bell curve. There are a lot of them in the middle, and fewer on the edges. By contrast, men (represented here by the thicker line) will form more than half of the students who ace everything, and more than half who flunk out of school.

Now imagine drawing a straight vertical line through both bell curves at the 50th percentile mark, and sending every student on the right side of that mark to college. College bound men and women would be even-steven, with 50% of each gender in a degree program. This is true because the men and women represented on this graph are – taken as a whole – equally academically prepared.

Now suppose we hypothesize that more than half of these high school students attend college. Let’s say that 60% do. We can draw a vertical line through these same bell curves at the 40th percentile mark, and send the 60% of students to the right on to college. The graph would then look like this:

As you can see, the result is that more women will be attending college than men, if we send the majority – but not all – of our high school students.

Well, Americans may be doing just that. The National Center for Education Statistics informs us that 62.9% of high school graduates went directly to college in 1999. That number doesn’t account for high school dropouts, but nor does it account for students who go back to school after taking a year or two off.

So why the hysteria over boys suddenly experiencing a “mysterious decline?” Ah yes, crises sell articles, don’t they? Books too!

It seems more likely to me that women simply happen to comprise more than half the group of beneficiaries of a general expansion of college opportunities, due to very long-term demographic factors explained above. I never thought I'd be agreeing with a statement issued by the American Association of University Women, but spokesperson Jacqueline Woods is right on. Those concerned about the percentages of men on college campuses "are playing a zero sum game," she says. "I refuse to play."

[pupdog]

Nobody's safe anymore...How long before Shrillery demads to be referred to as "She Who Must Be Obeyed" and begins to refer to herself in the third person? ("We are not amused...")

Personal pet peeve alert: "We" is first-person plural. :-)

[steplock]

"Yet his GPA is in the tiolet, because he hates doing homework, he hates studying for tests, and he hates authority"

Boy does THAT bring back memories of my days at Texas A&M! :>)

That was way back when girls (that weren't family of faculty) were FIRST allowed at A&M - 1968

[Blessed]

YES!YES! YES! Fathers must get involved.When a boy or girl reaches the 7th grade the father must step up to the plate.This is the point where mothers should encourage fathers to become the primary parent.This is even more important now due to the systematic removal of males from the public school system.Women run the schools their are no male role models in government schools.(a few coaches working with less than 5% of the male students are not role models)

I have 2 daughters.The oldest is graduating with honors and is headed to law school next fall.The youngest is the salutatorian of her high school class(valadictorian is also a girl, class officers are girls)This is a Christian School with plenty of male teachers and administrators.The boys are still wimps.I worry where my girls will find real men for husbands.Fathers must step up and assume their God ordained roles.

[k2blader]

"What's wrong with women gliding into first place, especially if they deserve it?"

With the strikeout, this is a good question.