From Here & Back Again: Boys versus Girls

Submitted by anthony on Tue, 2010-06-08 20:22

Article here. Excerpt:

'Today, there still seems to be a held belief that girls suffer discrimination in schools, even to the point that teachers and school administrators, when shown empirical evidence, will not believe that it is boys who have suffered and are suffering.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, slightly more girls than boys actually enroll in high-level math and science courses, girls outnumber boys in student government and honor societies, on school newspapers and in debating clubs.

Girls read more, test higher in music and art, study abroad more and are more actively engaged in school.

Guess where boys are ahead. Yes, in sports, but the gap is closing rapidly.

Girls also go on to college more than boys, and one silly prediction was made that at the present rate of change, the last boy to receive a bachelor’s degree will be in 2062.

Boys have the dubious distinction of being diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder three times more than girls, are more involved in crimes, alcohol and drugs and commit suicide about five times more often than girls. These statistics do not apply to just urban or rural poor schools, but across the board.'

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In 1992 the authors said girls were shortchanged then in 1999 they said its not a competition. So now its about helping both... after it became apparent that boys were shortchanged and the trend was continuing in that direction.

Boys have their strengths and girls have their strengths and with one standard of the allocation of recourses and testing, yes there are elements of zero sum. Add to that boys' academics are hurt by "behavioral problems" which often times should have nothing to do with academic performance. We have a competitive world and you must go above others to do well; it's preposterous to think that girls outperforming boys doesn't necessarily hurt them.

The two most obvious signs that the schools themselves are actively discriminating against boys are the difference in boys' performance in single sex classrooms as apposed to coed classrooms and the lower attendance boys in schools for the gifted. The declining state of boys education shows that something in their environment is changing. The fact that they end up doing slightly better than girls in the single sex classrooms shows that the schools were holding boys back, not the parents or video games or some other crap. In regards to the schools for the gifted there are actually less boys in those schools even though those with the highest IQs are more often male (partly cause men have higher variation).

in an absolute sense (compared to current national averages) you can improve the scores of both boys and girls by using single sex classrooms. I'm sure it wont be pushed because then boys would actually start doing slightly better than girls, but the absolute gap would be much much less than it currently is.

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Submitted by fondueguy on Wed, 2010-06-09 04:53

First, thanks to federal, state, and local programs, girls caught up with boys in college enrollment in the late 70s. All of the myths about schools shortchanging girls has been and is feminist agitprop, a deliberate war against boys in an effort to produce permanent female supremacy.

Second, the most obvious reason for girls outshining boys is the dramatic amount of resources devoted to uplifting girls. According to Warren Farrell, the catalog of federal programs for girls is three inches thick—and that doesn't even list state and local programs for girls. For boys, nada—unless you consider sexual harassment indoctrination a program.

And besides explaining much of the boy/girl achievement gap, this also explains why the gap is more pronounced as one goes down the socioeconomic scale. Consider the case of a summer science camp that was free for girls, but boys had to pay. [a true example] Wealthy parents would probably have much better alternatives to the camp. Middle class parents, although they might grumble at the disparate treatment, could afford to send bro and sis to the camp. For poor parents it's decision time: keep them both home or just send sis. I'm only speculating here, but I think most single moms would choose the latter. So while sis acquired a life-changing exposure to science, bro spent the summer on the streets, with less positive life-altering experiences. To paraphrase one disadvantaged boy: Every program is designed to help girls. Guys are just kept quiet until we're ready for jail.

Lastly—the 800-lb. gorilla taking a dump in the living room—misandric female teachers who were indoctrinated in Women Studies at the undergraduate level. Trained to see males negatively, they literally cannot help but see the boys as proto-oppressors, unconscious though it may be. And a substantial number act on this bias quite consciously. This is a HUGE problem which will not be addressed. To do so would be to condemn Women Studies programs nationwide and impugn the character of millions of teachers.

Feminism always intended to create a male underclass in education. (They actually tried to introduce their doctrine into schools back in the 60s.) But like the adoption and "success" of VAWA, what they didn't foresee was how easy it would be. That they could just petulantly stomp their foot and be given our sons' heads on a silver platter.

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Submitted by Hunchback on Wed, 2010-06-09 13:06