I agree with Darko; the aggregate 60% statistic is at best misleading, at worst meaningless. If you limited the survey to elite schools and certain majors you could easily cook up a “White Student Crisis” and stupidly bemoan Asian American educational dominance on some campuses. Also, in light of recent studies suggesting that large numbers of college graduates still end up lacking basic reading, comprehension and computational skills, those boys and girls who miss out on college might count themselves lucky in at least saving themselves the wasted time and expense.

There is also the continuing sense that Americans love a crisis, despite still having one of the most productive and vibrant societies that has ever existed. I still marvel over the phony “obesity crisis” and the escalating “second hand smoke crisis.” And wasn’t it just a few years ago that there was a Girl Crisis in Education?

I’m still going through the various links, but have to say that the Newsweek sidebar featuring feminist scholar by “feminist scholar” Carol Gilligan (“Mommy, I Know You”) was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read, and not because the writer is a feminist, but because even when she is trying to be understanding about boys, she can only do so by interpreting their behavior as though they are a special type of girl who needs extra socialization (“His first-grade teacher, recounting the story to me, recognized a sensitivity and honesty she had encouraged and valued. What often appears as boys' intransigence, as disruptiveness, indifference or confrontation, may instead be a refusal to engage in false relationship.”).

Michael – I was often the smartest boy in school growing up, but never particularly the teacher’s pet (in fact I got thrown out of class a few times and openly disdained a couple of my teachers as middlebrow hacks). Never got beat up once. On the other hand, I always had a great respect for education, if not always a respect for schools, which are often rigid, bureaucratic and mind-numbingly dull.

Agnostic: I agree that fatherless households can be an issue, but only part of the story. My father died when I was young, but I had a slew of strong male and female relatives who all strongly valued education to help guide me, as well as the influence and example of a great male elementary school teacher who was also my scoutmaster.

Also, oddly enough, a number of my family members have been teachers. One great aunt had won numerous teacher-of-the-year accolades and was remembered and respected by her former students long after they left her classroom. Her good example helped fuel my impatience and disdain for mediocre teachers.

Posted by: Alec on January 27, 2006 2:57 PM

Did any one stop to consider that about 40% of college age kids are minorities? In order to explain these statistics, you need to look at how they break down according to race. I bet you will get a different picture then. I know for a fact that significantly more black women graduate from college than black men. One of the reasons for this is that most high IQ blacks are female. I'm not sure about hispanics. Also, lots of black men that age are in jail. The tip-off that this is the case is that the Newsweek cover showed only white boys. Make it look like a white male problem! All bad news regarding minorities must either be excused or covered up, like crimes where the race of the perpetrator is not mentioned. Then you know the perpetrator was black or hispanic. I bet you wouldn't be fooled into discussing "teacher's pet" theories if they put minorities on the cover. The truth would be self-evident. The browning of America also means the dumbing of America. "Let me introduce you to the generation which will be funding your retirement".

Men are also more likely to start their own businesses, to be aggressive and take risks. Not exactly the safe college route. Also, many people are find a college degree (perhaps someone actually gets educated too) priced ridiculously high, and are seeing through the rip-off, especially in the liberal arts.

Posted by: btm on January 27, 2006 9:28 PM

College is more of a necessity for girls than it is for boys. Skilled trades skim off a not-insignificant number of boys who'd otherwise go off to college. Girls find such occupations much less appealing, for a variety of reasons, and having fewer other options for earning decent money will end up in college.

Posted by: Peter on January 27, 2006 11:44 PM

I'd recommend reading the Steve Burton posts along with the Teacher X material--it all reinforces the notion that the failure to maintain discipline in schools--a task that is at some level a matter of physical intimidation with boys--is having a seriously negative impact on male education.

Posted by: Friedrich von Blowhard on January 28, 2006 6:06 AM

Most high IQ blacks are not female. Black females do have significantly higher levels of academic achievement than black males, though. So the point about minority representation at university potentially skewing the male/female ratio stands.

Posted by: PatrickH on January 28, 2006 11:46 AM

In my high school I think roughly 70% of the top 1% of GPAs were girls, but I doubt I would consider more than one of those to be on my intellectual level (not to brag, just my opinion). I can count perhaps three other guys who I considered roughly equivalent, but none of them were "high achievers" in a GPA sense either. This didn't really change in College either -- If I remember correctly a majority of the top GPAs were girls there as well.

I suppose if I had to point to factors, I would say that girls are typically much more competitive in the social arena than boys are, and that, as far as I'm concerned, schooling has been largely turned into a social rather than educational endeavor. Girls are far more ingratiating with their teachers, and are willing to whine and complain and make excuses for themselves far more often -- My own personal ethics are such that I never complained to a professor for a higher grade unless it was clear the teacher was in error, and I suspect that a lot of other guys are like this as well. (This actually led to a shouting match between one of my high school teachers and myself, one time, because the teacher was unwilling to admit his mistake.)

Additionally, I think that if you looked at typical male behavior you would find that it is far more individualized than female work -- Practically every girl I can think of regularly asked her friends for help on assignments and studying. In contrast, most of the guys who I consider roughly intellectually equivalent do not work collaboratively (ie, "cheat") and have far greater compartmentalization between "school" and "home/socializing" activities. While I doubt this is always the case, in my experience this has been completely borne out, as the high-achieving girls in school are also important social figures. Typically these are girls who are reasonably attractive, but not attractive enough to be popular solely for that reason. The situation this creates is that focus on "school" doubles as time in social positioning for girls, whereas for guys like myself school was a tedious time-consumer distracting attention from more important endeavors.

Posted by: . on January 28, 2006 4:28 PM

I don't have anything to say about boys' performance in school, but if all this PR means that feminism is dead and buried, Hallelujah!

Feminism was a blight upon human history. Totally unnecessary. The invention of washers and dryers had more impact on the status of women than this rancid, Marxist ideology. Ideologues like to pretend that their vapid ditherings actually impact people.

The women of my generation were mostly just awful... complaining and bitching endlessly. I was born to worst circumstances than most of them. The ones who complained and bitched the loudest were the most privileged, i.e., Betty Freidan with her maids and rich husband proclaiming that housewives suffered in "concentration camps."

Only solution for a sane man... flee from white and black women and find a sane, traditional Asian woman. Whew! What a relief.

So, the trendy, feminist women disgraced themselves for 40 years with their whining and grabbing for everything they could get, manufactured phony rape and domestic violence crises... and now? How do we erase the effects of this madness? How do we nurse the women bad to sanity?

Sure, we've got to stop beating on the boys and return men to a place of honor and respect. The real problem is, what do we do with the horrible spoiled brat women we've created? The worst of them need to be confined in nunneries. Spankings?

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on January 29, 2006 9:05 AM

To expand a little on Peter's comment about girls going to college to earn a decent living, I would point to the 50% divorce rate and the reality that usually it is the woman who ends up with both the kids and the house to support. Or consider how many folks now don't bother to get married in the first place, in every sociological category. Dance-away-fathers, in spite of DNA tests, mean that any woman with the capacity had better find a way to make a living and it would be best if it weren't waiting tables or typing. (Er, keyboarding.)

Prairie Mary

Posted by: Mary Scriver on January 29, 2006 11:59 PM

All,

Here are the statistics according to the US Census Bureau for the year 2000:

College Enrollment Rates, % Gender Gap in favor of Female

Men Women % Difference
Black 24.9 35.1 +10.2
Hispanic 18.5 25.4 +6.9
White 32.8 38.5 +5.7

Notice the higher gaps for the predominant ethnic minorities. Also notice the lower overall attendance. Factor in the use of Affirmative Action in order to inflate the overall minority attendance rates, along with rampant grade inflation to keep them in college. Mix in the fact that 45% of all illegal immigrants (mostly hispanic, but almost completely non-white ethnic minorities) don't even finish high school. Sleep well.

Posted by: btm on January 30, 2006 2:00 AM






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