Boys in Crisis???

This week we are taking a look at the gender issue in schools and the research that informs the discussion/debate. Lots to be considered here. Recent reports from Newsweek, Esquire, and even a segment on the Today show suggested that boys are lagging in performance outcomes from previous studies. Then along comes a research study done by Education Sector reported on their web site and in the Washington Post on June 26, 2006. This “independent education think tank” suggests that the current “crisis” is contrived and boys are doing better than ever (with the exceptions of Hispanic, Blacks, and the poor). The primary reason for this contrary position stems from their analysis of boys’ and girls’ performance outcomes. In fact, they suggest, boys are doing better than ever! Girls, too, are demonstrating greater academic achievement and the research indicates that the gap between boys’ and girls’ performance outcomes is shrinking considerably. This “fact” is the reason for sounding the ‘boy crisis’ alarm. It’s not that boys are making any less academic gains than in the past; it’s that girls are closing gender achievement gaps that have existed for many years. So what’s the “media” up to? I wonder if this would be as “news worthy” if it was structured as a positive education occurrence rather than another criticism of the education system as not being responsive to the needs of its citizenry. And actually, what the ‘boy crisis’ does is divert the public attention toward an issue (gender) that everyone can feel politically responsive toward rather than attending to the REAL issue: that being the race and poverty considerations which clearly demonstrate student achievement gaps in ALL the research!

Just as this ‘gender’ research is being published, so too, is research that focuses on single-sex schools. In a Times Online (UK) article of 6/26/2006, it is suggested that neither gender demonstrates achievement benefits from being educated in single-sex schools rather than co-ed schools. If single gender schools do demonstrate more successful student outcomes it is a result of student selection for admittance to the school rather than gender! Well, who woulda thunk it!

Where is all of this going? A couple of weeks ago I attended the commence exercises of Elmira College, a co-educational private school in up-state New York. This college is the first woman’s institution of higher education (1855) in the United States only becoming co-educational in 1969. At Commencement, the honored guest and primary speaker was Colonel Eileen Collins, Unites States Astronaut and Space Shuttle Commander of our space program’s “Return to Flight” mission after the Columbia disaster in 2003. A graduate of the Elmira, NY schools and Corning Community College in Corning, NY, Col. Collins completed undergraduate and graduate degrees at Syracuse and Stanford respectively. Throughout her address, I don’t recall her mentioning, even once, about a “gender gap” during her education experiences. She did, however, talk about how she would cross the campus on her way to school and have conversations with the college kids, how school was exciting and interesting, but most of all how it was viewed as an important part of growing up. I’m sure most of you are familiar with Jonathan Kozol’s book Savage Inequalities (1991). Although, it has been a few years since I read it, I don’t recall him detailing in any of his presentation specific gender inequality. Lots of race and poverty issues, but no gender issues that seem to impact students’ learning capacities or life opportunities. In a more recent book Unequal Childhoods (2003), Annette Lareau offers an ethnographic study of class, race, and family life in these United States that has created a bifurcated nation of haves and have-nots. And, again, gender is not a focus for social or academic achievement being demonstrated by our children today. So where is the media on this? Have they missed the opportunity to talk about the good that is happening in our education system as it relates to gender? I’ll leave that question for your comments.

Next week we will continue this topic with much less ranting about the media but more in-depth discussion about what our nation is doing for girls in education. We’ll take a look at Secretary Spellings’ comments regarding math and science and girls; we’ll also see what the real outcomes of girls’ achievement in those areas are.