The Truth About Boys and Girls

There's a new Educational Think Tank on the block and, thanks to the Gate's Foundation, it looks like it will be around for a while. EducationSector bills itself as a "dependable source of sound thinking on policy and an honest broker of evidence in key education debates." It plans to "produce original research and policy analysis and promote outstanding work by the nation's most respected education analysts."

You can visit EducationSector's website, sign up for the "Biweekly Digest" and read summaries of the research. We think most educators will enjoy the compilation of "Op-Eds" covering such topics as "Do Kids Need a Summer Vacation?" and "new roles for teachers unions."

Their most recent report is entitled "The Truth About Boys and Girls." Here they wade into the debate about boys and girls, academic success, drop-out rates and discipline problems. Perhaps it is a response to the recent spate of media attention telling us that American boys are in crisis. In 2006 alone, a Newsweek cover story, a major New Republic article, a long article in Esquire, a "Today" show segment, and numerous op-eds have informed the public that boys are falling behind girls.

The EducationSector report, written by Sara Mead, notes "The real story is not bad news about boys doing worse; it's good news about girls doing better." She goes on to note "American boys are scoring higher and achieving more than they ever have before. But girls...have improved even faster." Some boys are in serious trouble, especially Hispanics, blacks and boys from low-income homes.

After carefully examining the results of years of test score data Mean comes to the conclusion that there has been "no dramatic changes in the performance of boys." What does that mean? For the elementary boy it means he continues to improve. For the the middle school boy it means he is pretty much staying just the same. And for the high school boy it means that his achievement continues to decline in almost every subject.

Is it no surprise then that Mead discovers evidence that girls graduating from high school tend to have higher aspirations and be better prepared than boys? For every 100 women who earn a bachelor's degree, only 73 men earn one.

Should educators be worried about this? Mead thinks not, saying "it's also clear that boys' overall educational achievement and attainment are not in decline -- in fact, they have never been better." But is there room for improvement? Sure! She goes on to say "whether or not our schools are to blame for causing these boys' problems, they need to do a better job of working to address them. In particular, the disproportionate number of boys being identified with learning and emotional disabilities, suspended from school, and dropping out suggests that what our schools are doing -- doesn't work very well for some boys."

As to be expected, not everyone agrees with Mead's findings.

Christina Hoff Summers, author of The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men took issue with Ms. Mead in a recent edition of the Wall Street Journal. "It is difficult to understand why an organization devoted to improving education should regard the current concern for boys as a threat to girls' progress," Mean writes. "We are strikingly better at educating your women than young men. Boys need our attention.... Education Sector would be more constructively occupied if it looked for ways to help our boys keep pace with the girls."

Some educators will recognize Ms. Summers as the author of previous controversial books such as One Nation Under Therapy and Who Stole Feminism?

Earlier this year Ann Hulbert, writing for Slate summarized the "gender problem" with this:

Viewing school issues primarily through a gender lens has a way of encouraging a search for one-size-fits-all prescriptions for each sex. But what the array of motley evidence about males suggests is the wisdom of being wary about just that. It's worth noting that boys' test scores tend to be more variable than girls', with more of them at the tippy top, and many more down at the bottom. There may be biological forces at work, but at the moment the most marked contrasts in educational performance and college attendance show up between races and social classes; minority and poor males lag furthest behind, especially in college attendance. (Black women now receive twice as many college degrees as black men.) Gender equity may be the sexier goal to push for, but right now socioeconomic inequality is the greater obstacle to overcome.

Lively debates are good for educators. Open discussion will promote more research and more thought.

It will be interesting to watch for additional research reports coming from EducationSector.