Independent Women's Forum - Research Areas > The Boy Crisis

Talking About Boys

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:26:00 EDT

Over at National Review Online Christina Hoff Sommers and Betsy Hart have an interesting discussion about gender issues in education, particularly what it means for boys. Listen to the podcast here (the discussion starts about seven minutes into the clip).

For background on the status of boys in education, check out Krista Kafer's IWF analysis here.

Boys and the Boy Crisis

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:25:00 EDT

A conference titled "Boys and the Boy Crisis" is coming to D.C. next month - July 13-14 at the Washington Court Hotel. Authors, professors, lawyers and health care professionals (including impressive speakers at the conference includes Christina Hoff Sommers and Warren Farrell) will examine the unique qualities and needs of boys and address such problems as:

"The signs are clear. Our boys are at risk. Boys are four times more likely to commit suicide, two times more likely to be diagnosed with learning disabilities, and five times more likely to be murder victims. More than half of African American boys who start high school do not graduate, 40% of the boys in the U.S. are living in homes without their biological fathers, and boys' attendance at colleges is steadily decreasing."

More info is available here.

IWF's latest publication on the boy crisis (and how school choice helps solve the problem) is available here.

Eagle Forum Live with Phyllis Schlafly: Taking the Boy Crisis Seriously

info@iwf.org (Krista Kafer) — Sat, 26 May 2007 15:11:00 EDT

IWF visiting fellow, Krista Kafer, will join Phyllis Schlafly on the Eagle Forum Live radio program to discuss her report, "Taking the Boy Crisis in Education Seriously: How School Choice Can Boost Achievement Among Boys and Girls."

University Achievement: Boys in Deep Trouble

Tue, 08 May 2007 10:25:00 EDT

From the Detroit News:

At Wayne County Community College, young women make up almost 70 percent of all students; at Grand Valley State University, about 62 percent of students are female; at elite schools, such as the University of Michigan, the gender gap is reported to be likely increasing.
"This is really a gender thing," says William Pollack, a Harvard Medical School assistant clinical professor who directs the Center for Men and Young Men at McLean Hospital. "White middle-class boys are having a tough time. And poor boys and boys of color have it even tougher." "Young women absolutely hate it," he adds.

As IWF scholars have long maintained - in what should be a matter of greatest concern to American society- "boys have lost their confidence - in themselves and in school - and that has translated to declining motivation, grades and achievement."

Schools and parents? Wrongly disposed.

And what of the prospects of boy-friendly affirmative action? Writes Amber Arellano:

For all the research that shows that the system must change to accommodate boys- needs, it's shocking that more educators and policymakers aren't addressing the problem -- or even talking about it.
Certainly, the press hasn't discovered the issue in mass yet. So the public is largely unaware of how bad the problem is -- and thus, does not pressure politicians to do more.
But I suspect that it's also because neither the right nor the left like this issue. Liberals have focused so much on women's disparity, it's not politically correct to focus on boys.
And conservatives who argue that gender does not or should not matter -- and who successfully helped pass Michigan�s ban on affirmative action in certain public programs and institutions -- hate the fact that the programs that would help boys catch up in college-going are essentially affirmative action.
That's a terrible shame. Now that boys need affirmative action, at the university level and earlier, it's not there for them.

I shudder to envisage the nature of a boys� government-mandated affirmative action program. But Arellano is right: The public urgently needs to address and seek redress of the problem.

WGNU's The Sloan Ranger Show: The Boy Crisis

info@iwf.org (Krista Kafer) — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:29:00 EDT

IWF visiting fellow, Krista Kafer, joins the WGNU radio program, The Sloan Ranger Show, to discuss her report, "Taking the Boy Crisis in Education Seriously: How School Choice Can Boost Achievement Among Boys and Girls."

Education Choice Can Move Us Beyond the Gender Wars

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:30:00 EDT

Sara Mead, who has argued against the idea that there is any "boy crisis" in our education system, criticized IWF's latest paper by Krista Kafer for making the case that school choice is the solution to all our education ills. Adam Schaeffer of the Cato Institute does a good job rebutting this criticism, demonstrating how the lack of competition in our education system is the root of many different problems we see in student outcomes and explaining that no proponent of school choice claims that school choice will ensure that every child becomes an ivy-league candidate, but simply knows that diverse market based systems will do better than any government monopoly.

I'll just add that Mead obviously hasn't done her homework about IWF's position on the abstinence education vs. traditional sex ed debate; she assumes that everyone who isn't a part of the liberal establishment wants to mandate that abstinence only is taught in schools. That's way off-base. IWF doesn't think that government should make decisions about what should be taught in schools. The debate about sex education is a perfect example of why we need choice. Government bureaucrats shouldn't be deciding what and when children should be taught about such matters. What's appropriate for one kid might not be for another. That's why parents, not administrators, should select the child's education environment and another reason why we support school choice.

The most frustrating part of her blog post, however, is that she tries to paint IWF as being "anti-woman" because we acknowledge differences between the sexes, including that on average men are likely to be better at some things while women, on average, will be better at others. She writes: "For IWF and likeminded groups, somehow whenever women get the short end of a stick, that's because of brain differences, and since it's because of brain differences that means it's ok and society shouldn't do anything to help them. But when men get the short end of the stick on something, that's also because of brain differences but in this case requires that we automatically declare a crisis and take action to address the problem."

That's nonsense of course -- I would never expect that men will fully catch up with women in areas of our strength such as writing and reading comprehension and don't think we need programs to push college men into the majors that are heavily skewed toward women. The difference is that no one is pushing these policies designed to manufacture this outcome--the federal government isn't dumping millions of dollars into programs each year predicated on the idea that boys are discriminated against in our education system, but they are dumping millions into programs such programs for girls. The whole point is that we need an education system recognize that students are unique individuals who deserve more options that one-size-fits-all government run schools.

Help Boys Achieve Their Academic Potential Through School Choice

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:00:00 EDT

For Immediate Release: April 13, 2007

Contact: Kate Pomeroy 202-631-6704 or kate.pomeroy@iwf.org

Washington, DC-- For too long, policymakers and the public has accepted the idea that girls are "short-changed" by our public school system. The facts tell a different story. As IWF visiting fellow Krista Kafer reveals in her newly released paper, "Taking the Boy Crisis in Education Seriously: How School Choice Can Boost Achievement Among Boys and Girls," girls are actually outperforming boys in most academic measures.

"Girls surpass boys in reading, writing, civics and the arts. Girls get better grades and more honors; they have higher aspirations, are more engaged in school and are more likely to graduate from high school and college. Boys, on the other hand, are more likely to be suspended or expelled, need special education, smoke, drink and do drugs, repeat a grade, commit suicide, become incarcerated, leave school without attaining literacy, drop out of school or be unemployed. Marginal advantages in math and science for boys pale compared to the sheer advantage girls enjoy throughout school."

Unfortunately, public policymakers have ignored this data and continue to pour resources into programs premised on the idea that girls are uniquely disadvantaged in our public education system. Kafer urges policymakers to end these wasteful programs and instead promote policies that are will benefit all students. In particular, Kafer argues that we need a greater diversity of educational options so that parents can choose schools and programs that meet their children's unique needs.

"There is no one best method of teaching children." "For some children, single sex classrooms will yield the best results, while a different environment will be most suitable for others. Parents are best positioned to know what's best for their child and policymakers should focus on making it easier for parents to choose a school for their child," said Kafer.

Policymakers reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act this year should facilitate the use of innovative school choice programs at the state and local level. "For example, instead of giving states and localities funding for specific activities, policymakers ought to allow states to receive funding as block grants." States could then use the resources as they see fit--hopefully embracing innovative market-based initiatives like charter schools and voucher programs.

"School choice leads to more options and more innovation," said Kafer. "It's the best way to hold schools accountable and to provide the best outcomes for both boys and girls."

For a complete copy of the report please visit: http://www.iwf.org/pdf/IWFPolicyPaper604_web.pdf

For more information or to schedule an interview with Krista Kafer, please call Kate Pomeroy at 202-631-6704 or kate.pomeroy@iwf.org

###

Taking the Boy Crisis in Education Seriously: How School Choice Can Boost Achievement Among Boys and Girls

info@iwf.org (Krista Kafer) — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 18:13:00 EDT

For too long, policymakers and the public has accepted the idea that girls are "short-changed" by our public school system. The facts tell a different story. As IWF visiting fellow Krista Kafer reveals in her newly released paper, "Taking the Boy Crisis in Education Seriously: How School Choice Can Boost Achievement Among Boys and Girls," girls are actually outperforming boys in most academic measures.

"School choice leads to more options and more innovation," said Kafer. "It's the best way to hold schools accountable and to provide the best outcomes for both boys and girls."

A Victory for Boys in England...

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 13:58:00 EST

Christina Hoff Sommers' "The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Boys" was greeted by feminist screeches. They claimed that boys are doing just fine in our highly-feminized schools, thank-you very much. But confirmation of sorts of Hoff Sommers' thesis comes from abroad -- an article in the U.K. Telegraph reports that boys can learn better in separate schools where such feminist-condemned traits as competitiveness are honored:

Teachers should be encouraged to tailor classes to fit the needs of boys, with more emphasis on "competitive" lessons and the reading of non-fiction books, according to the review, chaired by Christine Gilbert, the head of Ofsted, the schools watchdog.

The recommendation follows the publication of GCSE results last summer which showed that boys were achieving a level of performance that girls had reached seven years before.

Today's report calls for a huge shake-up in the way education is delivered over the next 15 years to ensure that school leavers in 2020 have all the requisite skills.

"It seems clear to us that the education system will not achieve the next 'step change' in raising standards simply by doing more of the same: a new approach is required," it says.

What Boy Crisis?--Part 3,469

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 10:04:00 EDT

Backyard Conservative Anne Leary links to this report in the Chicago Tribune regarding a study of public elementary schools in suburban Wilmette, Ill. Guess what it found? A huge gender disparity in the learning accomplishments of boys and girls. Girls' grades were consistently higher in grades 5 through 8 on a range of subjects across the board: reading, weriting, spelling and math. Girls as a group were consistently more likely to receive A's, while boys were consistently more likely to receive C's. Some 71 percent of the district's special education students were boys, and boys represented the majority of discipline referrals and suspensions.

But instead of snidely (and Pollyannish-ly) concluding, "Why that doesn't mean boys are doing worse--it means girls are doing better!" like our friends in the feminist establishment, the Wilmette school system seems to actually want to do something about the problem. The Tribune story notes:

"During the 2005-06 school year, only 18 of the district's 155 teachers were men, according to the report. Most of the 18 taught 7th and 8th grades, with no men teaching in kindergarten through 3rd-grade classrooms.

"The report states that the percentage of male applicants who are hired as teachers is low, and that analysis suggests 'the evaluation criteria used for selecting teachers may reinforce these gender disparities.'"

The school district also seems to recognize the politically incorrect fact that, uh, boys' brains are different girls', so boys need their own style of teaching, one that incorporates games, competition, and letting students move around in the classroom into the learning process:

"- From the report by Wilmette Public Schools District 39: 'The more words a teacher uses, the more likely boys are to "zone out,:" or go into rest state. The male brain is better suited for symbols, abstractions, diagrams, pictures and objects moving through space than the monotony of words.'"

Oops--did I hear someone say, 'Larry Summers'"?

Anne comments:

"Those of us who asked these questions years ago were demonized as 'dangerous'. One of their recommendations is more competition in the classroom. Hopefully this...report will not be shelved to gather dust, like so many before it."

A Dangerous Book for Boys?

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 10:49:00 EDT

"Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails are what readers of a surprise bestseller are made of," writes Wendy McElroy, proprietor of the iconoclastic feminist site.

She's reviewing a new book for boys:

"The Dangerous Book for Boys by the British brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden is a practical manual that returns boys to the wonder and almost lost world of tree houses and pirate flags. It celebrates the art of teaching an old mutt new tricks and accepts skinned knees as an acceptable risk for running through fields with the same dog yapping along."

Sounds winner, doesn't it? Not so fast. McElroy adds:

"Condemnation arises because The Dangerous Book breaks the dominant and politically correct stereotype for children's books. It presents boys as being deeply different than girls in terms of their interests and pursuits. Although it is highly probable that bookstores will sell the book to girls who then will go on to practice skimming stones, nevertheless the genders are separated within the book's pages.

"The authors clearly believe that the majority of children interested in learning to build a catapult are boys. Girls are included only through a final chapter in which boys are admonished to treat them with respect."

IWF in the News: Boy's Crisis

info@iwf.org (Bonnie Erbe) — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 00:00:00 EDT

Scripps Howard News Service

So much for the boy crisis

By BONNIE ERBE
Scripps Howard News Service
26-JUN-06

So much for the "boy crisis," at least the one posited by right-wing women. Boys do indeed have academic weak spots. So do girls, in other academic arenas. But a new study by Education Sector, a Washington-based education think tank, reveals that during the past three decades, boys' test scores are mostly on the rise, more boys are going to college and more are earning BAs. So what's the problem?

Conservative women claim feminists created an artificial "girl problem" that helped push girls so far ahead of boys academically, they make the case boys are falling fearfully behind. They also charge feminists have so deprived boys of testosterone by feminizing education, boys are being feminized into oblivion. Feminists conversely claim that centuries of cultural attitudes that viewed women as chattel are not overcome in a few decades, and girls still lag scholastically in ways that translate into lower earning power when they become women. Maybe each side has a point.

The Washington Post notes that this new survey uses federally funded data garnered since 1971 to show educational inequities are more a matter of income than of gender. "Although low-income boys, like low-income girls, are lagging behind middle-class students, as a gender, boys are scoring significant gains in elementary and middle school and are much better prepared for college, the report says. It concludes that much of the pessimism about young males seems to derive from inadequate research, sloppy analysis and discomfort with the fact that while the average boy is doing better, the average girl has gotten ahead of him."

So much for Christina Hoff-Sommers' anti-feminist polemic, "The War Against Boys." And for the attitude exemplified by this quote from the Independent (read: conservative) Women's Forum's Web site: "Naturally the elitoes are pooh-poohing the 'boy crisis' _ because it interferes with their victimologist view that the real 'crisis' facing boys is that they're not enough like girls. So now, with study after study showing that boys are dropping out of school and skipping college at alarming rates, and that feminized, girl-friendly classes in grade-school and high-school (sic) might have something to do with it, we have (authors) Caryl Rivers and Rosalind Chase Burnett asking in the Washington Post: 'What boy crisis?' "

Once again I find myself in the messy middle of the boy-girl academic crisis and the secondary battle it has spawned over single-sex education in public schools. I wish conservative women, who support single-sex public schools, would stop attacking feminists, who do not. Is feminist ideology perfect? Of course not. Neither are feminists. But this woman-versus-woman war created by anti-feminists is more than a bit unseemly. And "feminism" is hardly the powerhouse its female enemies make it out to be.

Feminists, on the other hand, should recognize the pathways they've opened for girls have helped girls progress. They should not fear taking a public stand for boys once in a while.

I prefer the take of family physician and psychologist Dr. Leonard Sax. He occasionally steers into the "nutty" column (to wit, teachers should yell at boy students, but not at girls) and is more often quoted by the right than the left. But at heart, Sax comes across as an academician who has shifted his position on the real or imagined gender education crisis from the "boy" column, somewhat toward the middle.

I'd like to think research and experience have taught Sax that girls and boys are wired differently and therefore face divergent educational foibles. He supports some single-sex education in public schools, but advises the final decision should be left to parents: "For that reason, and others, single-sex education in public schools must remain voluntary for the foreseeable future. Parents, in consultation with teachers, must make the final determination of whether the single-sex format is right for their child. In the public sector as in the private sector, allowing parents a choice between coeducation and single-sex education is likely to yield the best results for all children."

Truce, please! The girl-boy wars are hereby declared over.

(Bonnie Erbe is a TV host and writes this column for Scripps Howard News Service. E-mail bonnieerbe(at)CompuServe.com.)

The College Gender Gap--It's Male Students Who Are at Risk

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 10:26:00 EST

Instapundit alerts us to Melana Zyla Vickers's analysis for the Weekly Standard of the alarming--and, of course, ignored by the mainstream media--imbalance of young women over young men as undergraduates at our college campuses. As Vickers points out, the problem isn't simply one of high male dropout rates at inner-city high schools; it's increasingly affecting the middle class. She writes:

"At colleges across the country, 58 women will enroll as freshmen for every 42 men. And as the class of 2010 proceeds toward graduation, the male numbers will dwindle. Because more men than women drop out, the ratio after four years will be 60--40, according to projections by the Department of Education."

At some well-regarded colleges, 40-60 male-female ratio is already close to a reality, Vickers notes. At Brandeis University, only 46 percent of undergrads are men, and at Boston Unversity, men represent less than 41 percent of the total student population. Yet, as Vickers notes, at the U.S. Department of Education, even under the Bush administration, it's still 1975, not 2005, and they're fretting over lack of funding for girls' basketball:

"The home of Title IX enforcement continues to be so preoccupied with advancing women that a recent 50--page study called Gender Differences in Participation and Completion of Undergraduate Education focuses not on the shortfall of men that's evident in practically every data point, but on tiny subpopulations of women who still have 'risk characteristics,' such as those entering university after age 29. And the department still spends money on studies such as Trends in Educational Equity of Girls and Women: 2004, while ignoring the eye--popping trends for boys and men."

She continues:

"The gender gap is even more palpable within the colleges themselves, because women and men gravitate to different majors. While a split in preferences has always been the case, the gender imbalance in the overall college makes departments so segregated that campus life just ain't what it used to be. In North Carolina's public and private universities, a typical psychology class has four women for every man. In education, the ratio is five to one. The English and foreign language departments are heavily female as well.

"The consequences go far beyond a lousy social life and the longer--term reality that many women won't find educated male peers to marry. There are also academic consequences, and economic ones.

"Only a few fields, such as business and the social sciences, show men and women signing up at comparable rates. Math, computers, engineering, and the physical sciences continue to be male--dominated (in North Carolina, for example, engineering is 79 percent male), and the total number of graduates in these economically essential fields is often stagnant or declining. Thus, between 1992 and 2002, when the number of bachelor's degree--earners in California's public university system grew by 11 percent, the number of engineering bachelor's degrees shrank by 8 percent. California's private universities fared better, but the gap is still striking: bachelor's degrees grew by 41 percent overall, while bachelor's degrees in engineering grew only 27 percent."

This is crazy, because it's engineering and science--fields that naturally attract men (sorry, Larry Summers-bashers!) that are crucial to our nation's competitivenes. But our nation's educrats remain in thrall to a 30-year-old feminist orthodoxy that insists that it's girls, not boys, who need encouragement to pursue higher education. Time to wake up, Bush administration!

Mailbag: Boys Will Be Boys

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 09:26:00 EST

Reader Y.W. e-mails an astute comment on our take on Code Pink's holiday campaign against war toys for little boys. (See "Look What Santa Brought You, Son--a Pink Frisbee!," Dec. 22, and also Carrie Lukas's article on the IWF home page.):

"As a 54-year-old male homemaker (my wife could make more money than I could), I forbade my son to watch overly violent films and to own toy guns. I taught him to use a real gun early, and we went target shooting whenever he wanted.

"People need to understand that real bullet wounds, especially to the torso, are a devestating injury. TV and movies present them as minor injuries. They most assuredly are not. Boys will be violent with or without my permission. I wanted my son to understand that guns aren't toys while validating his need for violence."

You make a good point, Y.W. And the point simply is that all the pink Frisbees in the world aren't going to do much to dampen male aggression, which can be a force for great evil or, believe it or not, great good.