That’s the question on Clarence Page’s Page’s mind:
…what’s happening to the guys, especially the underachievers piling up at the bottom end of the grading and test scores?
While some boys’ scores have never looked better, others could hardly be doing worse. The days of fretting over lagging girls’ achievement have faded into a “boy crisis” headlined on the covers of Time and Newsweek and numerous new books.
Stories and statistics describe unmotivated, easily distractible boys who are falling behind in test scores, forgetting their homework or, when they finish it, forgetting to turn it in — or unable to find it in their disorganized backpacks.
When their grades slip back and their adolescent concepts of manhood are crushed, they would retreat to video games or even less productive escapes, rather than ask for help.
These problems are particularly acute for black males, judging by studies like the recent report on dropouts by the Schott Foundation for Public Education, an educational think tank in Cambridge, Mass. It found that fewer than half of black male students across the country are graduating from high school.
More here.
IWF on boys in education here.