are public schools failing boys

[Penumbra]

So what I am hearing with regards to discipline is that "boys are just more likely to misbehave," does this then transfer to "blacks are more likely to misbehave" since African American students also face more discipline in schools?

That's a not a true comparison. Boy brains and girl brains get flooded with different hormones at key stages of development which have organizing effects on the brain. Sexually dimorphic brain structures are identifiable before birth and right after birth. Are brains of people from different races statistically different from each other, at prenatal and neonatal times? I don't think they are to any significant degree.

Boys and girls do have observable biological differences, starting before infancy. There's a lot of overlap, and biology shouldn't be thought of as destiny, but it is there. A male infant, at certain times, has circulating testosterone levels that are on par with a man at his testosterone peak in his 20's, and a lot of experiments and observations of nature have shown that male and female brains are permanently shaped in part by early circulating levels of hormones at certain key times. So the brain is sexually dimorphic, to a degree. Here are two sources, but the interesting documents are some of the scientific studies themselves. For example, boys with high umbilical testosterone were more than twice as likely in a study to have a delay in learning language, though the definite causation is not fully understood. Expecting identical statistical behavior between young boys and girls if raised identically may not be realistic.

Parents and educators would do well to research teaching strategies that may be doing a disservice to either boys or girls. Biological causes are not an excuse, but the evidence for a sexually dimorphic brain starting from a prenatal time is all there.

I do not believe there are excessive differences in post pubescent children's testosterone levels. I would suggest that socialization is very much a part of this problem and anyone who shifts the focus from schools to parents is sandbagging the issue. Sure parents shoulder part of the blame, so does media, so do a lot of factors but we are discussing schools. To try to refocus that is to try to gloss over part of the problem.

While I follow your logic with poverty statistics, I think that your reasoning disregards racial discrimination. Essentially, I read your suggestion to mean that the difference in discipline which African American kids face can be chalked solely up to the fact that statistically black = more likely to be poor. I am not saying that poverty does not play a role in the disparity of discipline, I am saying that to conclude causation or even suggest causation is presumptuous.

On a side, poverty and race reading you might find interesting.

http://inequality.org/poverty-matter-black-white/

I don't think it's necessarily the case that shifting the primary issue to parents from schools is sandbagging the issue. You may have a conclusion that it's primarily the schools fault, but if data suggest otherwise, and people conclude otherwise, it doesn't necessarily mean they're ignoring the issue. It could potentially just be that their conclusion is more accurate.

I already posted some of the statistics from the reference that Alceste provided, showing a lot of out-of-school differences between boys and girls behavior. Boys are 3x more likely to play a lot of video games, they watch more tv, spend less time reading for pleasure, spend less time doing homework, more time doing sports, and other things. That's more within the realm of the parents to control.

I do think socialization plays a major role that has positive and negative effects on both boys and girls. For girls, I don't think they're often given enough toys and encouragement towards being engineers/scientists, whereas boys are likely given other forms of discrimination in how they are raised early on. I would agree that it's a multivariable thing: parents, schools, media, history, etc. Each one feeds off the other. Seeing as how early some of the observable differences start, I think discounting biology as a factor would be unwise, and then I think the emphasis is on parents prior to and during school years, including the ways they may raise boys and girls differently that can unnecessarily amplify any differences, that positively or negatively affect their performance in various ways.

 

[Curious George]

That's a not a true comparison. Boy brains and girl brains get flooded with different hormones at key stages of development which have organizing effects on the brain. Sexually dimorphic brain structures are identifiable before birth and right after birth. Are brains of people from different races statistically different from each other, at prenatal and neonatal times? I don't think they are to any significant degree.

Boys and girls do have observable biological differences, starting before infancy. There's a lot of overlap, and biology shouldn't be thought of as destiny, but it is there. A male infant, at certain times, has circulating testosterone levels that are on par with a man at his testosterone peak in his 20's, and a lot of experiments and observations of nature have shown that male and female brains are permanently shaped in part by early circulating levels of hormones at certain key times. So the brain is sexually dimorphic, to a degree. Here are two sources, but the interesting documents are some of the scientific studies themselves. For example, boys with high umbilical testosterone were more than twice as likely in a study to have a delay in learning language, though the definite causation is not fully understood. Expecting identical statistical behavior between young boys and girls if raised identically may not be realistic.

Parents and educators would do well to research teaching strategies that may be doing a disservice to either boys or girls. Biological causes are not an excuse, but the evidence for a sexually dimorphic brain starting from a prenatal time is all there.


I don't think it's necessarily the case that shifting the primary issue to parents from schools is sandbagging the issue. You may have a conclusion that it's primarily the schools fault, but if data suggest otherwise, and people conclude otherwise, it doesn't necessarily mean they're ignoring the issue. It could potentially just be that their conclusion is more accurate.

I already posted some of the statistics from the reference that Alceste provided, showing a lot of out-of-school differences between boys and girls behavior. Boys are 3x more likely to play a lot of video games, they watch more tv, spend less time reading for pleasure, spend less time doing homework, more time doing sports, and other things. That's more within the realm of the parents to control.

I do think socialization plays a major role that has positive and negative effects on both boys and girls. For girls, I don't think they're often given enough toys and encouragement towards being engineers/scientists, whereas boys are likely given other forms of discrimination in how they are raised early on. I would agree that it's a multivariable thing: parents, schools, media, history, etc. Each one feeds off the other. Seeing as how early some of the observable differences start, I think discounting biology as a factor would be unwise, and then I think the emphasis is on parents prior to and during school years, including the ways they may raise boys and girls differently that can unnecessarily amplify any differences, that positively or negatively affect their performance in various ways.

I am not trying to discount biological differences. I am responding to the rationalization that boys misbehave more. If this is do to biological factors then schools definitely need to address the biological differences in the sexes and what constitutes misbehavior. I am in no way suggesting that the schools are primarily to blame, only that the schools share in the blame.

Now when we are discussing how the schools are failing and people (not alceste, though I discussed it in a response to her post), are pointing fingers at parents that is absolutely shifting the blame. The responses that do such detract from the focus of schools when people the posts are saying "well, it is more of a parents problem." posts that fail to acknowledge or even address the schools failures are similar to the child saying "but, but, she did..." That is great. Let's deal with that at another place in time. Parents failures, media, sure those are very much at blame but how do the schools deal with the children who are present, with varied home lived, varied biology, and varied socio economic status right now?

Example: a little not is expelled for bringing a pocket knife to school. Sure our socialization of boys increases the statistical likelihood that a not would have a pocket knife, the parents most likely bought the knife, hell, maybe there is even some biological factors involved, but to overlook the disparate impact of zero tolerance policies in schools because of these factors?

One child pushes another after being hurt in a sports game. Well boys are statistically likely to play more sports and he did probably learn to manifest his anger in such a way from socializing factors such as parents or media so we should overlook the teacher child ratio because it is not the schools fault.

the simple truth is that the school does make decisions, socialize children and provide an environment where children spend much of their time. So to suggest that schools should not be the focus because this or that is more at fault is ridiculous, it does not matter whether or not schools are more at fault than something else, what matters is that schools share in the fault and therefore deserve a focus on how those schools are failing boys. while the study may note many factors such as likeliness to play video games, non of these are causal. And just because a study provides such statistics, we should not scapegoat the schools contribution with dwindling recess times, zero tolerance policies, type and method of punishment, teacher child ratios, gender bias in the classroom and curricula, or many other factors which the schools do control.

 

[Me Myself]

Ithink if boys s a demographic are failing achools, the people to blamr are:

Society in general
Schools
Parents
Boys

In that order.

Then again, I believe more in action and responsibility than in "blame" . We need to detect what is happening and tackle it from all the relevant angles,

 

[Penumbra]

Ithink if boys s a demographic are failing achools, the people to blamr are:

Society in general
Schools
Parents
Boys

In that order.

Then again, I believe more in action and responsibility than in "blame" . We need to detect what is happening and tackle it from all the relevant angles,

I am not trying to discount biological differences. I am responding to the rationalization that boys misbehave more. If this is do to biological factors then schools definitely need to address the biological differences in the sexes and what constitutes misbehavior. I am in no way suggesting that the schools are primarily to blame, only that the schools share in the blame.

Now when we are discussing how the schools are failing and people (not alceste, though I discussed it in a response to her post), are pointing fingers at parents that is absolutely shifting the blame. The responses that do such detract from the focus of schools when people the posts are saying "well, it is more of a parents problem." posts that fail to acknowledge or even address the schools failures are similar to the child saying "but, but, she did..." That is great. Let's deal with that at another place in time. Parents failures, media, sure those are very much at blame but how do the schools deal with the children who are present, with varied home lived, varied biology, and varied socio economic status right now?

Example: a little not is expelled for bringing a pocket knife to school. Sure our socialization of boys increases the statistical likelihood that a not would have a pocket knife, the parents most likely bought the knife, hell, maybe there is even some biological factors involved, but to overlook the disparate impact of zero tolerance policies in schools because of these factors?

One child pushes another after being hurt in a sports game. Well boys are statistically likely to play more sports and he did probably learn to manifest his anger in such a way from socializing factors such as parents or media so we should overlook the teacher child ratio because it is not the schools fault.

the simple truth is that the school does make decisions, socialize children and provide an environment where children spend much of their time. So to suggest that schools should not be the focus because this or that is more at fault is ridiculous, it does not matter whether or not schools are more at fault than something else, what matters is that schools share in the fault and therefore deserve a focus on how those schools are failing boys. while the study may note many factors such as likeliness to play video games, non of these are causal. And just because a study provides such statistics, we should not scapegoat the schools contribution with dwindling recess times, zero tolerance policies, type and method of punishment, teacher child ratios, gender bias in the classroom and curricula, or many other factors which the schools do control.

Do you have any specific recommendations for schools to do things differently? Ideally, recommendations that affect boys specifically, rather than, say, large public school budgets for smaller class sizes and those types of things that affect boys and girls.

It's one thing to throw out an opinion on an order of things to blame, but it doesn't mean anything if there isn't some sort of argument backing up that proposed order.

That big set of statistics that Alceste posted earlier provides all sorts of evidence to help separate some of these variables out.

Special Education and Disability:
-Boys are 2-3x more likely to be diagnosed with a learning disability, and 3x more likely to be diagnosed with an emotional disability. (This is an interesting aspect to focus on: over-diagnosis?)

-Depending on the specific disability, boys are 1.08-1.5x more likely to be diagnosed with a speech impediment, mental retardation, visual impairment, hearing impairment, deafness, orthopedic impairment, other impairments, or multiple impairments.

-Boys under 15 are nearly 2x as likely to have a severe physical disability.

-Boys and girls are almost equally likely to have no physical disabilities, implying that the difference is due to the boys with multiple disabilities.

-Boys aged 6-14 are more than twice as likely as girls to be in a wheelchair.

Early Childhood:
-Boys are nearly 1.5x time as likely as girls to enter kindergarten a year late, with the most common reason being that an additional year is needed for maturity or developmental disabilities. Out of all kids, 6% enter kindergarten a year late, so this is a large enough segment of the population to be of statistical significance.

-Boys are nearly 2x as likely as girls to have to repeat kindergarten if they started on time. Out of all kids, 5% enter kindergarten on time but then have to repeat. So, taken together, about 11% of kids either enter kindergarten late, or repeat kindergarten, and boys are 1.5x-2x more likely to have this happen.

-Boys under age 3 are 1.6x as likely as girls to have a developmental delay.
-Boys aged 3-5 are 1.5x as likely as girls to have a developmental delay. So that's pretty consistent, even slightly less,than the 0-3 year period. Boys are also more than 2x as likely to have trouble walking, running, or playing at this age.
-The statistics stop referring to "developmental delay for the 6-14 age range, but boys aged 6-14 are 1.6x as likely to have a "learning disability", and 3x as likely to have "mental retardation", (which is about four times rarer than a learning disability).
-Boys aged 6-14 are 1.7x as likely to have trouble doing regular schoolwork. To add to this, 7% of all kids fall into this category.
-Boys aged 6-14 are 1.8x as likely to have trouble getting along with others, but only 1.6% of all kids fall into this category.

Graduating High School, then College:
-For every 100 women that graduate high school, 96 men do. (Not bad.)

-For every 100 women enrolled in the first year of college, 84 men are enrolled.
-For every 100 women enrolled in the fourth year of college, 81 men are enrolled. (Not a big drop off, college is doing okay.)

.....

Primary conclusions:

-Boys are already statistically disadvantaged before ever getting to kindergarten, and the numbers are significant. They're more likely to have a developmental delay during pre-kindergarten years, and more likely to have kindergarten delayed by a year. This means something about society or biology has already created a noticeable difference even before school starts.

-Boys aged 0-3 are 1.6x as likely to have a developmental delay. Boys aged 3-5 are 1.5x as likely to have a developmental delay. For the 6-14 age group there are more categories, but I think "trouble doing regular schoolwork" is the most comparable here because it really gets to the crux of this, and boys are 1.7x as likely to have trouble doing regular schoolwork in this age range. These numbers throughout the time period are pretty consistent, with the ratio of boys to girls having doing schoolwork between ages 6-14 being fairly equal to the much earlier ratio of boys being 1.6x as likely to have a developmental delay before age 3. There's not a big increase during school years, apparently.

-Boys are much more likely to have a physical disability. This adds difficulty to their situation.

-Despite all this, for every 100 girls that graduate high school, 96 boys do. That's not bad when compared to the ratios between girls and boys of developmental difficulties in early years, late starts or repeats in kindergarten, trouble doing coursework, and expulsions due to behavioral problems.

.....

What this data suggest is that not that schools are failing boys, but rather that boys are entering their earliest years of school with a statistical disadvantage in terms of developmental disability (some combination of biology and socialization), as well as more physical disabilities, and that this doesn't appear to be significantly improved or seriously made worse during school years. Graduation rates are actually pretty comparable.

If there's a relevant question here, it's something like, "Can schools be doing something better to help the boys that come in with developmental or physical disadvantages?" rather than "are schools failing boys?"

That's why I'm saying that as far as I can tell, school is certainly a variable here but not nearly the biggest variable. The main variables have already taken effect before age 5.

 

[Mercy Not Sacrifice]

Schools are not failing boys. Parents are failing boys. They're not giving them enough of the positive live lessons they need; unstructured, outdoor playtime; and they're just setting the expectations too damn low. They enable their boys' poor behavior and defend actions that do not deserve a defense. They're committed to the rat race in the name of "providing for my family"; the whole balance-your-work-and-family is complete BS for some parents. And it's not all the parents' fault, really, but they have to play the cards they're dealt.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Secondary concern: primary education is primarily designed and taught by women - exclusively. It's like the engineering field for women. Boys don't have a male role model in class until middle school or high school. Children on average better identify with adults of their own gender.

I'm going to guess you are American because high school is usually a US thing (although I'm going off what might be outdated info or bad memory or both). It started in Boston, near where I lived most of my life as a "grammar school" that one didn't have to pay for. No females allowed. This didn't last long, and by the late 19th early 20th century not only were there suddenly hundreds of public high schools popping up all over the place, there were many which were designed as vocational schools or at least not intended as prepatory schooling for university. Around the 50s, though, the vocational orientation was killed and the system designed for prepping kids to go to college (how else are they going to spend vast amounts of money and four years of their lives to get a degree they don't need?).'

Not that long ago (less than 20 years I believe), there was an uproar within certain feminist circles due to a self-esteem study which showed that girls in general scored lower than boys. Many causal theories were put forth and many a meeting held to fix the problem without a lot of attention paid to the fact that while girls did in general tend to have lower self-esteem, they also did better. Boys tended to overestimate their abilities, and (presumably) work less, and girls did the reverse. Boys tend to be more active or require more attention (one interesting study, or perhaps several, were on the amount of attention girls received relative to boys, and it was much less; however, the reason was usually because boys required disciplinary attention). They tend think less about the future (the mature slower, and the brain regions which are designed to make critical judgments especially when they result in decisions which override wants are the regions that undergo the slowest maturation and longest period of structural change).

So, when the US school system is built more around things like standardized test scores, reinforcing self-esteem regardless of whether it is needed, speeding through subjects using rote procedures (after all, they're going to learn the good stuff when they go to college, right?) rather than understanding, and has little to no competition nor offers anything more for teachers who bend over backwards to help their students vs. those who just lecture until the bell rings (either ignoring or expelling from the class students who don't pay attention), what do you expect?

The people who will tend to do the best are those whose families (whomsoever the child goes home to, whether adopting same-sex couple or a cramped space over a store in Chinatown where both immediate and extended family members live) encourage and emphasize the importance of learning and instill to the extent possible a desire to learn. Those who are not encouraged in this way will tend to do worse. Boys tend to be less mature and more confident than girls and will often have unrealistic goals (e.g., playing pro-ball) if they actually think about the future at all.

In the end, however, I think the schools are failing pretty much everybody. Universities existed for almost 1,000 years (longer, if one's definition is more flexible) before public prep schools and until pretty recently not having a degree just meant you didn't intend to go into academia. That's because for about ~1,000 years universities taught people to master areas of study, not obtain a piece of paper so that an employer could but a checkmark next to "has college degree".

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Special Education and Disability:
-Boys are 2-3x more likely to be diagnosed with a learning disability, and 3x more likely to be diagnosed with an emotional disability. (This is an interesting aspect to focus on: over-diagnosis?)

Don't worry about it. Once the kid gets diagnosed with ADD they'll give him a legal form of speed and/or a drug that the drug companies say will help X condition (and they wouldn't lie, massage data a bit, use placebo-washouts, fail to use active placebos and other controls so that neither the patients nor the researchers can detect who's getting the placebo without being told, etc.). They have white coats and stethoscopes, you have to understand that chain of command:

Doctors
Researchers with Medical degrees
{God} - if applicable
Celebrities
TV Celebrities
Google
Microsoft
World political leaders
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(etc.)
You.

 

[Curious George]

Do you have any specific recommendations for schools to do things differently? Ideally, recommendations that affect boys specifically, rather than, say, large public school budgets for smaller class sizes and those types of things that affect boys and girls.

It's one thing to throw out an opinion on an order of things to blame, but it doesn't mean anything if there isn't some sort of argument backing up that proposed order.

That big set of statistics that Alceste posted earlier provides all sorts of evidence to help separate some of these variables out.

Special Education and Disability:
-Boys are 2-3x more likely to be diagnosed with a learning disability, and 3x more likely to be diagnosed with an emotional disability. (This is an interesting aspect to focus on: over-diagnosis?)

-Depending on the specific disability, boys are 1.08-1.5x more likely to be diagnosed with a speech impediment, mental retardation, visual impairment, hearing impairment, deafness, orthopedic impairment, other impairments, or multiple impairments.

-Boys under 15 are nearly 2x as likely to have a severe physical disability.

-Boys and girls are almost equally likely to have no physical disabilities, implying that the difference is due to the boys with multiple disabilities.

-Boys aged 6-14 are more than twice as likely as girls to be in a wheelchair.

Early Childhood:
-Boys are nearly 1.5x time as likely as girls to enter kindergarten a year late, with the most common reason being that an additional year is needed for maturity or developmental disabilities. Out of all kids, 6% enter kindergarten a year late, so this is a large enough segment of the population to be of statistical significance.

-Boys are nearly 2x as likely as girls to have to repeat kindergarten if they started on time. Out of all kids, 5% enter kindergarten on time but then have to repeat. So, taken together, about 11% of kids either enter kindergarten late, or repeat kindergarten, and boys are 1.5x-2x more likely to have this happen.

-Boys under age 3 are 1.6x as likely as girls to have a developmental delay.
-Boys aged 3-5 are 1.5x as likely as girls to have a developmental delay. So that's pretty consistent, even slightly less,than the 0-3 year period. Boys are also more than 2x as likely to have trouble walking, running, or playing at this age.
-The statistics stop referring to "developmental delay for the 6-14 age range, but boys aged 6-14 are 1.6x as likely to have a "learning disability", and 3x as likely to have "mental retardation", (which is about four times rarer than a learning disability).
-Boys aged 6-14 are 1.7x as likely to have trouble doing regular schoolwork. To add to this, 7% of all kids fall into this category.
-Boys aged 6-14 are 1.8x as likely to have trouble getting along with others, but only 1.6% of all kids fall into this category.

Graduating High School, then College:
-For every 100 women that graduate high school, 96 men do. (Not bad.)

-For every 100 women enrolled in the first year of college, 84 men are enrolled.
-For every 100 women enrolled in the fourth year of college, 81 men are enrolled. (Not a big drop off, college is doing okay.)

.....

Primary conclusions:

-Boys are already statistically disadvantaged before ever getting to kindergarten, and the numbers are significant. They're more likely to have a developmental delay during pre-kindergarten years, and more likely to have kindergarten delayed by a year. This means something about society or biology has already created a noticeable difference even before school starts.

-Boys aged 0-3 are 1.6x as likely to have a developmental delay. Boys aged 3-5 are 1.5x as likely to have a developmental delay. For the 6-14 age group there are more categories, but I think "trouble doing regular schoolwork" is the most comparable here because it really gets to the crux of this, and boys are 1.7x as likely to have trouble doing regular schoolwork in this age range. These numbers throughout the time period are pretty consistent, with the ratio of boys to girls having doing schoolwork between ages 6-14 being fairly equal to the much earlier ratio of boys being 1.6x as likely to have a developmental delay before age 3. There's not a big increase during school years, apparently.

-Boys are much more likely to have a physical disability. This adds difficulty to their situation.

-Despite all this, for every 100 girls that graduate high school, 96 boys do. That's not bad when compared to the ratios between girls and boys of developmental difficulties in early years, late starts or repeats in kindergarten, trouble doing coursework, and expulsions due to behavioral problems.

.....

What this data suggest is that not that schools are failing boys, but rather that boys are entering their earliest years of school with a statistical disadvantage in terms of developmental disability (some combination of biology and socialization), as well as more physical disabilities, and that this doesn't appear to be significantly improved or seriously made worse during school years. Graduation rates are actually pretty comparable.

If there's a relevant question here, it's something like, "Can schools be doing something better to help the boys that come in with developmental or physical disadvantages?" rather than "are schools failing boys?"

That's why I'm saying that as far as I can tell, school is certainly a variable here but not nearly the biggest variable. The main variables have already taken effect before age 5.

The Problem with School? . Boys in School . Raising Boys . PBS Parents | PBS

I am not sure what your point is. Are you trying to point out that other factors are involved? I agree. Are you asking for solutions? I personally could ramble on through the night about ways in which schools can improve. Are you asking for sex specific ways to fix the schools? I think my solutions would offer a better school environment to both boys and girls. But are our schools failing boys? Yes.

I do not like to see any academic achievement gap. And the argument that it is a biological inevitability is as much crap as when males espoused that men were just smarter and more rational than females. There is nothing so biologically different that we cannot teach boys just as well girls, that boys cannot succeed just as well as girls.

Are there biological differences? Yes

Are boys socialized differently than girls? Yes

But schools need to work with the children they are given, and not throw their hands up and say I am doing the best I can, it is just the parents, or the media, or society, or biology.

No teachers do not get that excuse. No shifting of focus. Are there other issues that need to be addressed as well? Sure. But teachers and schools must own there portion of the problem. They will continue to fail boys, until they accept that when a child doesn't learn what they are teaching, then they must change how they teach it.

 

[Poeticus]

Namaste,

This reminds me of the website called: Crimes Against Fathers.

Regards,
M.V.

 

[Curious George]

Early Childhood:
-Boys are nearly 1.5x time as likely as girls to enter kindergarten a year late, with the most common reason being that an additional year is needed for maturity or developmental disabilities. Out of all kids, 6% enter kindergarten a year late, so this is a large enough segment of the population to be of statistical significance.

-Boys are nearly 2x as likely as girls to have to repeat kindergarten if they started on time. Out of all kids, 5% enter kindergarten on time but then have to repeat. So, taken together, about 11% of kids either enter kindergarten late, or repeat kindergarten, and boys are 1.5x-2x more likely to have this happen.

-Boys under age 3 are 1.6x as likely as girls to have a developmental delay.
-Boys aged 3-5 are 1.5x as likely as girls to have a developmental delay. So that's pretty consistent, even slightly less,than the 0-3 year period. Boys are also more than 2x as likely to have trouble walking, running, or playing at this age.


.....

What this data suggest is that not that schools are failing boys, but rather that boys are entering their earliest years of school with a statistical disadvantage in terms of developmental disability (some combination of biology and socialization), as well as more physical disabilities, and that this doesn't appear to be significantly improved or seriously made worse during school years. Graduation rates are actually pretty comparable.

If there's a relevant question here, it's something like, "Can schools be doing something better to help the boys that come in with developmental or physical disadvantages?" rather than "are schools failing boys?"

That's why I'm saying that as far as I can tell, school is certainly a variable here but not nearly the biggest variable. The main variables have already taken effect before age 5.

Answer me this, in your mind could schools be failing boys?

Now riddle me this, how much more likely are boys to be expelled from preschool than girls?

Explain that. Biologically, socially, whatever.

 

[Curious George]

Namaste,

This reminds me of the website called: Crimes Against Fathers.

Regards,
M.V.

How so?

 

[Penumbra]

The Problem with School? . Boys in School . Raising Boys . PBS Parents | PBS

I am not sure what your point is. Are you trying to point out that other factors are involved? I agree. Are you asking for solutions? I personally could ramble on through the night about ways in which schools can improve. Are you asking for sex specific ways to fix the schools? I think my solutions would offer a better school environment to both boys and girls. But are our schools failing boys? Yes.

I do not like to see any academic achievement gap. And the argument that it is a biological inevitability is as much crap as when males espoused that men were just smarter and more rational than females. There is nothing so biologically different that we cannot teach boys just as well girls, that boys cannot succeed just as well as girls.

Are there biological differences? Yes

Are boys socialized differently than girls? Yes

But schools need to work with the children they are given, and not throw their hands up and say I am doing the best I can, it is just the parents, or the media, or society, or biology.

No teachers do not get that excuse. No shifting of focus. Are there other issues that need to be addressed as well? Sure. But teachers and schools must own there portion of the problem. They will continue to fail boys, until they accept that when a child doesn't learn what they are teaching, then they must change how they teach it.

The point is to show where the difference seems to start. If boys and girls enter school with roughly equal performance, but then leave with a gap between girls and boys, then we can say that the problem seems to occur primarily during school years.

But that data suggest otherwise. Instead, boys and girls are entering kindergarten with a gap already. Boys are more likely to have developmental delays before age 3, more likely to have developmental delays between age 3-5, more likely to enter kindergarten late, and then more likely to have to repeat kindergarten, and it then just kind of goes from there. The ratio of developmental delays between boys and girls for age 0-3 and 3-5 is roughly the same as the ratio of having trouble doing schoolwork between boys and girls age 6-14. And then graduation rates favor girls, but not by a huge margin, considering these earlier developmental delays and the ratio between boys and girls that have trouble doing schoolwork.

If the gap is already there when they enter school, can we really say schools are failing boys? We could say maybe schools could do a better job of figuring out why the incoming gap exists and seeing if they can narrow it a bit, but if boys and girls are entering with a gap and then have a similar gap while in school, it looks like we could say they're being treated about equal.

Your link points out that boys are more likely to come into school with developmental delays, that too much is expected of them too early, that they're likely to have a woman as a teacher. What do you believe is the best way to handle this? Women are 4x more likely to go to school for becoming an educator. It's already the case that 11% of children (more boys than girls) delay or repeat kindergarten, which ideally would give the subset of boys that have difficulties more time, but it turns out that the second year generally doesn't work out very well.

Your OP pointed out three shortfalls that boys have compared to girls in school, but my point is, boys are entering school with a shortfall. That's why I'm not ranking school above the third largest factor.

Answer me this, in your mind could schools be failing boys?

Like I said, I think the question is more like, "how could schools do a better job of narrowing the gap that boys and girls come in with". Based on the data, something well before the age of 5 is failing boys, and then schools have to deal with that incoming developmental difference.

Now riddle me this, how much more likely are boys to be expelled from preschool than girls?

Explain that. Biologically, socially, whatever.

They're a lot more likely to be expelled in preschool, primarily due to behavioral problems.

I don't remember preschool very well because I only attended a little bit of it, but there was one day of kindergarten that I remember more vividly than any of the others. It was towards the beginning of the term, and us kindergarteners were sitting cross-legged on the floor listening to the teacher read a book. Some parents were sitting in the room too, I think because it was towards the end of the day.

As I was sitting there, age 5, some other 5 year old that I had never spoken with before, stood up while the book was being read, in front of the teacher and several parents, walked up to me from behind, and slammed my head down into the floor as hard as he could. It happened so quickly and I'm a little shady about the details since it happened from behind, so I'm not sure if he struck my head and then my head hit the floor, or if he grabbed my head/hair and then quickly slammed it down into the floor, but I think it was the latter, and it was the impact of my head on the hard floor that really hurt. The result was that I was on the floor sobbing and had to go to the nurse, the teacher and parents were dumbfounded at what just happened in front of them, and the boy never did give an explanation for why he did it.

Sometimes expulsions occur to keep the majority of kids safe from kids that come in with behavioral problems.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

I think - from the way that schools have gotten more stricter and "secure" than in the past, it's the schools failing the boys. But that's my opinion, as a boy, falling behind in school.

 

[Curious George]

The point is to show where the difference seems to start. If boys and girls enter school with roughly equal performance, but then leave with a gap between girls and boys, then we can say that the problem seems to occur primarily during school years.

But that data suggest otherwise. Instead, boys and girls are entering kindergarten with a gap already. Boys are more likely to have developmental delays before age 3, more likely to have developmental delays between age 3-5, more likely to enter kindergarten late, and then more likely to have to repeat kindergarten, and it then just kind of goes from there. The ratio of developmental delays between boys and girls for age 0-3 and 3-5 is roughly the same as the ratio of having trouble doing schoolwork between boys and girls age 6-14. And then graduation rates favor girls, but not by a huge margin, considering these earlier developmental delays and the ratio between boys and girls that have trouble doing schoolwork.

If the gap is already there when they enter school, can we really say schools are failing boys? We could say maybe schools could do a better job of figuring out why the incoming gap exists and seeing if they can narrow it a bit, but if boys and girls are entering with a gap and then have a similar gap while in school, it looks like we could say they're being treated about equal.

Your link points out that boys are more likely to come into school with developmental delays, that too much is expected of them too early, that they're likely to have a woman as a teacher. What do you believe is the best way to handle this? Women are 4x more likely to go to school for becoming an educator. It's already the case that 11% of children (more boys than girls) delay or repeat kindergarten, which ideally would give the subset of boys that have difficulties more time, but it turns out that the second year generally doesn't work out very well.

Your OP pointed out three shortfalls that boys have compared to girls in school, but my point is, boys are entering school with a shortfall. That's why I'm not ranking school above the third largest factor.


Like I said, I think the question is more like, "how could schools do a better job of narrowing the gap that boys and girls come in with". Based on the data, something well before the age of 5 is failing boys, and then schools have to deal with that incoming developmental difference.

They're a lot more likely to be expelled in preschool, primarily due to behavioral problems.

I don't remember preschool very well because I only attended a little bit of it, but there was one day of kindergarten that I remember more vividly than any of the others. It was towards the beginning of the term, and us kindergarteners were sitting cross-legged on the floor listening to the teacher read a book. Some parents were sitting in the room too, I think because it was towards the end of the day.

As I was sitting there, age 5, some other 5 year old that I had never spoken with before, stood up while the book was being read, in front of the teacher and several parents, walked up to me from behind, and slammed my head down into the floor as hard as he could. It happened so quickly and I'm a little shady about the details since it happened from behind, so I'm not sure if he struck my head and then my head hit the floor, or if he grabbed my head/hair and then quickly slammed it down into the floor, but I think it was the latter, and it was the impact of my head on the hard floor that really hurt. The result was that I was on the floor sobbing and had to go to the nurse, the teacher and parents were dumbfounded at what just happened in front of them, and the boy never did give an explanation for why he did it.

Sometimes expulsions occur to keep the majority of kids safe from kids that come in with behavioral problems.

For me whether or not the schools are the primary factor is a side point. It does not matter whether the school is the first or eighth ranked in the blame game. That the schools are a factor and still they do little to change is enough.

Can schools control the loss of recess?
Can schools control zero tolerance policies?
Can schools control discipline?
Can schools control curricula?
Can schools control when and how much reading is introduced?
Can teachers acknowledge their own gender bias?


I see very little reason a preschooler should ne expelled. If the actions of boys necessitate being expelled from preschool at a rate of over 4.5 times that of girls, I question the age-(and gender)-appropriateness of the school.

 

[Mercy Not Sacrifice]

I think - from the way that schools have gotten more stricter and "secure" than in the past, it's the schools failing the boys. But that's my opinion, as a boy, falling behind in school.

Are you kidding me?? Schools have gotten stricter on discipline in recent decades? Please, go ask a public school teacher how easy it is to get an unruly student to behave. Oh, and make sure you've scheduled at least half an hour to hear the entire rant.