In the march toward gender equity, girls surge forward, but boys fall back

Stories by Sherry Posnick-Goodwin
Photos by Scott Buschman

Just a few years ago, male students dominated classroom discussions, got better grades and seemed more focused on academics than did female students, observes Daphne Dixon, a sixth-grade math and science teacher at Walton Middle School in Compton. Today, her female students are the go-getters.

"My girls are outperforming the boys," says Dixon, a member of the Compton Education Association (CEA). "They're taking the lead as team captains for science experiments. They're dominating, organizing and delegating. I'm so impressed with them. My girls are the bomb!"

While her girls were becoming "the bomb," which is teen lingo for "fantastic," her male students were bombing out on tests and had a lackadaisical attitude toward homework. When Dixon and other CEA members at Walton started comparing notes and analyzing test scores, they realized it wasn't just a fluke and it wasn't just happening within their own individual classrooms.

"Last year we started to take notice — as a group — that the majority of boys were not doing well. We were all surprised," relates Hassan Chavoushi, a seventh- and eighth-grade math teacher.

"It has gotten progressively worse," laments Stanley Freeman, a seventh-grade world history teacher. "I had a schoolwork competition between the boys and girls last year. When I assigned term papers, the girls made two or three drafts, and they were neatly typed. They tried to outdo each other on grades. The young men didn't care about it." In fact, he said, the boys tried to outdo each other in how little work they turned in.

What's happening at Walton reflects a statewide and national trend often referred to as the "new gender gap." Studies show that girls are outperforming boys on state and national tests, and are more likely to graduate from high school and go on to college. The trend is more pronounced in schools with predominantly low-income, minority students, such as Walton, but it is also noticeable in more affluent school settings.

Trish Mihalek, a math and science teacher at Hall Middle School in the middle-class community of Larkspur (Marin County), says she's observed a "gradual trend" in which girls went from lagging behind boys in math and science to equaling and in many cases "out-achieving" boys on tests and in classroom performance.

A U.S. Department of Education study released in December notes that the academic edge boys once held has vanished and boys now seem to be "falling behind." The July 2003 National Assessment of Eduational Progress (NAEP) writing results show boys scoring, on average, 24 points lower than girls. A Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) study shows that high school girls in California public schools are enrolling in most math and science courses at a higher rate than boys.

Other studies show:

• Girls are less likely to repeat a grade and drop out of high school.
• Among high school seniors, girls have higher educational aspirations than boys.
• Girls outnumber boys on college campuses.

According to a Business Week article on "The New Gender Gap," men have outnumbered women on college campuses for 350 years. "Now, in every state, every income bracket, every racial and ethnic group, and most industrialized Western nations, women reign, earning an average 57 percent of all B.A.'s and 58 percent of all master's degrees in the U.S. alone."

The new gender gap has apparently caught many people off guard, possibly because for the past three decades educators have been bending over backwards to correct past practices that favored boys over girls. Apparently, they have done a fine job — students today take female equality for granted. Teachers report that students are shocked to learn that, in the not too distant past, most occupations except nursing and teaching were closed to women, female sports hardly existed at public schools, and many people believed that the real reason women went to college was to earn a "Mrs. degree."

The women's movement, Title IX, and the Gender and Equity Act made significant progress in correcting past discrimination against females in the classroom and on the playing field. But some problems persisted. In 1992, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) released a study detailing "How Schools Shortchange Girls." Among its findings was that teaching practices and even tests tended to favor boys. According to the study, girls suffered from self-esteem issues and lower rates of achievement in math and science, supposedly because more attention was lavished on boys than girls.

Within the past decade, efforts to remedy the situation have paid dividends. Recent studies show that females have blossomed academically, but there's still a gap when it comes to higher-level math and science.

With so much attention focused on girls, it took a while to notice that boys were slipping behind. And once people started noticing, they found many factors to blame, ranging from boys' preoccupation with video games and rap videos to the lack of male role models in many homes, say Walton Middle School teachers.

In many single-parent homes, says Dixon, "boys see women taking charge in certain areas, and they don't see men stepping up to the plate."

"Boys have a certain image they want to keep up, and it's not an image that emphasizes education," adds Freeman. "It's a tough-guy image, based on rap videos and things of that nature. They think they have to be tough and live for the moment. They don't think it's cool to be a 'schoolboy.' When you are trying to be tough, you aren't supposed to be carrying books around."

"To me, it seems to be an issue of parental involvement," says Chavoushi. "When we hold parent conferences, the parents of girls are mostly here. Parents are more involved with their female children and seem to be less worried about boys." He also thinks that female students are given more encouragement from parents to do well in school.

"I think video games may have a lot to do with it," says Yvette Arnold, a seventh-grade English teacher. "Boys go home after school and play video games or watch television shows where different monsters battle each other. Sometimes, the only way I can get them to do work in class is if I promise them time on the computer. Girls are interested in doing the work, and they don't need a bribe to do it."

"Today, because our kids are educated in the electronic age, attention spans are very short," observes Mary Gallet, educational equity Title IX compliance coordinator for the California Department of Education (CDE). Because more boys play video games, "that transfers into the classroom with boys becoming bored and disruptive in larger numbers than ever before. This translates into boys not paying attention to the teacher and not doing their homework. And larger numbers of boys are being put into special ed or are dropping out of school."

A primary factor in the academic performance of young men is gang activity, adds Gallet. "Gangs are everywhere. If we want to change the academic performance of our kids, we can't just blame the schools. There is a cultural component, too. It's tragic."

Over the past decade, one-size-fits-all instruction, scripted learning programs, and the phasing out of physical education and enrichment programs have perhaps taken a greater toll on boys. The push to start academics at earlier and earlier ages has been much more harmful to boys than girls, say researchers, and puts boys at a disadvantage from the moment they set foot in school. Kindergarten, once a time for learning through play, is now a time for children to sit still and learn reading skills. Sitting still for hours at a time is much more difficult for young boys than it is for girls.

It's a matter of brain-based differences, say researchers. School curriculum tends to emphasize the left-brain skills of reading and writing, which develop at a slower pace in male students than they do in female students.

"From his first days in school, an average boy is already developmentally two years behind girls in reading and writing," notes Business Week. "Yet he's often expected to learn the same things in the same way in the same amount of time.… Biologically he needs about four recesses a day, but he's lucky if he gets one."

"I see huge differences between kindergarten readiness of boys versus girls," says Robie Rich, a primary teacher in the rural foothills of Shasta County. "The girls are ready for school and advance easily. The boys behave very immaturely and would rather not deal with any 'traditional' academics."

"Academics at the primary level deal mostly with what girls traditionally — as well as developmentally — excel in, and that is mostly reading/language arts related," says Rich, a member of the Shasta County Teachers Association. "Boys that age don't like reading at all, and would rather do math or science — or play."

Girls are also conditioned to behave better than boys. "From kindergarten on, the education system rewards self-control, obedience and concentration — qualities that, any teacher can tell you, are more common among girls than boys, particularly at young ages," writes Marshall Poe in Atlantic Monthly. "Boys fidget, fool around, fight and worse.

"Thirty years ago teachers may have accommodated and managed this behavior, in part by devoting more attention to boys than to girls," he continues. "But as girls have come to attract equal attention, as an inability to sit still has been medicalized and as the options for curbing student misbehavior have been ever more curtailed, boys may have suffered. Boys make up three quarters of all children categorized as learning disabled today, and they are put in special education at a much higher rate. Shorter recess times, less physical education and more time spent on rote learning in order to meet testing standards may have exacerbated the problems that boys tend to experience in the classroom. It is no wonder, then, that many boys disengage academically."

A boy who disengages may become the class clown and be chastised for his behavior. This, in turn, may induce a poor self-image and foster the feeling that he doesn't "fit in" at school.

Traditionally, boys have not been encouraged to understand their emotions. They are told to be tough and "act like a man." Not only does this cause anger, frustration and problems in coping, it can also result in a lack of empathy for others.

In addition to having better coping skills and longer attention spans, girls in the early grades tend to be more conscientious and attentive to detail, which sets a pattern for later learning.

"I think girls do better because when they do something, they stick to it and try their hardest," says Cindy Alvarado, an eighth-grader at Jefferson Leadership Academies, a middle school in Long Beach that separates students by gender. "Boys don't care if their work is neat; they just want to get it done."

Not surprisingly, the issue of why boys have fallen behind has taken on political overtones.

Some people contend that schools are trying to break the spirit of boys and make them more like girls.

Feminists counter that equality has still not been reached [see related story] and that the past few decades of encouraging and nurturing girls are a pittance when it comes to making up for centuries of treating women like second-class citizens. They also worry that correcting the problems of boys could come at the expense of girls.

Arguing over who is hurting the most and turning the gender gap into a "gender war" is unproductive, says Dolores Grayson, a former CTA member who founded Generating Expectations for Student Achievement (GESA) and conducts workshops on classroom equity around the country. Rather than taking an either/or approach, "teachers should be encouraged to employ behaviors and strategies that are positive and supportive of all students."

She does believe there is a disparity in how discipline is meted out at school, which has negatively impacted boys — especially minority boys. She believes it leads to a higher male suicide rate and could be why the prison population is mostly male. "When we looked at breaking down some of this stuff, we found that African American males and Latinos were the two groups that got the most discipline, suspensions, expulsions and referrals."

Girls may be viewed (by both genders) as receiving preferential treatment from teachers and getting away with behavior that males wouldn't dare try. One reason, says Grayson, is that teachers — especially male teachers — are afraid that girls will get upset or cry if disciplined, so they avoid punishing them.

The repercussions may be felt for generations to come. "The growing educational and economic imbalances could create societal upheavals, altering family finances, social policies and family-work practices," says Business Week. "Men are already dropping out of the labor force, walking out on fatherhood and disconnecting from civic life in greater numbers. … Better-educated men are also, on average, a much happier lot. They are more likely to marry, stick by their children and pay more in taxes."

"We have to help these young men," says Dixon. "They're dropping out and feeling that society doesn't care. They feel they are going to be a statistic. They say, 'My daddy was one. My brother was one. So what?'"

"We have to let them know that they are important, and that they don't have to be a statistic. When they feel a sense of self-worth, they will realize that education is the key. Everyone has something to share with the world — a talent or a skill. Our job, as teachers, is to help them find out what it is."