To the benefit of the U.S., the girls' cause triumphed in American schools. I hope these same feminists and activists for equality bring this fight to other places in the world like the Middle East and Asia, where equality in the classroom is definitely not a reality and boys outperform girls academically.
However, in the very noble struggle to achieve equality in the school system in the U.S., many of America's male students were left behind. Now, girls outperform boys in every academic arena. In a classroom with 30 children, five boys will start failing in preschool and their first few years of elementary school. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) says that more boys experience developmental difficulties than girls. In a special analysis that came out in 2000, the NCES said, "Twice as many boys as girls have difficulty articulating words clearly and communicating with others (14 versus seven percent), twice as many boys as girls have difficulty paying attention for sustained periods (18 versus nine percent), and one-quarter more boys than girls (20 versus 16 percent) are more active than their peers." These initial developmental problems explain why many boys fall behind at an early age and never catch up with their peers. By late elementary school, many of these failing boys will simply be diagnosed with a learning disability like ADD or ADHD and be allowed to pass into middle school and high school without having developed the basic reading and study skills needed to succeed in further schooling. As these troubled boys are passed along through the public school system, they grow frustrated with school and their lives. By the time they reach their mid-teens many dropout and some even resort to crime out of desperation or frustration. In fact, these young men make up most of America's high school dropouts-as high as 80 percent in some cities.
The key to solving this problem is addressing the very different ways in which boys and girls develop at an early age, which points to the fact that boys and girls may just have different learning styles. We must look at the NCES's findings, and address these issues from an early age. Perhaps young boys in kindergarten and preschool need more active learning or numerous breaks for play throughout the day to ease them into a less active learning in elementary school. Many of these boys cannot immediately adjust to the "sit-down, raise your hand, take notes and be quiet" learning style. If the educational system becomes more aware of this, perhaps it can help many young boys adjust to the traditional school system, instead of deeming them unable or unwilling from an early age-which leads to frustration with school, dropping out of high school and perhaps eventual crime. More research needs to be done to see how society can help boys struggling through primary and secondary schooling. We have some information, but definitely not enough.
Perhaps this issue of boys struggling in school was overlooked because white men still make up the majority of Representatives and Senators in our political system. A women has never run for president for a majority party, and men hold most of the high powered jobs in the U.S. An article in USA Today said that "among the five-highest paid corporate officers at each Fortune 500 company, 5.2% were women in 2002." This might make people think that young boys do not need as much help in school because men succeed in the professional world. The boys struggling through school are a completely different group from the powerful men in the U.S. and should not be categorized with them. Boys coming from wealthy families, most of which are white, will overcome many of their developmental struggles because their parents can pay for tutors and they have the support at home to help them through school and into college. The real problem lies with boys who come from less advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, and who do not have the support at home to help them through school because their parent, and in many cases only their mother, works all day to put food on the table. In fact, the Census Bureau said that families headed by a single mother in the U.S. are much more likely than married couples to experience poverty. Many male students from families such as these are the ones who get passed through the system and eventually drop out of high school. The majority of these boys never had access to resources to support them through school.
The U.S. education system has many other problems. Many countries outperform our students in math and science, and inner city classrooms are too crowded with too little funding for books, teachers and extracurricular activities. At least the public acknowledges these problems exist, and hopefully will try to fix these problems. But this issue of boys falling behind in school is very serious, and has not been given the attention it deserves. We must first acknowledge that we have a problem before we can fix it. If educators across the United States address the issue of struggling boys, we may be able to curtail this problem from an early age, and curb a seemingly perpetual cycle of poverty, frustration and crime that grips many struggling boys from lower socioeconomic classes. Addressing this issue would bring the U.S. one step closer to equality. For the future of these forgotten boys, and more importantly for the future of the United States, we must help these struggling boys.
Serviansky can be reached at
mserviansky09@amherst.edu