Boy trouble
IT'S OFTEN said that boys tend to lack an emotional vocabulary. But a new study by the Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy reveals that young men in Massachusetts are also struggling with everyday vocabulary -- and with academics in general.
Girls scored substantially higher across grade levels on the English portion of the statewide Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment system test, according to the study, ``Are Boys Making the Grade?" The difference is most pronounced in large urban school districts, where 46 percent of 10th-grade girls score in the top two MCAS performance levels, as opposed to 36 percent of boys. National studies suggest that boys will redeem themselves on math tests. But not in Massachusetts, where girls across the state are not only catching up but surpassing boys on standardized math assessments.
Boys' problems in the classroom have been observed, but largely ignored, by educators for at least two decades, according to psychologist William Pollack, director of the Centers for Men and Young Men at McLean Hospital. In some cases, normal behavior by boys, such as the need to move around frequently, is deemed disruptive by teachers. Action-oriented literature that might engage boys is scrapped for fear it will encourage aggressiveness. Boys learn to read and write several months after girls, but kindergarten teachers, as a rule, don't accommodate the differences. It's not a surprise, therefore, that so many boys are turning away from their studies.
The new study, which will be released tomorrow, offers an opportunity to take a fearless look at the academic gap between girls and boys. State education officials need to understand why dropout rates for boys far exceed those of girls and why boys comprise two-thirds of special education placements. And then they need to find solutions.
The recruitment of more male teachers and better training regarding the cognitive differences between boys and girls should help to close the gender gap. Single-sex education could play some role in bringing boys back to their books. Pollack says that boys in coeducational classrooms, especially after the fifth grade, often suffer acute embarrassment when called on by teachers. But the need to appear cool and aloof has been shown to dissipate in all-boy environments. In the same way that some otherwise reluctant girls will tackle advanced sciences and technology in all-girl classes, some boys will embrace literature and art.
Gender-specific academic initiatives can be difficult to square with antidiscrimination laws. Yet public school systems in other states have managed to establish separate courses for boys and girls within a school, provided they do not set up entirely separate institutions. An enterprising school district or charter school could make history here by taking on the boys.
