Guest Viewpoint: School leaders need to address the 'new gender gap'
By Mary Broderick
11/25/03 -- It's 7:55 on a Sunday evening. Everyone is running around the house, putting finishing touches on preparations for the week so they can be in position for the 8 o'clock opening credits of "The Simpsons."
Though the show has been around for more than a decade, this ritual has only occurred in our house for about five years. My children remind me that they were not allowed to watch it when they were little because I had concerns about the show's messages.
The writing might be brilliant, but the satire is likely lost on young children, and some of the superficial characterizations might have unintended interpretations and, therefore, impacts.
What message, for instance, are kids getting about the roles of boys and girls, not to mention fathers? Bart is the classic underachiever. His energy is directed entirely toward antiestablishment efforts.
Lisa, on the other hand, is focused and determined to achieve in spite of Homer's negative ethical and work habits, Bart's sabotage, and Marge's milk-and-cookies indifference. Are these characteristics in Bart and Lisa a cause of a trend in our society or merely a barometer?
There is growing awareness that increasing opportunities and raising expectations for girls have reaped results. Now the data suggest that our concerns need to be centered on boys. The pendulum appears to have swung too far.
This issue came into full focus in my own consciousness a couple of years ago when I was asked to represent the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education at a "Governor's Scholars" event. I was startled to observe that, of the 20 scholars, only five were male.
Back in my home district, I asked our high school principal if this was a trend he'd observed. He replied that, of the top 12 students in the senior class, only two were male and they were numbers 11 and 12. Over the past 10 years, the school had only two male valedictorians.
Granted, this is all anecdotal information, yet the more I asked educators and observers, the more I realized that boys are not achieving at high levels in nearly the same numbers as girls.
Recent media reports show that girls are significantly outperforming boys in all areas, from student leadership positions to admissions rates at medical and law schools. According to an article in Business Week last May, given current trends, for every 100 boys who graduate from college in 2020, there will be 156 female graduates.
The 2002-03 results for the Connecticut Mastery Tests tell the same story: While eighth-grade girls have a slight edge over boys in the percent reaching the state's goals in mathematics, the edge is a little greater in reading, and it's enormous in writing.
Boys still appear to outperform girls in more technical areas. A study by the American Association of University Women points to higher participation rates by boys in technical computer science courses in Nebraska high schools. That is a rare example of an area where girls lag behind.
What's going on here? Child psychologists have long been warning us of their concerns about the emotional health of boys. Reams have been written about the connection between emotional well-being and academic achievement.
We've seen a cultural shift in many communities that makes it downright un-male to be studious, while we've celebrated the academic achievement of girls.
We have deliberately shifted many of our assessments of achievement away from areas where boys stereotypically have the edge toward projects where girls' stereotypical neatness and patience might incline them toward greater success.
Does writing across the curriculum penalize the perhaps more mathematically oriented boy? Are the plethora of electronic games, unknown a generation ago, distracting boys from other, more academic (not to mention social) pursuits?
Perhaps in search of an area where they can shine, boys seem much more likely to focus on sports, video games, and cars, rather than academics, as their arenas to excel.
Whatever the reasons, and they are undoubtedly multiple and complex, we should be making efforts to ensure that boys and girls have comparable opportunities to achieve at high levels. We used to think that boys and girls learned in the same way, but brain research has taught us otherwise.
Given the implications of that new information, are we developing differentiated learning opportunities and environments to encourage the engagement of all children, with active and sedate options, literature choices appealing to a range of interests, and varied assessment measures?
When I returned from that Governor's Scholars event, I also asked a number of teachers in the district if they'd noticed that girls were outshining boys.
I found their replies alarming. The pervasive message I received from the female teachers (sometimes overtly and sometimes less directly) was, "Yes, isn't it great? Go Girls!" That attitude a generation ago was necessary to change expectations for girls, but we've overswung, and it's time to find balance -- perhaps for the first time.
The concern that expectations were not held high enough for girls has, indeed, been addressed in our culture. But I don't think we intended to hold high expectations for girls at the expense of high expectations for boys.
Our first step is to raise awareness. I don't think anyone would argue that achievement skewed toward one gender is healthy. So let's at least start the dialogue. Let's get beyond the anecdotal and study exactly what is happening in our schools, in our districts, in our state, and in our nation.
If we indeed discover that there is a pervasive discrepancy in achievement, let's figure out ways to ensure we're engaging both genders in our educational systems, and finding the right avenues for their success. Neither the Barts in our schools nor the Lisas are well-served by a culture where it is only okay for one gender to excel.
Mary Broderick is a member of the East Lyme, Conn., board of education and is president of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education.
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| Reproduced with permission from the 2003 issue of School Board News. Copyright © 2003, National School Boards Association. Opinions expressed in this newspaper do not necessarily reflect positions of NSBA. This article may be printed out and photocopied for individual or educational use, provided this copyright notice appears on each copy. This article may not be otherwise transmitted or reproduced in print or electronic form without the consent of the Publisher. For more information, call (703) 838-6789. |