By Matt Waite
High school hates boys. Wait, before you count me out as just another disillusioned student who wants an excuse to rant against the system, take a look at these statistics: according to an article in The New York Times, the average high school grade point average for males is a 2.86, the average GPA for a female is 3.09. 64 percent of National Honor Society members are girls; boys are about 25 percent more likely to drop out and the American Association of School Administration reports that boys make up only 44 percent of college attendees (some colleges now use affirmative action to try to solve this problem).
As a male who has attended high school for nearly four years, earned a decent GPA and was accepted into a college, I cannot claim to be a victim of the system. However, I believe in equality and it bothers me when any group of people is ignored for political correctness, ignorance, ambivalence or whatever other reason.
After doing some research on why males underperform, it appears that by far the biggest cause of this problem has been the feminization of schools. Basically, to put it in other words, schools have moved from hating girls to hating boys. How is that for progressive thinking?
Whenever boys have scored lower in any subject no one ever does anything about it. However, when girls score lower in a subject, it becomes a matter of sexism, and millions of dollars are spent to help them improve and several influential and high profile reports go out about the subject.
This problem also comes up with how classes in school are taught. Boys tend to learn best through abstract learning and competition, whereas most girls learn best through verbal and written analytical format.
The vast majority of classes obviously favor the learning styles of girls more than then boys. Just think about how many tests, quizzes and projects require extensive written work along with the occasional essay and how the typical lesson plan involves large amounts of note taking and discussion and you get the point.
So if schools are doing more to help girls succeed and teaching in ways that favor girls’ learning styles over boys’, is it any wonder why boys are scoring lower in every subject?
The more important question here is how large the discrepancy will have to grow before people notice and react, because if people are still talking about improving girls’ scores in an education system that shortchanges them, that point is very far off.
I have said a lot about how schools put boys at a disadvantage, but let me also mention that since nothing is going to change anytime soon, it’s a problem every male student will have to confront and deal with. Males need to try harder, but it is certainly not impossible for them to succeed.