article: boys and academia.

Below is a story set to appear in The Pendulum on Dec. 5th. It was a fun piece to write, very interesting. It's more of an example of magazine writing I suppose. Kind of Time-esque. Sorry for the short commentary but it's exam time here at Elon. Expect more posts later this month!

The Male Crisis in Academia

Take a look at any elementary school classroom and you are bound to see numbers.

Not just the numbers that hang on the wall, displaying the nuances of multiplication and long division, but also the invisible numbers that label each child. Standardized test have flooded the education system with data that shadows a student from their entry in kindergarten through their high school graduation.

Mostly, the numbers tell positive stories of achievement and growth. But one pattern is stressing educators at all levels – the boys are falling behind. At nearly every benchmark between elementary and high school, males are losing ground to their female peers.

It starts as early as elementary school, when boys are twice as likely to be diagnosed with a learning disability. End of grade testing also doesn’t bode well for boys – who are nationally more likely to fail a standardized test.

“We have seen boys in particular have a disconnect with school,” said Christopher Poston, assistant principal at Elon Elementary School. “I’d say some is behavioral and some is academic.”

Fifth grade reading test scores from Elon Elementary reveal that one out of ten boys failed to meet reading proficiency. The girls overall faired better, with fewer than one out of twenty falling short in reading.

The math scores, where males have traditionally scored better, also reveal that females are scoring higher, though the difference is much smaller.

Poston joins many educators studying whether biological factors account for the differences between the genders. “Females are more ritualistically compliant to sit down and read. Males don’t have that ritualistic compliant piece,” he said. “They question why they have to read this book. They are pushing against the grain a little bit more.”

Male resistance may be linked to a curriculum built to please feminine tastes. Required reading books like “Where the Red Fern Grows” and “Shiloh” appeal to young girls, but leave the boys less interested.

“Let’s start them reading by getting them to read an NBA magazine,” Poston suggested. “We give them such a narrow playing field [with the required reading books.] We need to make sure we capture their interests.”

The Male-Female Divide in College Admissions
Once boys begin to lag behind in elementary school, the trend continues through high school graduation, and even into college.

Some of the most striking evidence can be found on college campuses everywhere. After a century of male dominated college attendance rates, females have now moved into the majority, making up 56 percent of college attendees. Elon’s 60-40 female-male distribution is an echo of what is facing universities all across America.

“There’s been a lot of talk about this issue through admissions circles,” said Vice President of Admissions Susan Klopman. “But nobody has a very good explanation of why.” Klopman suggested that a shift in how men are portrayed in the media may be part of the reason.

“We’re sending messages that devalue intellectual endeavors,” said Klopman. She cited advertising that features “macho, dumb men” stereotypes and “stupid humor,” as examples.

The entire college application process, it turns out, may be another reason that fewer men are showing up in the classroom. Many colleges will not send admissions information to students unless the student contacts the school first – a move that women might be more comfortable making, Klopman said.

“It takes time, thought and planning to apply to a college,” she said. “When it comes to planning a campus visit or sitting in on a college class, men just don’t have the emotional investment in a college that women do.”

Bringing Males to College Classrooms
There is one place, however, where males have consistently outshined females – on the SAT Reasoning Test. Take for example the CollegeBoard data for the senior class of 2007. The average critical reading score for males was 504, while the average female scored 502. The math scores are further stratified, with men averaging 533 and women 499.

While the men of the class of 2007 outscored the women on the SAT, they recorded a significantly lower grade point average, with women receiving an average of 3.40 over the male 3.24.

With this in mind, Towson University launched a program in 2005 aimed at accepting applicants who had high SAT scores but lower grades. Like Elon, Towson was struggling with a 40 percent male student body, and hoped the new program would bolster the number of males on campus.

They accepted students who had GPAs around 2.8, but who held SAT scores about 100 points higher than the average Towson student.

Initially the program appeared a success; many more male students were enrolling at Towson than before. But before long, problems began to emerge. A large number of students admitted through this program either left the college or dropped out.

“The bottom line is, our retention rate in the program is not as high as our overall freshmen retention rate," Deborah Leather, Towson associate provost, told the Baltimore Sun. “Basically, we are proving what has already been known, which is that grade point average is a better predictor of student success than SAT scores."

Towson scrapped the program in 2007.

Other colleges, including Elon, are using gender-specific marketing to attract more male attendants. For example, instead of the full admissions letter that Klopman might write to a female applicant, she tries to limit her letters to men to 10 short sentences.

Elon has also taken steps to make campus more guy-friendly. The club sport fields were built to encourage a stronger club sports program, something that male applicant’s value. Varsity Grille was given a sports theme for the same reason.

“We’re trying to pay attention to our male students,” said Klopman.

Finding Broader Solutions
Getting males interested in school again may be the first step to fixing the disparity between males and females, but others are calling for more. Michael Thompson, co-author of “Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys” suggested shifting the cultural expectations of how boys should act.

“Girl behavior becomes the gold standard,” Thompson writes. “Boys are being treated like defective girls.”

As schools cut recess time and toughen academic requirements, Thompson worries that boys might be left behind entirely.

“Because of their higher activity level, boys are likely to get into more trouble than girls,” Thompson told PBS. “And they are not given enough opportunities to move around — both in actual physical activity and in how they learn — because they spend too much time sitting and not enough time learning by doing, making and building things.”

Many educators are calling on schools to adopt curriculums that will help boys learn in a way that is more conducive to how they are genetically built. More physical activities, boy-friendly books and a new approach to discipline may be the beginning of the solution.

Klopman, Thompson and Poston all agree that bringing boys to equal footing with girls will need to be a culture-wide shift in expectation. Until then, the numbers might continue to tell the grim tale of how educators are losing the battle with boys.