In The K-12 Implosion, an Encounter books "broadside", I suggest that public education may be in trouble. The problem is not so much that public schools are getting worse -- overall, they're more or less stagnant. We've been putting more money in and not getting better results out.
The problem for public schools, instead, is that the alternatives are getting better. Not long ago, there weren't many other choices: You could send your kids to a traditional private school (either religious, or socially upscale, usually) but that was about it.
Now there are other choices. Large urban school districts are losing students at an alarming pace. They're going to charter schools, to online schools and to home-schooling. But now there's another reason for parents to think about moving their children out of public schools -- the boys. It seems that teachers -- overwhelmingly female -- just might be prejudiced against boys and it's hurting their grades.
Stereotyped as "naughty," boys quickly learn that they are thought of as dumber and more trouble than girls. And that has consequences. "When boys aged seven to eight were told that they tend to do worse at school than girls, they scored more poorly in reading, writing and mathematics tests than those who were not primed for failure. And telling children aged six to nine before a test that both sexes were expected to do equally well improved the boys' performance." But the message that boys get is that they're not as smart.
And not just in USA |