‘Boy Crisis’ Busted

I am curious to see if Jay Mathews’ piece in The Washington Post highlighting a study by Education Sector that questions the “Boy Crisis” in education that has been reported in such publications as Newsweek, Esquire and The Detroit News gets much play. It is hard to fight against belief trends when people get something into their heads that is supported by a little bit of data. But as Mathews makes clear, the claims of a “crisis” are not strongly supported by a thorough analysis of the facts:

Using data compiled from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federally funded accounting of student achievement since 1971, the Washington-based think tank Education Sector found that, over the past three decades, boys' test scores are mostly up, more boys are going to college and more are getting bachelor's degrees.

Although low-income boys, like low-income girls, are lagging behind middle-class students, boys are scoring significant gains in elementary and middle school and are much better prepared for college, the report says. It concludes that much of the pessimism about young males seems to derive from inadequate research, sloppy analysis and discomfort with the fact that although the average boy is doing better, the average girl has gotten ahead of him.

"The real story is not bad news about boys doing worse," the report says, "it's good news about girls doing better.

I highly suggest reading the whole article – it goes into much more depth than I can here. This is really the kind of reporting I love: when a journalist, with the assistance of a research report grounded in the facts, takes an even-handed look at a situation and does an excellent job of debunking ideas that have become conventional “wisdom.”

 I like to think this is the kind of thing we also did with Issue No. 1 of Reality Check 2006. The main finding was about parents and students not really signing on to the idea that kids need more math and science classes. In addition to the main finding, in Finding Five of that report we took a hard look at the question “Are High School Girls Less Interested in Math and Science?” Most policy makers now take it as a given that girls are less interested in math and science. Our research points to a need to take a closer look. Check it out.

I guess a major take-away from the Mathews piece/Education Sector research is that we have to be careful about the assumptions we draw when we look at subgroup performance. Just because girls are doing better in some regards doesn’t mean boys are doing worse by comparison. Nuance in reporting is essential.