Girls get extra school help while boys get Ritalin

USA Today/Yahoo ^ | 8/29/03 | USA Today - Staff

[Pro-Bush]

Girls get extra school help while boys get Ritalin

At last June's graduation at Franklin High School just outside of Milwaukee, three of the four students who tied for valedictorian were girls. Among the National Honor Society members, 76% were girls. And girls comprised 85% of the students on Franklin's 4.0 honor roll.

The superintendent of schools for this upper-middle-class suburb, Gerald Freitag, investigated those numbers after the parents of a boy filed a complaint. He found that the skewed performances by gender at Franklin pretty much mirror the imbalances across the state and the nation.

This week, teachers at the middle school feeding into Franklin received training on how to reach out to boys. And high school teachers will continue the gender-sensitivity classes they began last school year.

But reversing the trend will not be easy. In classrooms nationwide, girls are pulling ahead of boys academically. Recent federal testing data show that what starts out as a modest gap in elementary-level reading scores turns into a yawning divide by high school. In 12th grade, 44% of girls rate as proficient readers on federal tests, compared with 28% of boys. And while boys still score slightly higher on federal math and science exams, their advantage is slipping.

Most startling is that little is being done to correct the imbalances. All of the major players schools, education colleges and researchers largely ignore the gender gap. Instead of pursuing sound solutions, many educators merely advocate prescribing more attention-focusing Ritalin (news - web sites) for the boys, who receive the drug at four to eight times the rate of girls, according to different estimates. "Too often the first reaction to an attention problem is 'Let's medicate,' " says Rockville, Md., child psychologist Neil Hoffman. "Some schools are quick to recommend solutions before they've fully evaluated the problem."

Playing to girls' strengths

One reason boys are losing academic ground to girls appears linked to a shift by schools to more word-based learning for which girls' brains are believed to have an advantage. Over the years, even math problems have become more word oriented, according to education researchers. But because schools are doing little to help boys adjust, males risk becoming second-class academic citizens. Already the academic success girls enjoy in high school translates into more college acceptances 56% of the students on campuses are female.

The full impact from this shift is something society has yet to discover. But a drop in earnings for males is one likely result. Workers with only a high school diploma earn $20,000 a year less than those with a bachelor's degree.

One fact explains why educators are ignoring boys' needs: You can't address a problem that you don't admit exists. The U.S. Department of Education (news - web sites) concedes that no serious research is available comparing different instructional methods that might help boys. In fact, many education researchers are hostile toward research aimed at exploring gender differences in learning.

Last April, when Kenneth Dragseth, superintendent of schools in Edina, Minn., presented a paper describing his district's gender gap at the American Educational Research Association's annual meeting in Chicago, he says the reception ranged from chilly to hostile. Female education researchers in the audience questioned whether helping boys would mean hurting girls.

Their attitude follows years of lobbying by groups such as the American Association of University Women, which alerted educators to the fact that girls were being shortchanged academically in the fields of math and science. The extra attention helped focus schools on girls' difficulties, but it has made it too easy for educators to overlook the problems of boys. Among them:

Boys and girls learn differently. The best research on boy-girl learning differences is produced more by accident than by design. The lack of data in this field can hurt girls as much as boys. For instance, as part of an ongoing 20-year dyslexia study focusing on Connecticut schools, Yale neuroscientist and pediatrician Sally Shaywitz discovered that schools were identifying four times as many dyslexic boys as girls. Yet when her team entered schools to screen children, it diagnosed just as many dyslexic girls as boys. Shaywitz found that the mostly female teaching staff was quicker to identify rambunctious boys than quiet girls.

The results are just one example of what might be learned about the role gender plays in education, especially in elementary school, where 85% of teachers are women.

Future teachers aren't trained to deal with learning differences. Therapist Michael Gurian, author of Boys and Girls Learn Differently!, has visited more than 100 education colleges. But he has not found one that offers courses on male-female brain differences. His discovery explains why many new teachers arrive in classrooms clueless about what teaching techniques might work best for boys' learning styles.

Boys lack advocates. The special efforts made by schools to steer more girls into advanced math and science classes came after powerful advocacy groups embraced the problem. But Gurian and other advocates for boys say they run into resistance from educators who point to males' success in the workforce as proof that advocacy for boys is unnecessary.

In spite of the lack of research, anecdotal evidence shows that far more effective strategies are available for teaching boys than plying them with Ritalin. Patricia Henley runs a boy-friendly charter school in Kansas that hires many male teachers. It also recognizes boys' natural tendency to favor active learning by conducting more class work on the chalkboard and allowing more student movement within the classroom. And the school trains teachers to deal with boys' particular styles. For instance, because boys volunteer answers more slowly than girls do, teachers are told to count to 10 before calling on a student.

Beginning in the early 1990s, groups such as the American Association of University Women performed an important service by alerting the public to an educational failing. Their persistence helped convince educators that schools were ignoring important problems plaguing girls, such as the loss of self-esteem among middle school girls who had been successful students throughout elementary school.

Today's education system fails many boys. They deserve the same kind of attention to address why they are losing ground.

[Pro-Bush]

But because schools are doing little to help boys adjust, males risk becoming second-class academic citizens

Liberals feminizing the public schools...disgusting!

[annyokie]

More recess time would solve that Ritalin issue. Of course you can't play dodge-ball in gym anymore and running around the playground is considered dangerous.

I guess there's still smoking in the boys room and dropping explosives down the plumbing.

[secret garden]

BTTT

[lelio]

investigated those numbers [ honor roll and national honor's society ] after the parents of a boy filed a complaint

What complaint was that? That there wasn't enough football questions on a test?

[StatesEnemy]

Of course you can't play dodge-ball in gym anymore

Dodge ball? Us dudes would find the far field (away from nanny 'monitors') and play "Kill the guy with the ball"

[annyokie]

Hah! That was an actual activity for my brother's gym class! Who can forget kickball? If you were good you could really nail those kids you didn't like!

[bulldogs]

"What complaint was that? That there wasn't enough football questions on a test?"

What a stupid thing to say

[CherylBower]

We called that "Smear the Queer", which is also horribly politically incorrect. I think it was a great game for the boys.

[lelio]

Well what is it? Girls make up 85% of the Honor Roll students but only 76% of the Honor Society members. If its anyone that should be complaining its the girls as they're getting shafted out of 9 percentage points of those seats.

I really doubt if the complaint had anything to do with Ritalin.

[thoughtomator]

My reaction to the article: No $hit, Sherlock.

It's way past time for mass criminal prosecutions against the teachers and industry professionals who have breached all bounds of ethics and law by illegally medicating perfectly healthy boys. There are millions of damaged children on whose behalf these criminals should, in justice, be held to account.

[randog]

Female education researchers in the audience questioned whether helping boys would mean hurting girls.

These researchers were, of course, appalled when Title IX decimated male sports.

The special efforts made by schools to steer more girls into advanced math and science classes came after powerful advocacy groups embraced the problem.

Having gone through engineering school in the 90's, I can say that this attempt to push women into the field was a failure. Many showed up, but only a few toughed it out.

[thoughtomator]

Doesn't anything strike you as odd that 79-85% of the best-performing students are female?

[Pro-Bush]

It's way past time for mass criminal prosecutions against the teachers and industry professionals who have breached all bounds of ethics and law by illegally medicating perfectly healthy boys.

It sis a crime that Ritalin is used to feminize boys, who naturally have alot of energy, and god forbid, testosterone.

[randog]

We called that "Smear the Queer"...

Same here, and there was always some kid that could throw the ball close to the speed of light (I still hate that guy).

[lelio]

Well some sex has to be higher than the other, it can't go 50-50.

It would be informative to see a distribution of the scores in boys vs girls. Perhaps all the girls are lumped near the A range while the boys are at the B. Who knows?

What percentage of college students are male / female? Isn't it closer to 50/50? Seems to me this evens itself out in the end.

[thoughtomator]

Absolutely. This is child abuse of the highest order.

[MediaMole]

So, this district just happens to have a population where only 15% of boys are honor roll students?

Statistically this should never occur. There has never been a study that has shown such a dramatic difference in intelligence between men and women.

Something is wrong with this school district. There is no way that this would occur without a major problem in the way the district deals with its students.

[Poohbah]

I guess there's still smoking in the boys room and dropping explosives down the plumbing.

Ah, memories...some of us who thought that 8th grade was the best five years of our lives...

[muawiyah]

The only way to resolve the disparities would seem to be to remove the girls from the public schools for the next 20 years. That way the oppressed minority (males) will be in a better position to be "made whole".

[mtbopfuyn]

Total bunk. Oh boo hoo, boys are losing ground and they don't have advocates. Just two days ago there was a thread here showing boys' SAT scores were higher than girls'. Throughout the years boys have consistantly done better in math and science than girls. Most literature is written with male characters. Almost all history centers around male leaders. Females have to contend with glass ceilings and earn less than males. Maybe if boys kept their pants up past their cracks they'd be able to keep their grades up as well.

[thoughtomator]

Females have the advantage in college acceptance at 56% and rising. When college attendance is 80% female, and another 5 years' worth of American boys are neurologically neutered, will that then be enough to convince you there's something wrong with this situation?

[RGSpincich]

The boys are doing exactly what they want to do. That is not getting indoctrinated into an increasingly liberal BS academic system. Seems the boys are still smarter.

[netmilsmom]

Some of this has to do with the parents as well. While mom is going to aerobics and dad is working his a$$ off to pay for the trips to Disney World, no one has time for Johnny.
(or Dad is absent altogether).
There was a kid in my daughter's class last year. He is on Ritalin. Sweet kid too. He was truly overmedicated. He would walk into the class and fall asleep. He came out of it around 11, just in time for lunch. He would bounce off the walls until 2 when he got his next dose. He would then fall asleep before pick-up at 3. The parents would carry him out and liked it this way.
He is repeating kindergarten this year.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

You mustabeen one o' them smart kids.

[annyokie]

Haha! Girls still had to wear dress to school when I was in eighth grade. What was with all you guys dropping pencils and other objects that rolled on the floor all the time? ; )

[Pro-Bush]

The only way to resolve the disparities would seem to be to remove the girls from the public schools for the next 20 years. That way the oppressed minority (males) will be in a better position to be "made whole".

Better yet, There should be an affirmative action clause here, mandating that 50% of Honor Roll students must be male. That way, nobodys feelings get hurt. </sacrasm

[RnMomof7]

They have structured the schools so that a boy can not grow into a man. Boys must now accommodate female learning styles and adapt to a female environment .

That can only be done by medicating normal male behavior.

I raised 5 boys.. When my youngest was around 9 he was getting picked on because he was small for age, I told him that if the kid hit or pushed him again he had my permission to punch him

Needless to say I was called in for a conference after the confrontation was over.The teacher said they "like" students to come to the teacher for mediation" . I told her he did exactly what his mom had to him to do and now the problem was solved and it was.

[lelio]

How many kids are on the honor roll? If the honor roll is made up of the top 15% of the students and there's 200 kids in the class that's 30 kids. The difference between a 50/50 split and 80/20 is 15 students vs 6. So just 9 honor roll gender defections have to occur, or around 5% of the school's population.

That difference could be made up if you had 4 sets of smart twins. Yada yada yada, it really doesn't mean much until the raw numbers are published for this year and previous ones.

If there's a general decline I'll say the parents have a beef. But traditionally girls have matured earlier and get better grades. Its just a fact of life.

[dogbyte12]

Females have the advantage in college acceptance at 56% and rising

What is going to happen is that there will not be enough college educated guys for college educated women, and they will have to work for 50 years to support their high school grad husbands, and their kids.

Feminists never thought too hard about the saying: Be careful for what you wish, because it may come true.

[Alberta's Child]

"Kill the Guy With the Ball" -- LOL.

Hasn't anyone else ever played "Asses Up" in elementary school?

[Mears]

I go way back to the forties and one of the boys tossed a dead skunk into a junior high classroom. God,I still remember it.

This kid turned out okay,though,and without drugs,just a good boot in the ass from his father.

[RoughDobermann]

Almost all history centers around male leaders.

Do you think that might be because the vast majority of leaders have been male?

Females have to contend with glass ceilings and earn less than males.

The last I heard, pay had been equalized?

Maybe if boys kept their pants up past their cracks they'd be able to keep their grades up as well.

Are you series? Every teenage girl I see has those stupid hip-hugger jeans on...

[Alberta's Child]

Even if 100% of the best-performing students are females, there is no doubt in my mind that 95% of the CEOs in this country will always be male.

[muawiyah]

I was considered too rambunctious for the National Honor Society (at what became Jane Pauly's high school). Still, I found that it was the correct attitude to get me through the Infantry.

[Pro-Bush]

They have structured the schools so that a boy can not grow into a man.

Boys must now accommodate female learning styles and adapt to a female environment .

No good.

Glad your 9 yr old popped em' one!

[thoughtomator]

I don't think that 95% of CEOs are presently male. You have a source for a gender breakdown of CEOs?

[TomServo]

What a stupid thing to say

And grammatically incorrect, too. ;-)

[lelio]

When college attendance is 80% female

.... old lelio's going to be headin back to school!

I never ever saw more than 5% females in my engineering classes. I figure those 50%+ figures are made up of people going into nursing and child psych classes. Perhaps there's more of those students?

[thoughtomator]

Perhaps they go into social work, psychology, and teaching professions, where they can make a living fraudulently prescribing Ritalin to yet another generation of helpless male children.

[Pro-Bush]

Goes to show, rambunctious can be a good thing!

[Alberta's Child]

I stand corrected. I'm thinking more of Fortune 500-type companies. I do know that the typical CEO of a Fortune 500 company was a decent high school student, a mediocre college student, but a great entrepreneur nonetheless.

I just had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine today. He's thinking of sending his son to a two-year junior college program to learn the basics of business -- the kid has an incredibly sharp business mind at the age of 15, and this guy doesn't want him to "ruin" it by going to college for four years right after high school.

[Welsh Rabbit]

Of course you can't play dodge-ball in gym anymore and running around the playground is considered dangerous.

I had to do some work at an elementary school playground a couple of weeks ago. I was disgusted by the extreme safety measures; the swings and slide were only about five feet high, the swing chains were covered with protective plastic to prevent pinching, and most the yard was covered with soft, cushiony rubber.

[thoughtomator]

The more warped and perverse the public education system becomes, the more attractive alternative methods of education become. Sounds like your friend is giving serious thought to his son's education - if every parent gave half that attention, we wouldn't be in this mess.

[thoughtomator]

Why would you even need to go back to college? Remember, with a large percentage of the males in their age range being crippled from a young age by drugs, even us old lecherous fogeys will be attractive. They'll come looking for us.

[annyokie]

No kidding! I remember very tall (probably 20 feet) poles we could climb and then slide down. All the swings, teatherball poles, four-square surfaces were asphalt. Bandages were a badge of honor, after all.

We always had at least one kid per class with a black eye, or a sliver cap on a front tooth or a broken arm, the cast on which everyone rallied to sign.

We rode our bikes barefoot and without helmets too! the horror!

[Alberta's Child]

Something's very wrong here, and I don't think it has anything to do with medication.

For what it's worth, I don't think there is anything wrong here at all. When I consider prospective hires for the company I work for, the ideal candidate for an entry-level position is someone with a sharp mind who was bored beyond belief at school. All other things being equal, I will hire a person with a GPA of 2.8 before I ever hire someone with a 4.0. Seriously.

[afraidfortherepublic]

There were no females in my husband's engineering class in 1963 (although I knew of one woman studying Civil Engineering at the time). There was only one female in my oldest son's engineering class in 1984. She was a brilliant Pakistani woman working on her PhD, and the men constantly pestered her in the library by sending unsigned messages to her on her computer. She ignored them.

Five years later, my younger son's engineering class at the bachelor's level was 50% female, as was his PhD class in 1996. The times are changing.

[afraidfortherepublic]

We always had at least one kid per class with a ... sliver cap on a front tooth or a broken arm, the cast on which everyone rallied to sign.

I didn't know you were in my class! :~)