Freakonomics Blog on Boy Crisis

Submitted by Boys and Schools Blog

Gosh, but I loved Freakonomics.  The analysis of the economics of drug dealing eye-opening, and their explanation of why high-stakes testing in public schools encourages cheating was . . . well . . . mostly discouraging.  And I will confess that I seriously considered their section on the implications of baby-naming when I named my children.  Apparently, I am a huge dork.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because today, the New York Times’ Freakonomics Blog features some thoughts on the Boy Crisis.  They don’t really touch on anything that a regular reader here wouldn’t already be aware of (e.g. boys are struggling/why?/what do we do about it?), but it has touched off a lively debate about the issue.  So, if you feel like stirring things up, arguing with naysayers, or just want to encourage more discussion of the issue, I suggest you check it out here.  Oh, and for the curious, my remarks on that page are at number 25, to wit:

As the head of an organization that deals with this very question, I’ve found that the “why” is elusive–no surprise, as it’s difficult to point to any single social trend and come up with a neatly packaged explanation for it. I do think that changes in schools and teaching accounts for some of it, but so do cultural attitudes and expectations, the changing nature of both childhood and parenting, and any number of other influences.

Much easier to answer is the issue of why something needs to be done–quite simply because we should not tolerate a large sub-set of students slipping behind academically, whether it’s boys, girls, or minority students. It’s not good for our economy, or our social welfare, and certainly isn’t a good thing for the faltering students.

So what should be done? Well, I don’t think it would be a bad thing to start by doing some serious research on why it is happening and what works to reverse the trend. I also think that granting more choice and flexibility to parents and educators to reach out to struggling boys and find new ways to teach them would be a good thing. (There certainly are strategies that have shown success in helping such boys do better.) Of course, this gets us into the issue of education reform–which demonstrates just how deep and messy this problem can get.

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