In city's prep schools, girls rule

[AngryAmish]

"Girls are soundly beating boys this year when it comes to winning admission to Chicago's prized college prep high schools. The disparity between accepted girls and boys is so high -- almost 70 percent girls to 30 percent boys at one school -- some say it's time to consider giving boys a break at the city's eight selective-enrollment high schools.

At universities nationwide, where female freshmen have been outnumbering males since 1976, the procedure is called "gender weighting." And now Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan wants to explore it here."
snip
"At Payton College Prep, No. 2 statewide, only six of the 20 highest-scoring kids accepted were boys, Gray said. At No. 3 Whitney Young and No. 8 Jones, only five of the 20 highest-scoring kids accepted were boys."

This is alarming.

[mikehiggins]

1. Alarming? If the girls score better they should get the shot

I know a lot of boys who're bright enough but not motivated enough to excell. I don't see any reason to "weight" admissions so one of them could get into a particular school as opposed to some girl who has that motivation.

On the other hand, it is funny to see a "problem" like this being discussed. Gotta keep them females down, fellas. Who knows what could happen if the girls came to dominate the higher levels of academics. What would we do when they all got pregnant and quit their jobs to have kids?

Me? As the father of a bright, well motivated young woman, I would have gone berserk if someone had gotten in her way simply because he came equipped with a pair of balls.

[NewJeffCT]

2. What if it wasn't girls?

What if it were Whites? or African or Asian Americans? (I think they did that in San Francisco a while back - one top school there was almost all Chinese)

Or, what if the people entering the prep school all had parents making $200,000 or more?

[rinsd]

4. So you're against affirmative action in pursuit of diversity?

[donsu]

3. why is it alarming? it seems to show boys aren't motivated to go to

these schools.

TV motivates boys to be macho, not intelligent.

[AngryAmish]

5. Years ago girls were unmotivated to do well

It was considered a problem. What did we do, as a society, to motivate them? We made the schools more girl friendly. Title IX. It worked.

Have you considered that some schools may not be considered boy friendly now? Another possibility is that girls are inherently smarter or more advanced during school age. Should be make it a practice that boys are automatically left a year behind so they have a fair shot?

And have you thought about the societal consequences of a society where college degrees are only something girls do?

[lukasahero]

7. Not quite true

Girls weren't "unmotivated" to do well - they were "restricted" from opportunities that allowed them to do well.

When we start telling boys that they aren't allowed to participate in certain classes simply because they are boys, aren't allowed to go to school, aren't allowed to have certain jobs, then I'll consider they are facing the same hurdles young women faced "years ago".

[donsu]

10. we didn't make the schools more girl friendly. we passed a law that

MADE them teach girls the same as boys even down to extra classes such as sports

boys and girls today are supposed to be taught the same things in the same ways. so something else is un motivating boys.

[AngryAmish]

14. Then do we as a society have an obligation to find out what

is unmotivating the boys?

[SmokingJacket]

6. As the mother of two young, bright sons, I do find this worrying.

Is the culture of teen boys opposed to academic achievement? Or is the system somehow biased against boys?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. My neice and nephew were at the top of their classes

There were no prep schools for them to attend, but I have no doubt that both of them would have gotten in easily. I like the idea of a standard for schools like this-you get in if you pass the test. I went to a prep school connected with a university, and it was the best education I got.

[pnwmom]

9. Could handwriting be a big part of the problem?

The article doesn't say much about the test that's involved, but I did find this quote:

"The big issue is writing, both neat work and verbal skills," Kleinfeld said. "No matter what the subject, if the test requires writing, girls are at an advantage. More and more schools require students to write about their answers, even in mathematics."

In our state we have a test that relies on long, handwritten essays in every subject -- math, reading, writing, and science. Boys score significantly lower than girls in all four sections. Supposedly, messy handwriting shouldn't affect a child's score, because essays that appear illegible are set aside to be read more carefully. But it obviously works against kids without neat writing. For example, even writing out numerical digits, it is easy to make a 6 look like an 0, or visa versa. How is a test reader supposed to know which numeral was intended?

On top of everything else, handwriting is neglected in schools these days because there is so little time. So kids without great fine motor control have little time to develop it.

[donsu]

11. what? a macho man would have neat handwriting, he'd be thought

a sissy.

really, that's the way a lot of them think.

you are right about so little time in school. the teachers have to teach the test, any time left over they can use to teach school. that's how it is in many schools.

[pnwmom]

12. Boys have poorer fine motor coordination, at least in the younger grades.

And in these days of computers, handwriting shouldn't have to hold anyone back.

[The2ndWheel]

13. Survival of the fittest

Women, men, blacks, whites, automated machines, children in Thailand; 6.5+ billion of us now get a chance to compete with each other. Existence is a zero-sum game, and you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Nature has a way of having a balance.