Why Boys Fail

Bulletin from your Blogger: This Blog is Going into Remission

2011-11-04T23:18:15Z

As mentioned in a previous posting, I am in the middle of a book project that, by book writing standards, includes some very demanding deadlines. But the project is worth it. I'm collaborating with College Board President Gaston Caperton on a book about what works in American public education. And what works, as it turns out, is what works for boys as well. When the book is done, the blog may return.

Thanks so much ... Richard Whitmire

Btw: I know a lot of people look to the categories section of this blog as a library on this issue. I certainly use it that way. Even when the blog is in remission you can find previous postings here.

- Richard Whitmire

I Beg to Differ...

2011-11-04T22:55:47Z

Note: This is a guest post by Darryl Williams, principal of the Brighter Choice Charter Schools for Boys' elementary and middle school programs in Albany, New York.

In an article recently published in the New York Times, Tamar Lewin presents the idea that single-sex schooling may be detrimental to the educational development of students. She writes, "Single-sex education is ineffective, misguided and may actually increase gender stereotyping," a paper to be published Friday asserts.

Gender stereotyping is pervasive in many under-performing public schools because excuse-making has remained an acceptable form of educational reform in some states. And our boys' poor performance on standardized exams, their suspension rates and over identification in special education usually are on the table for discussion when districts start looking for an explanation for their mediocre results.

According to Lewin, the strongest argument against single-sex education is that it reduces boys' and girls' opportunities to work together, and reinforces sex stereotypes. More specifically, she cites from the report that "Boys who spend more time with other boys become increasingly aggressive...similarly, girls who spend more time with other girls become more sex-typed." The scientific research has been mixed on both brain-based learning and the effectiveness of single-gender programs.

However, we cannot ignore the gender bias teachers bring to co-ed classrooms, especially in our urban schools. "Why can't you write neat like Jessica....The girls are just much calmer than the boys...The girls can sit quietly longer than the boys at the assembly."

All these beliefs, assumptions and biases are developed in some co-ed classrooms and prove truly influential in teacher's expectations for our young men. Our scholars at Brighter Choice are expected to meet the expectations we set irrespective of the norms usually associated with boys or girls. The benefit here is that we strive to create a college-bound culture that supports scholars in developing the habits necessary for success in high school, college and life. Single-sex schools, as Dr. Leonard Sax asserts, should be a choice for families. Furthermore, parents must be encouraged to visit, tour and "inspect" single-gender programs to determine if the school is a right fit for their child.

I would argue that the success of any educational program, single-gender or co-ed, rests in the quality of teaching provided to scholars. We've found that there are some approaches like using competition as motivation, presenting visual anchors to accompany instruction and carefully scaffolding independent practice effective in teaching our scholars. We have not found allowing "boys to be boys" or relaxing our structure to be particularly effective, but with some demographics, this may serve students well.

I wish this study focused on the teachers in single-gender schools. What qualities do the effective teachers possess? What approaches and methods are they using to provide high-quality instruction? How are they building relationships with their scholars? I'm no researcher (yet) but I would bet my last dollar that if a single-gender school has many great teachers, the program will be a success for its scholars.

- Richard Whitmire

Suspended From College?

2011-11-02T18:56:52Z

Note: This is a guest post by Darryl Williams, principal of the Brighter Choice Charter Schools for Boys' elementary and middle school programs in Albany, New York.

In a recent study highlighted by Dan Barrett in The Chronicle of Higher Education, it is suggested there may be a correlation between boys' propensity for suspension and their absence from the college ranks. When citing previous research, Mr. Barrett proposes, "As the likelihood of suspension increases, student's chances of making it to college decreases." We all know that our boys, especially minority boys, are more likely to be suspended from school--four times as likely than girls in much research--yet this particular article fails to address one critical factor that must be considered whenever you're talking suspension from school--loss of academic learning time.

When you consider that suspensions require scholars to miss considerable academic learning time, and that most suspensions are given to repeat offenders, it shouldn't surprise anyone that suspensions may negatively impact a scholars chances of attending college.

Blame The Environment...

The article goes on to state that boys' behavioral problems are subject to influences from the environment, particularly from the home. The study offered, "Parents of girls, for example, are much more likely to have books in the home and to read to their children than are parents of boys. Parents are also more likely to take girls than boys to a concert, or to sign them up for an extracurricular activity," the authors note, citing the U.S. Department of Labor's American Time Use Survey. Furthermore, family structure also correlated strongly with the behavioral challenges of boys, according to the article. The authors of the study write, "Boys that are raised outside of a traditional family (with two biological parents present) fare especially poorly...Boys raised by teenage mothers also appear to be much more likely to act out." We all know that our scholars have circumstances that may expose them to habits, behaviors and tendencies that are not conducive to success in school, however, we (our Nations' educators) cannot allow those harsh realities to influence what we are able to accomplish within our school walls.

Implications for Schools

For educators, this article further demonstrates why our schools (beginning in pre-school) must remain persistent in teaching scholars the habits and behaviors that will support their successful navigation through the expectations set forth by their given schools. At Brighter Choice, we know some of our scholars have developed maladaptive behaviors as a result of their environmental circumstances. Therefore, we take the first three weeks of school to teach our young men the procedures and routines expected in our program. Everything from walking in the hallways, to asking for a pencil, everything is carefully taught, practiced and continuously reinforced until it becomes routine. The reason many boys, especially our minority boys, are suspended from school is that they have not been explicitly taught how to meet the expectations of their school programs. As educators, we often take for granted that our scholars simply "know how to behave." As we tell all of our teachers, particularly our kindergarten teachers, "assume your scholars know nothing regarding your classroom expectations. Be prepared to teach them everything: how to ask for help, how to share manipulatives, how to retrieve a sharpened pencil etc."

One of the greatest benefits of serving an all-boys population is that our faculty never have the opportunity to compare our boys' behavior to female classmates. The inclination for teachers to develop biases and compare our boys' behaviors to girls is not present in our building. We set high expectations for our scholars and we work hard to be clear and firm with families in why our expectations are necessary. We never want to make excuses for why our scholars cannot have access to college.

Put great teachers in front of our scholars and suspensions will become much less of an issue in our most needy schools. I know, I know--easier said than done.

- Richard Whitmire

Economic Inequality: Red or Blue

2011-11-01T11:07:52Z

Times columnist David Brooks makes an important point today about two flavors of inequality. The 'blue' inequality, financiers vs. wage earners, is getting all the attention, but the 'red' inequality, those with or without a college education (and here, the big gap falls along gender lines) is more prevalent.

- Richard Whitmire

Building Great Classrooms, One Teacher at a Time

2011-10-31T21:26:26Z

Note: This is a guest post by Darryl Williams, principal of the Brighter Choice Charter Schools for Boys' elementary and middle school programs in Albany, New York.

Have you ever visited "that" classroom? You know, the classroom that makes you say, "I wish my son was in this classroom." Scholars are raising their hands; eager to provide answers their beloved teacher has posed. The teacher is systematically and deliberately moving about the room, carefully using opportunities to inspire and motivate the most timid scholars. Scholars smile and "raise the roof," when they provide a "college-bound" response to one of those meticulously crafted questions the teacher offers.

The energy and engagement in "that" room is profound; almost surreal. Yet, if we look closely in many of our urban public schools, you will almost undoubtedly find at least one great teacher. Unfortunately though, for most of our young African American and Latino males, the challenge will continue to be replicating great teachers and great classrooms in all of our urban schools. Fortunately for me, Brighter Choice had several of those classrooms for my own son when we opted to "raise the rigor" on his educational experience.

As an elementary and middle school principal, I've found it necessary to refrain from engaging too closely with the federal initiatives aimed at saving our scholars and families from the poor educations they have come to expect from their surrounding public schools. I can appreciate the national call for accountability and push for results from America's schools. However, No Child Left Behind, and Race to the Top, both well-intentioned initiatives, fall short in addressing the single most important factor contributing to our boys' success in school--great teaching! Our focus at Brighter Choice is, and always will be, cultivating and developing strong teachers.

As my good friend and colleague, Dan Cotton asserts, "Great teachers can be developed through quality coaching and feedback." We have taken the position that we must systematically build great teachers one classroom at a time. In addition to providing ongoing professional development for our teachers using Doug Lemov's Taxonomy of Effective Teaching Practices, we are also attempting to capture and catalog the deliberate self-questioning and planning our great teachers engage in. "If Jahlil begins to fade, I'll need to challenge him during seminar with leading our moral/ethical discussion. I have to develop a prompt for him to get us started." Yes, the great teachers think through specific situations for specific scholars because every scholar will learn in their classroom. "When introducing the meaning of multiplication, I have to be sure to show the relationship between equal groups and arrays without confusing my scholars."

Yes, the great teachers are always thinking through the most effective way to introduce and deliver their content. The issue plaguing our urban schools is that many of our teachers are young, inexperienced and are not yet able to think and prepare like a great teacher. Or, our teachers are old, experienced, but not yet able to think and prepare like a great teacher.

We have commenced videotaping the planning phases of lessons and the execution of effective portions of these lessons. Our goal is to provide our more novice and developing teachers concrete examples of the self-questioning that great teachers do prior to providing effective instruction. The great teacher is truly deliberate and calculated in all they do--down to the wink that she gives her most challenging scholar when he exceeds her expectations. The challenge is to get all teachers serving our boys to think, plan, prepare and execute as the great teachers we see in some of our urban classrooms.

Through increased feedback, coaching, ongoing professional development, and systematic exposure to the habits of preparation (and execution), we can continue to build great teachers. We understand that the success of our scholars is primarily dependent on the quality of teaching they receive everyday they are with us.

Our Work is Just Beginning...

While we have continued to be one of the highest performing schools in the state, we understand that research (and history) has clearly demonstrated that our minority males are destined for failure if they do not experience great teaching every year that they are in school. Brighter Choice exists to alter a history of injustice in Albany that, in many cases, has only been experienced by the demographic we proudly serve. Historically, families with the means and resources usually moved out of Albany by the time their child reached middle school (this is where the sharpest decline usually happens in Albany). Hence, the ugly statistics concerning pass rates and graduation rates were specific to the African American and Latino males of Albany. Schools that successfully serve African-American and Latino scholars like Excellence of Bedford Stuyvesant and Urban Prep should never minimize their role in balancing their families' access to a high-quality education. Furthermore, we must continue to capture the methods, approaches and preparation necessary for schools to systematically develop great teachers.

Great teachers should be the resource for our educational reforms. Here's an idea for our legislators: Let's identify twenty-five of the most effective teachers and administrators serving our minority males. Then study their habits of preparation, planning, instructional delivery and accountability for several years--being careful to capture their self-questioning and execution of lessons. Finally, give the great teachers an opportunity to lead this new initiative in regions around the country. We'll call it, "The Great Teacher Project: Building Effective Classrooms One Teacher at a Time." Giving our minority males an opportunity for success requires us to invest in building great teachers.

- Richard Whitmire

Introducing a New Guest Blogger

2011-10-31T21:23:00Z

Thanks to John Lee for his contributions. Next up is Darryl Williams, who for the past five years has been the principal of the Brighter Choice Charter School for Boys in Albany New York. Brighter Choice is an all-boys public charter school serving a 97% African-American and Latino population.

While more than 90% of his scholars qualify for the federal free & reduced lunch program, they consistently post some of the highest pass rates in the state of New York. Darryl holds a Masters Degree in Education Administration and Policy Studies and a Masters Degree in Special Education and Literacy from the State University of New York at Albany. Darryl has been a teaching assistant, teacher and assistant principal prior to leading the elementary and middle school programs at Brighter Choice.

In addition to being recognized by the Capital Region's Business Review as a "Top 40 Under 40" leader in the community in 2010, Darryl was highlighted as a "Champion Teacher" in Doug Lemov's, Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques That Put Students on a Path to College. Darryl is also currently on the Advisory Board for SUNY Albany's Department of Educational Counseling and Psychology Federal 325T Program Improvement Grant.

- Richard Whitmire

Women and Engineering

2011-10-26T11:39:19Z

An interesting contribution to the debate over why women shun engineering careers comes from Stanford University's Clayman Institute for Gender Research. We know that girls perform as well as boys in the sciences during the high school years. The separation points appear to be when women declare their majors and even later when women with engineering backgrounds commit to careers.

From the article in the American Sociological Association:

The study found that the real issue for female engineering students is their lack of "professional role confidence." Among other things, this term encompasses people's faith in their ability to go out into the world and be professional engineers and their belief that engineering fits their interests and values, which the study authors refer to as "expertise confidence" and "career-fit confidence," respectively.

"Women engineering students go to the same classes, take the same tests, and get the same GPAs as men, sometimes even higher," said the study's lead author Erin Cech, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University's Clayman Institute for Gender Research. "But, what we found is that the women in our study developed less confidence in their engineering expertise than men did and they also developed less confidence that engineering is the career that fits them best, even though they went through the same preparation process as men."

As result of these confidence issues, women who begin college as engineering majors are less likely than men to remain engineering majors and less likely than men to believe that they will be professional engineers in the future, Cech said.

- Richard Whitmire

Failing on Purpose or Socialized to Fail?

2011-10-24T18:40:13Z

Note: This is a guest post by John Michael Lee Jr., PhD., policy director for the Advocacy and Policy Center in the Advocacy, Government Relations and Development unit at the College Board.

A recent BBC article asserts that African -Caribbean males are failing on purpose, and advances the notion that educational achievement by African-Caribbean males is deemed as Feminine.

The story says:

Black schoolboys can choose to perform poorly to avoid undermining their masculinity, the head of the Jamaican Teachers' Association has said.
Adolph Cameron said that in Jamaica, where homophobia was a big issue, school success was often seen as feminine or "gay".

He was concerned the same cultural attitude was affecting African-Caribbean male students in the UK.

Though the article is directed at African-Caribbeans in the UK, the same is true for African American and other men of color here in the United States. However, I don't think it is the case that these young men are failing on purpose. Instead, these men of color are the victims of a society that has feminized education, and communities that reinforce this notion among men. The first thing that males recognize as they traverse primary and secondary schools is the fact that the overwhelming majority of teachers are women. This fact alone reinforces a notion that males are not and do not become educators. This fact also leads to a lack of males who enter the education field in America and around the world.

Further, young men are socialized to the fact that being smart is not cool in their communities, while minority women do not have this same expectation. For example, African American females can be smart and still be considered cool. However, African American males who are smart are considered to be gay, weak, and unpopular. The environments that harbor minority males reinforce these social interactions and then they become habitulaized in minority male behavior. In general, masculine behaviors are rewarded by society and through social interaction, and men have been socialized to reject feminine behaviors. The concept of capital is important to fully understanding how men, and men of color specifically, develop their particular forms of masculinity. Yet I will post on this topic later in the week
.
What must be changed though is the notion that academic success is associated only as feminine behavior, and we must stop the social and cultural rewarding of the lack of this behavior in men of color.

- Richard Whitmire

Reasons to Revisit The Boys Initiative Site

2011-10-24T18:18:31Z

The site has been relaunched, with these features:

* a comprehensive online library of recent news articles, articles written by expert contributors,books of interest, and research and studies related to boys' and young men's achievement;

* a comprehensive library of facts and figures on challenges boys and young men face; ourstrategic plan for addressing those challenges;

* information on our Minority Male Youth 2050 project; and information on our national advocacy network

- Richard Whitmire

A Warning Sign from Korea

2011-10-24T12:50:04Z

Too many college graduates and not enough jobs for them has Koreans worried about the priorities of their education system.

Does that mean that treating (some) college is the new high school is the wrong strategy? Korea does stand out as a useful warning, but the U.S. is far from reaching the over-saturation point seen in Korea. And Korea's rote system of learning is not producing the creative workforce needed in the modern economy.

Another cautionary note about looking to education as the solution comes in this WSJ commentary: Companies can't find employees to hire because (a) few employees find their wages acceptable and (b) companies have cut out the training programs needed by new employees.

- Richard Whitmire

The British Story, Again

2011-10-21T19:49:57Z

The gender gaps in the U.K. seem roughly equivalent to what we're seeing here. The difference is the extent of the awareness. Overseas, the story makes regular appearances in the news. Here, the subject is still considered somewhat exotic -- and controversial.

The latest from England:

Figures published today by the Department for Education show that girls perform better in every area of early development, including reading, communicating, basic numeracy, social skills and physical awareness.

According to statistics, four-in-10 boys cannot write a simple shopping list or a letter to Santa, compared with just a fifth of girls.

A quarter of boys also struggle to recite the alphabet by the age of five, while nine per cent cannot count to 10 and almost one-in-20 fail to dress independently or use the toilet by themselves.

The disclosure is made in a Government analysis of English children at the end of the foundation stage - or reception year - before infants move into Year One.

- Richard Whitmire

TV: A Source of Language Delay?

2011-10-18T19:09:02Z

The debate over video distractions is far from over. The New York Times summarizes the latest from researchers:

From the article:

"I like to call it secondhand TV," said Dr. Brown, who is the lead author of the guidelines.

Studies cited in the guidelines say that parents interact less with children when the television is on, and that a young child at play will glance at the TV -- if it is on, even in the background -- three times a minute.

"When the TV is on, the parent is talking less," Dr. Brown said. "There is some scientific evidence that shows that the less talk time a child has, the poorer their language development is."

Though about 50 studies have been done in the past decade on media viewing by young children, none have followed heavy television watchers into later childhood or adulthood, so any long-term effects are not known. Heavy media use in a household is defined as one in which the television is on all or most of the time.

The pediatrics group's guidelines point out that research to date suggests a "correlation between television viewing and developmental problems, but they cannot show causality."

Even so-called educational videos do not benefit children under 2 because they are too young to be able to understand the images on the screen, the doctors' group said.

"The educational merit of media for children younger than 2 years remains unproven despite the fact that three-quarters of the top-selling infant videos make explicit or implicit educational claims," it said.

- Richard Whitmire

Mentoring Minority Males: A Call to Action

2011-10-18T18:45:33Z

Note: This is a guest post by John Michael Lee Jr., PhD., policy director for the Advocacy and Policy Center in the Advocacy, Government Relations and Development unit at the College Board.

This past weekend I was a part of taking 19 African American and Latino youth on a college tour to visit Syracuse University and Lemoyne College in Syracuse New York. The young high school students were from schools throughout New York City, and each of them are a part of the Alpha G.E.N.T.S. mentoring program that is operated by the Kappa Xi Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. (better known as the Wall Street Alphas). To see 19 high school freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors spend their entire Friday night and Saturday morning on a college tour was refreshing. As the trip progressed, I and the other 5 chaperons got a chance to learn more about each of these young men and their plans for the future.

Each of these young men had amazing stories, and all of them had dreams for the future. What they were each lacking was concrete plans to realize these dreams, and mentors who they could reach out to ask questions and seek advice on how they could make these dreams a reality. What they lack, was the same thing that many of us lacked as we grew up. While we may have had a loving parent in the home, we still lacked individuals with the knowledge and skills to help us reach our goals. We now have more minorities with college degrees than at any other time in history, yet we have yet to figure out how to change the stories of minority males with degrees from being an exception to the rule to being the standard in our communities. The way to accomplish this is very simple: Mentoring.

While the solution is so simple, we seem to have a lack of enthusiasm by minority males to become mentors our communities. I am specifically speaking to those minority males who have successfully traversed the college admissions process, overcame the struggle to pay for college, and made it through to graduation. Each of us have so much to offer to offer as mentors that could really benefit minority male students across the country. Yet what many minority males have found as they have journeyed through life is that it is usually not other minority males that have been there to fill in the gaps that are needed to be successful; instead we find that a overwhelming majority of minority females have traditionally filled these roles. This is not to say that there are not male mentors because there are several male mentors around. However, not enough minority males make mentoring a part of their life. Our young men of color cannot wait for these mentors to come into the fold. We desperately need the minority men to take up the call to become mentors. Some great mentoring programs include the Big Brother, Big Sisters, 100 Black Men of America and Boy Scouts of America. Each of these organizations provides opportunities to connect with and mentor young men in your local communities, yet there are also many more organizations that also provide these opportunities on the local and national level. We must be ever vigilant about seeking out these opportunities to impact the lives of young minority males.

- Richard Whitmire

Join the Debate on Single Sex Education

2011-10-18T12:01:37Z

The New York Times is running a forum on single sex education, pegged to the Science article calling the rationale behind the movement "pseudoscience." All the major players were invited to join in.

Another spinoff from the freshly charged debate is this take-no-prisoners editorial from the Delaware County Times. Remove single sex as an option? Forget about it, argues the editorial page, which also takes a few jabs at Janet Hyde, a Science co-author and Leonard Sax's debating partner during a National Public Radio segment on the issue.

(My evergreen comment on the debate: When everyone discovers that single sex education, regardless of of its merits/lack of merits, is failing to solve the boy troubles -- and that day will come -- what's the backup plan?)

From the editorial:

If there is institutional bias to be found in public education today, it's against single-sex classrooms.

Less than 1 percent of public schools and classrooms are single-sex. But even that is too much for this clique of CoEd totalitarians.

As America's public schools continue to fail many students, parents will continue to look for academic environments they believe will help their children learn and thrive.

Until 2002, it was argued that single-sex public schools were unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled differently. And since then, the number of public schools offering single-sex classrooms rose from 11 in 2002 to 540 in 2009.

As Sax has admitted, a single-sex classroom is "no guarantee" of academic success, it does provide opportunities for teachers to employ gender-specific teaching strategies that actually work and work well.

It is one thing to question the value of single-sex schooling. It is quite another to want to ban it from the public square by government fiat.

We trust the Obama administration will ignore the "no-choice" crowd on this one.

- Richard Whitmire

Japan's Answer to the "Skills Gap"

2011-10-15T11:34:25Z

This is worthy of imitation in the United States, and not just for boys. It would give students a clear career goal before finishing high school.

From the Washington Post article:

The skills gap that troubles Japan is tormenting the United States. Since 2000, the percentage of U.S. young adults ages 20 to 24 with jobs has fallen from 74 percent to 62 percent, a level not seen since the 1930s, according to a 2011 study by Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. It concluded that the "college for all" system that emerged in the United States after World War II is failing the majority of American youths.

By the time they reach their mid-20s, only about 40 percent of Americans earn an associate or bachelor's degree, census data show.

"We are leaving a lot of kids behind," said Anthony P. Carnevale, director of Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce. "High school in America is about preparing for a college degree that most young people will not get, and in the meantime, these kids are disconnected from anything that is real in the world of work."

- Richard Whitmire