The feminisation of education or are boys getting dumber?

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Wrt. why women don't advance in science:
www.advancingwomen.org/files/7/127.pdf
Don't let the URL fool you; this was published in Nature.
Some other interesting studies:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notro ... countries/
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notro ... al-muzzle/
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notro ... -at-maths/

Talk is interesting, but data will set you free.

I knew I'd seen this argument long ago: some ancient refutations by none less than a goddess.
Look for "Where the Boyz Are" a little more than 2/3 of the way down:
http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com/ ... 3546123259
and look for "Girls and Boys and Schools" just past halfway:
http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com/ ... 9561646027

An excellent book came out on this topic a couple of years ago, and I have seen the author speak at a school group: "The Trouble With Boys," by Peg Tyre.

Every parent in the room agreed with all the points she made. We have seen everything she talked about.

I am raising a son and a daughter and I think that any educational system that dramatically favors one over the other harms our society, long run. I grew up in a world that discriminated against women, but the answer never should have been to turn things against boys.

My son's 6th grade language arts projects had ten percent of the grade based on neatness and art. They didn't write essays, they wrote essays that had formatting and artistic requirements, turning the writing into a mini book, story chart, or some other nonsense that had nothing to do with teaching English. These rubrics strongly favor girls.

School is now a constant series of graded minutia, with an extreme emphasis on organizational skills. Because on average girls acquire organizational skills at a younger age than boys, this also favors girls.

And so on.

So why should women care if school favors them?

1) Women like having smart guys around to date. Who is my daughter going to marry if 60% of college grads are women? The odds of her marrying someone of her own education level just went down. On average, women care a lot more about having an intellectually compatible mate than men do.

2) It hurts the brain power of our work force. On average, men are in the work for more years, being more likely to become the breadwinners for their families. As long as women are the ones having the babies, they will be more likely to choose to stay home to raise those children than men. Which means we need men with strong education, and can't just replace it with women. Not an equal exchange.

3) Allowing any percentage of population to get wrongly discouraged and stop short of their potential is a waste of human resource. Boys may be on a different developmental path than girls, but when all grown up, most of it evens out.

And so on.

This is a real issue in the US right now, and will have long range implications if not dealt with.

I don't think that one sex is smarter than the other. And, smarter how? Using IQ tests to measure intelligence?

Some have suggested that education should be tailored for each individual pupil. It is a nice idea, but resources are finite, it's just not feasible.
To me the solution seems obvious, segregation in the classroom. The most successful schools in my country are the single sex private schools. (Not just boys schools, all girls schools do much better too, it seems girls benefit just as much from being taught separately).
Boys would have a different curriculum, different exams (do-or-die, no coursework), lots of competition in the classroom and a whole load of sports.
The girls don't need much changing, the system is pretty much perfect as is. But should a big female-centric change need to be brought in, they can just do it, no need to worry about the boys.

It won't be perfect for every pupil, but it is _doable_ and it would help most of the boys get a better education and like I said before, it would be better for girls too.

All we'd need to do then is bring back exam standards to the 1950s and we'd have an education system to be proud of.

Inuyasha, just because we have opposite politics doesn't mean either one of us always has wrong-headed notions I actually think it is a shame that you have such a strong persona on the boards and have been placed by most debaters, as a result, in a specific box.

To the thread in general: the trouble with debating this on the Internet is that there is excellent research, study and review on this topic, and almost none of it is available for free on-line. Same thing that happens in my paid profession (CPA/tax). The Internet isn't the end all, and we just can't grab the good stuff here.