Opinion - Our schools have a ‘boy problem' and we need to talk about it

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These days it's impossible to avoid the avalanche of evidence about young men falling behind in America. Within the last month, the New York Times laid out the dismal data, the Wall Street Journal noted the rising misogyny among boys and Bloomberg documented their rising anger.
One thing you won't read about the boys dilemma, this month or any other month: serious solutions to the problem.
After a couple of decades as an education reporter, my first book was 'Why Boys Fail.' That was in 2011, one of several books written at the time about boys falling behind. Back then, it appeared we were on the cusp of finally doing something about it.
But apparently not. Fourteen years later, all we have are more studies and op-eds. No solutions. Why? The boys dilemma has three components, and the reasons for inaction are different for each component.
My focus for 'Why Boys Fail' was schooling. I traced the effects of well-intended education reforms that date back to the 1989 education summit in Charlottesville, Va., where President George H.W. Bush and 49 governors laid out a national plan for ramping up education achievement.
The most notable goal was boosting early literacy skills to get all students on track for a shot at higher education. It was a noble goal, but President Bush and the governors overlooked a small but important detail: Girls are ready for early literacy challenges, but boys are not.
Doubtful? Ask mothers of both boys and girls about who was the early reader.
As schools pushed reading skills down by about two grades, boys faltered. They looked at the happy girls, who thrived on early reading, and concluded that school was for girls. Cue a massive school tap-out among boys, who found solace in video games.
Why has nothing been done about this? Simply put, schools have no interest. Principals are overwhelmed by multiple challenges, boys being the least of them. Teachers, mostly women, have limited interest in the issue. They often see boys as discipline problems and prefer to focus on easier-to-teach girls.
Groups such as the American Association of University Women (think of them as the 'thought leaders' behind the female-dominated teachers unions) see the boy problems as politically inconvenient. (It has to be a little awkward promoting women in higher education when, in fact, they are already dominating it to an almost embarrassing degree.)
Second comes the problem of fatherless families, which by far hits Black males hardest. More than 70 percent of Black children grow up in families without a father. Strong mothers inspire the girls to pursue school success, but the boys appear to need more — far more.
Why has nothing been done about this? That dilemma touches on issues that have long resisted solutions: race and economic inequity.
Third, there's the self-image issue. Boys get thrown horribly off-track by confusing social cues. Are we supposed to be muscle-bound Jason Stathams, mowing down bad guys with punches and kicks, or sensitive Alan Aldas, whispering soothing life lessons to the ladies in his life?
Why has nothing been done about this? Actually, there's been regression here.
Do you really expect the current White House occupant, who brags about never having changed a diaper, praises the uneducated, bashes top universities and revels in UFC fights, to advise boys to tone down their masculinity?
So, nothing gets done, and the spinoff problems fester. The biggest of those, the lack of 'marriageable mates' for women, is the little-mentioned driver behind the falling birth rate. Why would a woman take on a husband who is less likely to have a college degree than she is, and who has comparatively less to contribute to a family?
Being realistic, the last two drivers of the boy problems may very well be intractable. That leaves schooling, which I would argue is the biggest factor and one that can actually be addressed.
How? It all starts with convincing (in some cases, forcing) superintendents and principals to redirect schooling in boy-friendly directions.
There's proof that it can be done. Roughly 15 years ago, when the alarm sounded that girls were falling behind in math and science schools engineered a turnaround for girls. Today, there's test evidence of that math-science gender turnaround everywhere.
There are plenty of alarms sounding today about boys. So the question becomes: Why not do for boys what you already did for girls?
Richard Whitmire is the author of six books on education issues.
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