Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Gender and the Achievement Gap

Adam Lee
Gender and the Achievement Gap
4-13-10

For many years, educators in the United States and around the world have been seeing differences in test scores between boys and girls. These are boys and girls that are in the same classes, with the same teachers, and are following the same curriculum. The differences are mainly in English, Math, and Science. The topic is an important one to discuss because the differences are definitely substantial by the time that these students get to high school. Some of the possible causes of this problem may be the gender of the teachers in a given field, or hormonal differences.

As boys and girls begin their schooling, it seems as if their test scores stay pretty similar or equal. However, as the students get older, the gap becomes more and more evident. The girls pull away from the boys in the reading category. As the boys enter high school they tend to pull away in the subjects of science and mathematics. As you can imagine, this will have a damaging effect on the amount of people from each gender in those specific fields.

There is a huge push today for people to go to school for STEM jobs. These highly skilled fields based in Math and Science are dominated by men. It is extremely obvious when you look at how well the boys score on standardized tests in these areas compared to the girls. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s website, this gap has been closed greatly in America. Many more girls are taking higher level math and science courses and scoring higher as well. This website also states that girls are much more interested in higher education and have lower failure rates than the boys do.

In, “Teachers and the Gender Gaps in Student Achievement,” author Thomas Dee states that a big problem with the gap between genders has to do with the gender of the teacher. In his study he found that assignments to a teacher of the opposite sex lowered student achievement considerably. His study concluded that if more 13 year old boys had male English teachers, the gap between girls and boys would not be as great. In the year 2000, 91 percent of the sixth grade reading teachers in America were females. 83 percent of eighth grade reading teachers were female. The boys focus more on male teachers and vice versa.

Girls also complete high school at a higher rate than their male counterparts. In 2003, the graduation rate for girls was 72 percent while the rate for the boys was only 65 percent. The disparity becomes even greater when talking about African American girls and the African American males. In 2003, 59 percent of the African American girls graduated while only 48 percent of the African American males received a diploma. Teachers all across the nation need to start using strategies to deal with the differences between boys and girls of every ethnic background. Far too many students are being left behind. However, it should be noted that in this same year, New Jersey had the highest graduation rate in the Country.

During the course of my research, I found some really useful strategies on how to reach both boys and girls in the classroom. As a country, the United States still has a lot of work to do when trying to level the playing field for boys in the areas of reading and writing. The following is a list of reminders for administrators that I found on the website: www.educationalliance.org:

-Remain cognizant of school staffing
patterns
-Investigate applicability of singlesex
schools/classrooms
-Ensure/create a climate of
“respect” for boys
-Become informed about boys and
literacy issues
-Provide relevant staff development
for teachers
-Develop programs for connecting
boys with caring adult males
-Support school involvement of
adult male teams of community
volunteers
-Increase efforts to recruit/retain
males into teaching
-Develop an information base about
gender-based achievement trends at
the school/district levels
-Evaluate school/district policies and
practices for prejudicial beliefs and
attitudes

This is a global problem. The United States is not alone when dealing with the problem of the achievement gap between boys and girls. The current issue in America is that more and more girls are attending college. Schools in the U.S. need to close this achievement gap in math and science so that the girls are prepared to enter STEM fields that are so important to economic growth. Much like during the Cold War, we are living in a super competitive time. Our friends and foes alike are constantly changing their education systems to fit the times and it is time we did the same. This gender gap must be closed if we are to keep up in an ever changing global marketplace.
Sources:
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_48.htm
http://www.educationalliance.org/Downloads/Research/GenderDifferences.pdf
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/05/09/keeping_the_boys_away_from_the_girls/
http://www.nber.org/digest/may06/w11660.html
http://www2.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2004/11/11192004b.html

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