Society’s forgotten minority – – boys

With school starting again after the Winter vacation – I find myself back on one of my favorite subjects – the mistreatment of boys in our educational system.

Through a number of recent social changes, our boys are left behind by the current educational system.  Our schools are run by women for the benefit of girls.  Boys are forced to conform to a system that rewards traditional female behavior and punishes boys for traditional male behavior.

Boys get lower grades in school than do girl.   Boys drop out of high school in greater numbers than do girls.   And girls go on to higher education in greater numbers than do boys.  More than 65 percent of all college students are girls and in some career paths such as medicine and law, girls far out-number boys.

More than 20 percent of boys, with only a high school diploma, have no full time employment.

Our national media concentrates its attention on the number of girls now taking science and math, but the plight of our boys is diminished or down-played for the sake of some national movement.

Our schools need to become more boy friendly.   They need to give boys more space and time to be boys.   They need to understand that drugging boys to behave in class is detrimental to those boys in the long term. (Nearly 90 percent of children on behavior changing drugs are boys.)

Our educational system must do a better job of encouraging men to teach in the elementary schools.  Some 45 percent of all boys in school have no father in the home.  Male role models for boys is very important at the elementary level.

And, our national media can start presenting fathers in more positive roles on TV and movies – – instead of making dad the fool or the foil for aggressive domineering women.