Canadian Boys lag behind girls in literacy,reading and now science: PCAP Report

By Kat Hammar, Globe and Mail, November 28, 2011
Canada’s report card on schools will be handed out to the provinces Monday, revealing mixed marks for Quebec and growing struggles in science and reading for boys across the country.

Once every three years, the Pan-Canadian Assessment Program, or PCAP, measures the reading, math and science proficiency of Grade 8 students in every province and the Yukon. Though the latest results are strong overall, when pulled apart, they identify weak spots for Canadian schools.

The results, taken from a random sampling of 32,000 students in 2010, also show that boys, who have lagged behind their female classmates on literacy tests for decades, are now also behind in reading and, for the first time, science. Math scores between the sexes were tied.

“We’re used to seeing boys having a disadvantage in reading but not necessarily in the other domains,” said Andrew Parkin, Director General of the Council of Ministers of Education. “The report is good for sending up little flares for the provinces. I think that boys in science can be seen as one of those flares.”
The reason for the achievement gap between the sexes is the subject of debate, but academics and educators have blamed video games, attention deficit disorder and the feminization of the education sector.
School districts in Toronto and Edmonton are looking to single-sex education to help close the gap, aiming to tailor the classroom to boys by making it more active, choosing reading materials that align with boys’ interest, and including more male role models in the curriculum.
Boys behind girls in literacy, now reading and for the first time in science...and reasons cited include:

• video games
• attention deficit disorder
• feminization of the education sector

Single gender classes might help some. However, there is a growing argument to be made that the culture of North American education is counter-intuitive, in many ways, to the education of boys and young men. And, reports, like this one, merely underline the "turning-off" of boys, not merely the failing grades.
Let's add to the list above of possible contributing factors to this slide: the role played by money and the greed of many of the best and brightest male minds over the last generation at least. Remember, it was Lee Iacocca while president of Chrysler, in 1986, who could not recruit male graduates for the auto industry, and who received a letter from the presidents of Yale and Harvard. In effect these letters were "mea culpa" letters by those university presidents for "teaching the wrong values to their students" meaning that the pursuit of wealth for its own sake had replaced "making a contribution to society" while earning an income.
This problem of falling male grades did not start in the last year or two. It goes back a long way and unless and until the politically correct imposed silence on the issue of feminization of education is lifited, the education establishment will not aggressively approach the issue.
It is not a slam on women teachers, principals or even board members to say that men are different, wired differently, learn differently, have different ambitions, different cultural attitudes, different cultural language and differenty cultural archetypes through which they see the world. And to say all of that is not to excuse inappropriate or violent or crude or offensive behaviour, attitudes or socialization.
The ratio of male to female teachers has fallen disproportionately.
The culture of schools generatlly has tipped in favour of women both in leadership roles and in mentoring and in cultural acceptance of selective behaviours.
And "making nice" about these issues, will not permit nor initiate substantive change.
Parents of male students need to consider membership on school councils. Parents of male students need to ask for reports on the culture of the school, documenting the rates of detentions, suspensions, withdrawals and drop-outs between male and female students. They need to ask about hiring practices, and the need to hire more male teachers, more male principals, and more male superintendents.
They need to petition the Colleges of Education and their provincial members of the various parliaments to examine the issue of male student performance and its implications. The provinces and the federal government need to put some research money into graduate studies in education, around the world, to determine the best practices for male student success and by incorpotating those "best practices" set goals for reversing the trends documented in these latest set of testing instruments.