I just found this article. This kinda stuff really bugs me. The education system in America is broken from the bottom up. People realize there is a problem but in identifying it they ignore the obvious and over-rationalize every aspect, ultimately corrupting the system further. I’m not so much concerned about the whole ritalin issue, that’s only one part of the larger issue: incompetence. I went to high school in Georgia and wound up dropping out because the place was so damn stupid.. got my GED and went on to college early. No problems whatsoever. Education is such a simple, yet necessary, thing.. for some reason people always screw it up.
Girls get extra school help while boys get Ritalin](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=679&e=3&u=/usatoday/11731917)
At last June’s graduation at Franklin High School just outside of Milwaukee, three of the four students who tied for valedictorian were girls. Among the National Honor Society members, 76% were girls. And girls comprised 85% of the students on Franklin’s 4.0 honor roll.
The superintendent of schools for this upper- middle-class suburb, Gerald Freitag, investigated those numbers after the parents of a boy filed a complaint. He found that the skewed performances by gender at Franklin pretty much mirror the imbalances across the state and the nation.
This week, teachers at the middle school feeding into Franklin received training on how to reach out to boys. And high school teachers will continue the gender-sensitivity classes they began last school year. What the hell is that?! Don’t need special training! Need competent teachers.] …
Most startling is that little is being done to correct the imbalances. All of the major players schools, education colleges and researchers largely ignore the gender gap. Instead of pursuing sound solutions, many educators merely advocate prescribing more attention- focusing Ritalin for the boys, who receive the drug at four to eight times the rate of girls, according to different estimates. "Too often the first reaction to an attention problem is ‘Let’s medicate,’ " says Rockville, Md., child psychologist Neil Hoffman. “Some schools are quick to recommend solutions before they’ve fully evaluated the problem.” ..and too often when trying to identify cause & effect you people blame Ritalin, mumble something and shrug your shoulders.]
Playing to girls’ strengths
One reason boys are losing academic ground to girls appears linked to a shift by schools to more word-based learning for which girls’ brains are believed to have an advantage. Over the years, even math problems have become more word oriented, according to education researchers. But because schools are doing little to help boys adjust, males risk becoming second-class academic citizens. Already the academic success girls enjoy in high school translates into more college acceptances 56% of the students on campuses are female.
The full impact from this shift is something society has yet to discover. But a drop in earnings for males is one likely result. Workers with only a high school diploma earn $20,000 a year less than those with a bachelor’s degree. it’s pandelerium!! ..:rolleyes:]
One fact explains why educators are ignoring boys’ needs: You can’t address a problem that you don’t admit exists. The U.S. Department of Education concedes that no serious research is available comparing different instructional methods that might help boys. In fact, many education researchers are hostile toward research aimed at exploring gender differences in learning. Is it really this hard?! Get real.]
Last April, when Kenneth Dragseth, superintendent of schools in Edina, Minn., presented a paper describing his district’s gender gap at the American Educational Research Association’s annual meeting in Chicago, he says the reception ranged from chilly to hostile. Female education researchers in the audience questioned whether helping boys would mean hurting girls. Here we identify the root of the problem: The people in charge are dorks with their heads up their collective ass. A theorist can’t fix a car.. a mechanic can.] …
In spite of the lack of research, anecdotal evidence “anecdotal”? No, practical. They’re still treating this like a National Geographic safari..] shows that far more effective strategies are available for teaching boys than plying them with Ritalin. Patricia Henley runs a boy-friendly charter school in Kansas that hires many male teachers. It also recognizes boys’ natural tendency to favor active learning by conducting more class work on the chalkboard and allowing more student movement within the classroom. And the school trains teachers to deal with boys’ particular styles. For instance, because boys volunteer answers more slowly than girls do, teachers are told to count to 10 before calling on a student. This is crap.. this is what happens when you go out of your way to hire idiots with no common sense.] …
Today’s education system fails many boys. They deserve the same kind of attention to address why they are losing ground. No, they need to be considered with the whole and that whole needs to be approached rationally.. As it is they are over-rationalizing.]