If The Teacher's A Man, The Boys Do Better

by Ben Feller - August 28th, 2006 - Associated Press (News & Observer)

Here's an idea that might stir up debate in the teacher's lounge: Boys learn better from men and girls learn better from women. That's the upshot of a provocative study by Thomas Dee, an associate professor of economics at Swarthmore College and visiting scholar at Stanford University.

Some leading education advocates dispute his conclusions and the way in which he reached them. But Dee says his research shows that gender matters when it comes to learning. Specifically, he says, having a teacher of the opposite sex hurts a student's academic progress.

"We should be thinking more carefully about why," he said.

Dee warns against drawing fast conclusions based on his work. He is not endorsing single-sex education, or any other policy.

Rather, he hopes his work will spur more research into gender's effect and what to do about it.

His study comes as the proportion of male teachers is at its lowest level in 40 years. Roughly 80 percent of teachers in U.S. public schools are women.

There are people who are disturbed by the fact that boys are falling behind girls in education. Some of the people disturbed are mothers of smart boys who are dropping out of school. It is true that the historical male dominance of scholastic accomplishment was maintained by intentional suppression of women. It was said that the women's place was in the home and they did not need college for that. Having conceded that, it is still pretty clear that the active suppression of boys and their opportunities by the feminists in our nation is having an impact on the growing failure of boys in school.

The question we have to ask is the same question that was asked when women were being denied opportunity. Can our nation afford to lose the talents of some of our best and brightest? There is not currently a level playing field. A college professor friend of mine noted that 20 years ago the top 20 financial students at the university where he teaches were 18 men and 2 women. Last year it was 14 women and 6 men. Neither of these situations is tolerable. We have not fixed the problem. We have simply reversed the injustice.

You can download the entire study by Thomas Dee from the Education Next web site here: http://www.educationnext.org/