Issues in Education: Gender

This gender gap defies platitudes
Editorial, Rocky Mountain News, May 28, 2006

Nearly everyone involved with education is troubled by the large and persistent gaps in academic performance among racial and ethnic groups. Now the similarly large gap between boys and girls is beginning to get the serious attention it deserves as well.

But it's when you look at both factors simultaneously that the real puzzlement begins. A News report last week of the graduating class of 2005 in Denver Public Schools found that girls in any ethnic group are more likely to graduate from high school than boys in the same group. And the gaps are so large that black, white and Asian girls all graduate at higher rates than white boys.

We are probably on safe grounds ruling out any intention on the district's part to discriminate against white boys, so what else is going on? And not only in Denver, but in other big-city districts that have similar patterns?