From “No, the Boys Are Not Doing Just Fine” in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Sentence and paragraph to ponder.

“The four-year graduation rate among women is 10 percentage points higher than for men.”

“Gender gaps in higher education do not appear out of nowhere. To a large extent they reflect the disparities in the K-12 education system. Girls outperform boys at every stage, and in almost every subject. According to my analysis, two-thirds of the students graduating high school with a GPA in the top 10 percent of the distribution are female. The ratio is reversed at the bottom.”

I have had a front row seat to this phenomenon for the last few decades. To add insult to injury:

“In recent years, for every BA awarded to a Black man, nearly two went to Black women.” 

My response to this, despite all the countervailing evidence, is to TRY to expect my male students to achieve equal to my female ones. Put differently, to not cut them any “gender slack”. But that resolve seems inadequate to the task given the historic and systemic underpinnings of the academic achievement gender divide.