he also says there is a big gender gap among high income whites, favoring girls. But the gates study, done by the Manhattan Institute, finds
that while it is true that among whites, girls are more likely to graduate than boys, the gap is relatively small, only five percent. Among Asians, the gap is even smaller, some three percent.

Large scale federal studies are the best indicator of what’s happening across the board. You can pretty much find whatever you want looking at smaller studies.

The Gold standard study in this area is “The Truth About Boys and Girls” from the think tank “Education Sector.” The author of this report, Sara Mead, just posted this to the new republic blog:

“I just saw your post on the new AAUW study; since you had questions
about its objectivity (which is fair, given the documented problems with
their 1992 “how schools shortchange girls” report), I wanted to direct you
to a report I wrote for Education Sector, a nonpartisan education policy
think tank, two years ago. Using federal data, I found basically the same
things the AAUW report does: many key educational outcome indicators are
improving for both boys and girls; elementary school aged boys, in
particular, are doing as well as or better than ever academically; to the
extent that gender gaps favoring girls exist, they happen because girls have
made significant gains, not because boys’ achievement has declined; and
achievement gaps by race/ethnicity and income and much larger and more
significant than gender gaps.”

The truth is that there is no new and dramatic Boy crisis. There is, however, a Some Boys crisis. Inner city black and Hispanic boys and white rural boys are truly in crisis. Working class white boys also often have academic problems. Suburban white and Asian boys are doing quite well. The fact that girls fill some 55 percent of college seats is
hardly reason for panic.

There does not have to be a “Crisis” to make us pay attention to boys’ problems where they exist, and to try to fix them. A bigger crisis is that
American students, boys and girls, lag badly behind their peers in Europe and Asia in many areas.

Pitting boys against girls, as some have done (See Christina Hoff Sommers “The War Against Boys”) just harma all kids–Caryl Rivers, professor of Journalism, Boston University.

Here are numerous article refuting the “pay gap” lie.

Prof. June O’Neill, Ph.D., former director of Congressional Budget Office, refutes the significance of the “pay gap” in “The Gender Gap in Wages, circa 2000″ (5/03), American Economic Review, http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/04/magazines/fortune/muphy_payact.fortune/index.htm

http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/28/commentary/everyday/sahadi/index.htm

ABC News: “Is the Wage Gap Women’s Choice? Research Suggests Career Decisions, Not Sex Bias, Are at Root of Pay Disparity”
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/GiveMeABreak/story?id=797045&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

http://www.startribune.com/562/story/1156698.html

http://www.nysun.com/article/50601

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/nyregion/03women.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

ido

(And I am glad you owned up to a certain 1992 editorial that opened “Girls are clearly not the teachers’ pets in public schools” and ended “Just think what 51% of the population could achieve given an even start.” Written by another tool of the AAUW publicity machine, for sure.)

- Betsy Hammond, The Oregonian