Boys vs. Girls in Junior High

I'm proud of my wife for her efforts to better understand the gender disparity in performance that has developed in boys compared to girls in our local Illinois public schools. She worked with Peg Tyre, author of "The Trouble With Boys: A Surprising Report Card" and a team of other concerned parents to actually measure what many has suspected: boys are not faring as well here as girls in school:

After a four-month review of items such as grades, test scores, and teacher attitudes, they produced a more than 100-page report showing that while there was no difference in intelligence between Wilmette's boys and girls, the boys trailed girls by almost every academic measure. Specifically:

• In grades 5 through 8, girls had higher grades across all four core subjects: reading, writing, science, and math.



• Boys were more likely to get grades of C or lower, and girls were 30 to 35 percent more likely to receive an A.



• For the previous four years at every level of junior high school math, girls outperformed boys.

They were recently featured in this month's Chicago Magazine (though her name was misspelled).

It is interesting to ponder if this might affect our medical school applicant pool in the future.

-Wes