Study Casts Doubt on Boys in Crisis

A new study, using data compiled from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, has found that reports of U.S. boys being in crisis are greatly overstated and that young males in school are in many ways doing better than ever. The study found that, over the past three decades, boys’ test scores are mostly up, more boys are going to college and more are getting bachelor’s degrees. The report says “The real story is not bad news about boys doing worse, it’s good news about girls doing better.”

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Muslim Girl Scouts

There are a growing number of Muslim Girl and Boy Scout troops across the nation. The Islamic Committee on Girl Scouting in Connecticut estimates almost 1,000 Muslim girls participate in scouting. The Boy Scouts have counted nearly 2,000 Muslim Boy Scouts in 104 units affiliated with mosques and Islamic schools.

Here is a short report from the Pluralism Project on the growing popularity of scouting among the country’s Muslim population: Muslim Boy Scout and Girl Scout Troops Grow in Popularity Nationwide.

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Leaving Boys Behind: Public High School Graduation Rates

The Center for Civic Innovation at he Manhattan Institute has just released this report which finds finds a wide disparity in the public high school graduation rates of white and minority students, particularly for boys who are minorities.

• the overall national public high school graduation rate for the class of 2003 was 70 percent.
• 72% of female students graduated.
  65% of male students graduated.
• 59% of African-American females graduated.
  48% of African-American males graduated.
• 58% of Hispanic females graduated.
  49% of Hispanic males graduated.
• Each of the nation’s ten largest public high school districts, which enroll more than 8% of the nation’s public school student population, failed to graduate more than 60% of its students.

26 page pdf file.

++++++++++The Trouble With Boys

The most recent issue of Newsweek’s lead story is about boys. In addition to a lengthy article, you will also find video and audio clips. From the story:

"By almost every benchmark, boys across the nation and in every demographic group are falling behind. In elementary school, boys are two times more likely than girls to be diagnosed with learning disabilities and twice as likely to be placed in special-education classes. High-school boys are losing ground to girls on standardized writing tests. The number of boys who said they didn’t like school rose 71 percent between 1980 and 2001, according to a University of Michigan study. Nowhere is the shift more evident than on college campuses. Thirty years ago men represented 58 percent of the undergraduate student body. Now they’re a minority at 44 percent. This widening achievement gap, says Margaret Spellings, U.S. secretary of Education, 'has profound implications for the economy, society, families and democracy.' "

++++++++++About Boys

Raising Cain: Boys in Focus

Tomorrow night, Thursday, January 12, 2006, will be the premiere of a PBS documentary that explores the emotional development of boys in America today. In this documentary and on the companion web site, Michael Thompson, a child psychologist and author of Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, consults with psychologists, social activist,s researchers and educators to probe the issues facing boys today.  Click on the link above for more information as well as information about other resources that will be available soon.

The Boys of Baraka

Twenty at risk 12-year-old boys from inner-city Baltimore left home in September, 2002 to attend 7th and 8th grade in Baraka, an experimental boarding school located in Kenya. This film follows four boys, the kind of kids society has given up on, and captures their journey and how they fare when the return to the difficult realities of their city.

++++++++++Raising Boys Better

While lots of young men in our society are excelling, lots of them are not. Women now outnumber men as college graduates, and an even larger gap exists between the sexes at the graduate school level. What happened to the boys? 

The Kansas City Star ran a four-part series on boys in mid-December. The series is still available to read online. This is a very comprehensive look at boys at a very young age, at boys and girls and how they differ, and how to raise boys better.

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The Victimization of Boys by Women

When seduced by adult women boys often don’t see themselves as victims and adult men look at incidents involving boys and women and remember schoolboy crushes. The reality is far different. A New York psychologist says that men who were abused as boys contact him after suffering problems including drug, sex or gambling addiction or realizing they are unable to sustain a relationship with women. 

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Three Young Black Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream

We live in a world that all too rarely gets to hear good news. Here’s an article about three young black men who made a pact together to go to college, keep each other out of trouble, and become doctors. And they did. One is now an ER doc, the second an internist, and the third is a dentist. They’ve written a book about their lives and how they did it, The Pact: Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream, and they’ve formed The Three Doctors Foundation to encourage kids to pursue their dreams and to promote education and health awareness. 

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Taming Oedipus: Boys and Violence: Why? - Written by a psychiatrist, Dr. Herbert Wagemaker, and published in 1999, this paperback book (150pp) begins with a description of adolescence and the difficulties of growing up in today’s world. In provides concrete practical advice to parents and adults working with kids. Addresses violence in a number of different settings in our culture.

These tidbits from the back cover of the book:

	The best thing that a father can do for his son is to love his son’s mother.
	More than 3,000 teens a year are murdered. This adds up to 240 Columbines a year.
	More than anything else, time matters – time spent with sons.
	Boys who have good relationships with their dads at an early age don’t have to show aggression as adolescents to get their dad’s attention.
	160,000 kids miss school every day because of bullying.
	Kids know who the dangerous kids are.
	Violence is the last link in the chain that starts with disconnection.
	We lose 5,000 kids a year due to suicide. [Note: Girls try more often. Boys succeed more often. jb]

 Available from Ponte Vedra Publishing at $14. I got nowhere when I clicked on the "order" page throughout the site. So, for ordering information, write to Ponte Vedra Publishers, PO Box 773, Ponte Bedra Beach, FL 32004-0773 or contact Wagemaker via email.  You can check with your local bookseller too.