Not a Zero Sum Game

Shapeling and Shaker Sweet Machine forwarded me this article from The Times—helpfully filed in the "Education" section, despite having "girls" in the title—about a new report from the American Association of University Women which has found that girls' gains in the classroom have not come at boys' expense, contrary to the claims of the folks diligently promoting the "Boy Crisis" for the past few years.

Echoing research released two years ago by the American Council on Education and other groups, the report says that while girls have for years graduated from high school and college at a higher rate than boys, the largest disparities in educational achievement are not between boys and girls, but between those of different races, ethnicities and income levels.

…Linda Hallman, who became executive director of the university women’s group in January, when the work was well under way, said the report was an effort to refocus attention on what she said were the real problems of education for poor and minority children, and away from a distracting debate about a so-called boys' crisis. Ms. Hallman said the group's members were concerned about arguments by conservative commentators that boys had become disadvantaged and were being discriminated against in schools intended to favor girls.

"Many people remain uncomfortable with the educational and professional advances of girls and women, especially when they threaten to outdistance their male peers," the report says , citing Christina Hoff Sommers's 2000 book, "The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men."

Wait a minute—educational gaps being more directly attributable to race and class than sex? People promoting an imaginary sex-based crisis having an anti-feminist agenda and using dubious reasoning to come to their conclusions? Say it ain't so!

It seems to me, however, that I've heard those points made somewhere before. Where oh where could that have been, I wonder…?