The Myth About Boys

Time cover story on boys about how despite all the recent fuss, boys are actually doing fairly well by many criteria. According to the author, reading is one area that is a real problem:

What about school? Boys in the fourth, eighth and 12th grades all score better--though not dramatically better--on math tests than did the comparable boys of 1990. Reading, however, is a problem. The standardized NAEP test, known as the nation's report card, indicates that by the senior year of high school, boys have fallen nearly 20 points behind their female peers. That's bad, not because girls are ahead but because too many boys are leaving school functionally illiterate. Pollack told me of one study that found even the sons of college-educated parents had a 1 in 4 chance of leaving school without becoming proficient readers. In an economy increasingly geared toward processing information, an inability to read becomes an inability to earn. "You have to be literate in today's world," says Sommers. "We're not going to get away with not teaching boys to read.