College Crunch

Over on Boston.com there is an article that discusses a shocking issue in the city of Boston and its education rates: high school graduates are gaining entry to college at an increasing rate, but it seems there is a widening disparity between genders.

The article highlights the increasing number of Boston high school students who are getting accepted into college. A study commissioned by The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University found that 78% of the city’s 3300 high school graduates in the year 2007 were successful in gaining entry into higher educational programs. It highlights that Boston high school implementations for preparing students have been working, as this increase has represented a total increase of nine points from a similar study commissioned back in 2000. The study did also find some problems. It found that there is now an increasing disparity of at least ten points between females and males who are enrolling into college.

Studies nation wide have also showed this trend and it highlights the difficulty that high school educators face in getting boys ready, prepared and accepted into college. The reasons for this remain a little unclear. Many people suggest that boys are more inclined to be a little less prepared than their female counterparts with respect to discipline and work rate. SAT scores can also be used to highlight the fact that boys don’t do as well as females in high school.

Boston public schools have attempted to implement programs specifically designed for boys in attempt to get larger numbers into college. These have included the “10 Boys Club” as well as single gender classes. I believe the “10 Boys Club” could be successful in preparing boys for graduation and college as extra tutoring will go along way in helping boys disinclined for study, become inclined for study success. However, I’m not too sure of the success of having single gender classrooms. In my experience, when you have a bunch of boys together minus girls, you’re more likely going to have a disruptive class. It doesn’t seem to me to be an environment in which boys could academically flourish. I could be wrong, and the jury is still out. Northeastern is continuing to study the effects of these implementations and we should know in the coming years how successful these programs are.

We should also attempt to understand why girls are more inclined to go onto college to study. What are they doing differently? Do they avoid the social pressures better? In my experience it has always been the case that female students have always been a little more focused than their male counterparts and that their abilities aren’t naturally any better. They are simply more inclined to be educationally aligned. Regardless, the future studies from Northeastern will show why. You can find the original article at Boston.com.