Best education not always best for boys

Even charter schools fail to close the gender gap

What is it about boys that makes them so allergic to schooling, even the best schooling? Recently, I wrapped up a reporting project on graduates of the top charter school networks. Generally, the news was very promising: Their alumni, low-income and minority students, earn college degrees at three to five times the rate of their peers in traditional schools.

Early in the reporting, I never asked the charter networks about their gender gaps. When I finally asked, the answers were anything but promising. Charter schools might have made a breakthrough in getting students into and through college, but the success stories are far more about girls.

Charters take in roughly as many boys as girls, but on high school graduation day there are far more girls on that podium. Six years beyond high school graduation, the gender balances worsen: Far more female graduates earn bachelor’s degrees than male. A few examples:

At Alliance College-Ready Public Schools in Los Angeles, the high school graduating classes (from 2008-10) were 59% female. Six years later, 29% of them had earned bachelor’s degrees, compared with 18% of the male grads.

At YES Prep Public Schools in Houston, 59% of high school graduates

(2001-12) were female. Six years later,

68% of those women had earned bachelor’s degrees vs. 32% of the men.

At Noble Network of Charter Schools in Chicago, 57% of graduates

(2003-11) were female. Forty percent of those females earned a bachelor’s degree, compared with 26% of the males.

Traditional school districts see roughly the same male dropout rates (at high school graduation; almost no traditional districts have college success data). Nationally, 85% of girls graduate from high school, compared with 78% of males, according to 2012 data. It’s not that charters are failing boys; it’s that they aren’t doing any better with boys than traditional school districts. Why?

Most charter network leaders are reluctant to speculate. One exception is Michael Milkie, the founder of the Noble network in Chicago: “In American society, and especially in Chicago, the males have not been well served by the current social structure, which often involves the absence of fathers. … Also, there’s social pressure on boys, that isn’t there for girls, to be cool.”

Interestingly, he does not blame sports, an explanation I’ve heard from other charter leaders, who say girls will come to charters while their brothers don’t want to give up playing in the more competitive leagues offered only by traditional high schools. Noble offers plenty of sports, Milkie says.

Nor does he blame expulsions, a charge from charter critics who maintain that charters get rid of their problem students. Noble’s expulsion rate is tiny, Milkie says.

Rather, boys at charters choose to drop out at higher rates than girls, the same reason you see steep gender gaps at high school graduations in the big urban districts. The two reasons: discipline and academic troubles. My assumption that charter networks would do better by boys was, sadly, naive.

Having researched a book on boys and schooling, Why Boys Fail, I have one possible explanation. Every time I came across a district trying out an innovation to boost boys’ outcomes, the girls embraced it more than the boys. Just as girls embrace the academically challenging charters more than boys. All that probably partly explains why 58% of the students on college campuses are women.

Like it or not, college has become the new high school. Want to get a job at a car rental company, be a claims adjuster, or work as a photographer? Better get a college degree, because while a degree wasn’t once necessary, it is now.

Degree inflation might sound like a bad idea, but it’s the only way employers can be assured they’re getting someone with the social skills needed to get along with the public. And that’s a problem for boys, who aren’t earning college degrees at a competitive rate.

All this raises a discouraging question: If high-performing charter schools can’t make a dent in this gender gap, what can?