It is boys who end up far more often than girls in special education classes for students with serious learning problems. It is males who are falling behind in college attendance. The AAUW has done women and the nation a service in drawing attention to the gender gap in science and mathematics and in encouraging an array of policies and programs designed to boost female performance in these fields. But the schools need to be equally concerned about the problems of boys. Boys mature more slowly than girls, for example, in areas like verbal skills.
Boys are also more active than girls and more difficult for teachers to handle.
Major assertions in the AAUW report are based on research by David and Myra Sadker that has mysteriously disappeared. Evidence which contradicts their thesis that the schools shortchange girls is buried in supplemental tables obtainable only at great difficulty and expense. Such shady practices undermine public confidence in social science research. This damage done by the AAUW report will have repercussions that last far beyond the immediate issue of whether either girls or boys are shortchanged in the schools.